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  1. #1
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    Question Adjustable Mouth Planes

    Howdy,

    I've done a fair amount of searching around and I can't find the answer to my question so I thought someone here might be able to shed some light.

    I own a few planes, mostly Veritas and vintage Stanley, and I'm confused by the design of standard-angle bench planes with regard to closing the mouth. Why is the frog cast as a separate piece to the body? Wouldn't it be more economical to cast them both as a single piece as seen with low-angle bench planes? Mouth closure could be accomplished with the same "sliding toe plate" mechanism as the low-angle versions.

    Veritas have made frog adjustment simpler by obfuscating the need to remove the blade to make adjustments to the mouth but this is a significant annoyance with the Bailey pattern.

    I would think this would make a plane cheaper, easier to maintain, and easier to operate. It would also result in rock-solid blade mounting and a reduction in chatter.

    Clearly I'm wrong about all of this because nobody is doing it but I would like to know why.

    Thanks for any help!

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  3. #2
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    Stanley put out a "Sweethart" No.4 plane (made in Mexico, with an English cutting iron) with a one piece body and frog about 10 years ago. I don't recall if it had a "sliding toe plate".

    I also don't know if it is still in production.

    I would think that solid-body-with-adjustable-frog vrs solid-frog-with-adjustable-toe would be similar economically.

    Cheers, Vann.
    Gatherer of rusty planes tools...
    Proud member of the Wadkin Blockhead Club .

  4. #3
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    The movable frog was cheaper and easier to manufacture in the late 1800’s; plus the frog could be easily replaced if damaged by dropping.

    They “improved” the design on the Bedrock series which allows the frog to be moved without having to remove the blade first, this design was copied by Lie Neilson and the Luban/WoodRiver/Quenshang mob.
    Nothing succeeds like a budgie without a beak.

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    Ah yes, it's forgotten about those. They were somewhat similar to a plane released by Kunz, if I remember correctly. The thing that stopped my from buying one (aside from Stanley's current reputation) is the Norris adjuster. Otherwise, it's getting pretty close to the perfect arrangement.

  6. #5
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    Thanks for the reply. The bedrock design is definitely an improvement on the Bailey but it still seems more complex and expensive than using the sliding toe from the BU plane design. It also doesn't completely resolve the issue of having two surfaces that must be cleaned, mated and perfectly aligned by the user in order to operate well.

    Bedrock also introduces a new issue of the blade depth changing when the frog is adjusted. Obviously not a huge problem but worth remembering so you don't accidentally destroy your workpiece.

    If it's all just so you can replace the frog if the plane is dropped or damaged, I suppose I can understand that. In modern times, planes are treated with much more care than they used to be and only the cheapest tools will be found rattling around the bottom of a toolbox. I would imagine they are damaged much less often than they used to be and it wouldn't form part of my buying decision. Using a low profile frog like the current Stanley Sweetheart no 4 minimises this risk too - if only it didn't have that Norris adjuster.

  7. #6
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    A couple of comments from the corner of the room:
    1. I suspect the way the original Bailey design was made had much to do with 1850's manufacturing technology & it was simply easier & more practical to make the planes that way. Casting a body with a large blob of metal in the centre from which to machine a frog would have presented some problems to the foundry. You could not cast the frog with the indented space behind it where the adjuster fits without some very fancy mould work, so it would have to be dug out afterwards which would involve some awkward machining & a lot of metal to remove. You do need that space otherwise you can't fit the adjuster stud & thumbwheel & have enough room for your hand on anything smaller than a 5 1/2 size.

    2. Current received wisdom is that super-tight mouths on double-iron planes are not all that important. You can do far more to control tear-out by proper use of the cap-iron than you can by closing mouths. As a mildly-experienced plane maker I tend to agree with that, I have played about with mouth gaps quite a bit (both deliberately & inadvertently), and my conclusion is that a mouth fine enough to have a significant impact on tear-out can be more hindrance than help. With many of our short-fibred, hard & crumbly hardwoods, a fine mouthed plane becomes a most annoying "choker". You will lead a much happier life having a mouth gap no less than 0.5-0.8mm and a close-set. well-fitted cap-iron, particularly if you spend your time planing woods like the she-oaks & hard acacias & the majority of eucalypts.

    3. Adjustable toes are generally reserved for low-angle, bevel-up designs. Again, I suspect this has much to do with practicality. It is difficult to machine the blade bed accurately and maintain a small mouth gap - my old 110 is testament to that, it has a solid sole & a mouth that would do a politician proud. When building a LA, BU by hand, the most practical way to get a fine mouth is to split the sole, form the blade bed, then re-join the toe & heel sections. With modern milling equipment it is probably far easier & quicker to fit an adjustable toe, giving plenty of room to mill the bed properly.

    4. Some pundits say the 'bedrock' design was more about Stanley selling more planes than any startling improvements in plane function. I tend to agree, I have used both styles aplenty and when either is well-fettled and working as intended, there is no difference in performance that I can detect & I seriously doubt anyone else could. The much-vaunted ability to alter the mouth opening without removing the blade is a very minor virtue, imo. Altering the mouth of a bench plane is something you rarely ever need to do - you do it once when setting up your newly-acquired plane (if you deem it necessary) and that's it. The only reason that would induce me to alter the mouth opening ever again would be if I needed to fit a new blade that was thicker or thinner than the one I'd been using.

    I think the reason the Bailey design has persisted almost unchanged for about 150 years is that it's relatively easy to manufacture economically and all things being equal, it does a very good job. I have a couple of infills that (for me) handle certain situations better than any Bailey or Bedrock I've used, but for sheer convenience & all-round versatility, my couple of Baileys (which are bog-standard apart from 'modern' replacement blades), are very hard to beat....

    My 2c
    Cheers,
    IW

  8. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by CustardArms View Post
    Ah yes, it's forgotten about those. They were somewhat similar to a plane released by Kunz, if I remember correctly. The thing that stopped my from buying one (aside from Stanley's current reputation) is the Norris adjuster. Otherwise, it's getting pretty close to the perfect arrangement.
    I don't understand the Norris hate. I only have one on my LABU so not a lot of experience. I like it and wouldn't mind having it on all my planes. What am I missing?
    Dick Hutchings

  9. #8
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    There were (are) bench plane designs with the iron bed integral to the plane body, check out the Union X series.

    Union X Plane Study — Union Manufacturing Company

    The Union company has been resurrected and they're producing new planes, I don't know if they've released them yet. My understanding is that some models of the Union planes have the adjustable mouth feature, but it wasn't their invention.

    In regards to the adjustable mouth feature in metal bench planes, the Metallic Plane Company invented that feature. Here are some of their patents and they describe the function and purpose of every feature.

    Patents for Metallic Plane Co.

    In particular, the patent 64790 describes the adjustable mouth and its purpose. It's meant to be used with single iron designs.

    I don't know if you have looked at them or not, but the patents for the Bailey design should explain the purpose of the frog design. You can find those patents in the site above.

    P.S. The MPCo invented the corrugated sole as well, by the way. Their version has more grooves and they're also shallower than what other companies did later. They're pleasant to look at, as opposed to the coarser look of the corrugated Stanleys, for example. I don't know if they function better, my MPCo. planes are not in working condition.

  10. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by banjopicks View Post
    I don't understand the Norris hate. I only have one on my LABU so not a lot of experience. I like it and wouldn't mind having it on all my planes. What am I missing?
    bp, the pros & cons of the Norris adjuster have been discussed numerous times in numerous forums. I say, if you are happy with the way the adjuster works for you, then don't worry about it, you aren't missing anything.

    However, if you are interested in joining the debate, this is what it's about: Tom Norris's adjuster is a very clever attempt at solving the problem of adding a depth/lateral adjuster to an infill plane, but it isn't perfect. One problem is the coarseness of the depth adjustment. Despite using very fine threads, they require very delicate manipulation to dial-in fine adjustments. The way the system uses two threaded sections which are additive, i.e. each turn moves the banjo by the sum of the two pitches, so to emulate a very fine pitch, you need two very, very fine threads. A few years after its original introduction, the thread was made even finer in order to improve sensitivity (it's about 60/30 tpi iirc). I have one of these later versions on my late-model A5 and it's still coarser & less easy to use for fine adjustment than the Bailey system.

    On many Norris planes, tightening the thumbscrew increases the cut slightly (it does on my A5), and given the difficulties described, many users use this feature for fine/coarse adjustment rather than fight with the thumbwheel. (I think I've figured out why this happens, but that's another story..)

    The Bailey adjuster uses a screw (the thumbwheel) to move the long arms of a lever (the yoke). The fulcrum point of the yoke is highly asymmetrical, which results in a very small amount of movement of the cam that pushes the blade per turn of the thumbwheel. Someone has done the maths and iirc, a turn of the Bailey thumbwheel advances the blade about 1/3rd the distance the Norris moves per turn. Veritas's early Norris-style adjuster is even worse because its threads (which also work additively), are much coarser than the Norris's. I have a couple of Veritas planes and I find the adjusters are beasts of things for fine adjustments.

    There is also a built-in "flaw" with the Norris adjuster due to the same lever being used for lateral adjustment. If you adjust depth of cut with the blade slewed even a little (which it usually is because the cutting edge is rarely exactly 90* to the blade axis), the adjuster tends to push the blade more skewed if increasing cut, and less skewed if backing-off. Changing from a coarse cut to a fine cut or vice-versa & maintaining even blade exposure can be an exercise in frustration.

    All this fiddling is exacerbated for the impatient by the need to back off the thumbscrew pressure on the lever cap before attempting to make any adjustments. Thumbscrews can apply far more pressure on the blade than is really necessary, and most of us tend to do just that. If you repeatedly try to move the blade under pressure, you will cause wear in the fine threads (& the finer the thread, the more easy it is to damage). The cammed lever cap of Mr. Bailey's design is brilliant - easily adjusted to apply sufficient pressure to hold the blade but still allow easy depth & lateral adjustment.

    Despite my experiences with Norris's adjuster & the Veritas versions, I have added an adjuster to a couple of my infills. I tried to be clever and modify them by making the two threads subtractive instead of additive, i.e., moving the thumbwheel moves the blade by the difference of the two pitches instead of the sum. This certainly slows down the rate of blade travel, but the cost is a much longer sections of thread on the shaft, which is awkward to accommodate in the space available, and the shaft has to be made longer to accomodate the extra travel required as the blade wears down. I sort-of solved the fine adjustment problem, but not the blade-slewing:
    First shavings.jpg

    Although I never would have believed it when I started using planes, the tippy-tap method of blade adjustment becomes very easy & intuitive. It's much quicker for me than wrestling with the idiosyncrasies of any Norris-style adjuster. One day when I was making a lever-cap for a new plane, it occurred to me that the two odd-shaped offcuts looked rather like hammer heads, so now my planes all have very effective, matching "adjusters":
    Plane & adjuster.jpg

    Not a bad solution, but I have to search for the darn things amongst the shavings in order to make adjustments.
    Nothing is perfect!

    Cheers,
    IW

  11. #10
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    Hi R. That link to the Union X planes was wonderful reading. I have not seen this before. Looks like New Britain had "too many cooks in the kitchen"

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    Darn it raffo, you just sent me off down a few more rabbit holes!

    Mountan Ash, the north-east of the USA was indeed a hive of feverish activity in the latter half of the 19thC - it seems like every second citizen was busy inventing better mousetraps, as well as entirely newfangled things like "telephones"! There were several (many?) attempts at making metal planes before Leonard Bailey came up with the one that swept all before it (patenred in 1867). Well almost all, it would seem like the Auburn Metallic Plane Co (the ones with the adjustable mouth raffo linked to), which appeared contemporaneously with Lennie's effort, was doing well for almost a decade. Unfortunately, the founder of that company did something silly (he died) & the company ceased to be - who knows?, had he prospered a while longer our Stanleys & Records today might have had adjustable mouths! Actually, I cannot figure out from the patent drawing how it adjusts. In the drawing, it looks like it is screwed to the toe by the front knob but I can't figure out what allows it to slide forward or back. I would have said it is a "removable" toe piece, but the acknowledged guru on these planes says it's adjustable, so it must be.

    WRT the Union X plane - it's yet another example of me shooting my mouth off before doing some proper research! In my defense, I was only thinking of the feasibility of casting a plane body with a Bailey type frog - the posts cast into the Union body are somewhat reminiscent of the (single) posts that support the blade on many block planes. It's interesting that Union chose to sit the adjuster wheel vertically - that's how it is shown on Bailey's original patent application, but as far as is known, the production model appeared with the adjuster arranged as we know it today, except it had a right-hand thread & worked "backward". The stud part has to be attached to something & since there is no solid frog in which to set a stud, I guess the sole was the logical choice. Likewise there is nothing in which to put a screw to hold a lever-cap a la Bailey, so the LC has to be hinged by a pin through the sides (ditto the depth adjuster lever). This arrangement pretty much dictates you use a screw to tighten it, it would take some pretty tight manufacturing tolerances to employ the cam lock of the Bailey. As mentioned above, the retaining screw screw for the Bailey LC doubles as the adjuster to set the LC pressure correctly.

    The person writing about the Union X is obviously an ardent fan of the Union design & I think he allows his partisan leanings to cloud judgement a bit here & there. I seriously doubt the solid posts control all those dreaded "harmonics" he's fussing about any better than an attached frog. A well-machined & properly fitted frog will be just as solid, have more mass, & therefore just as much dampening effect I would think, but I could be wrong on that. It's also a pretty minor deal that the lateral adjuster works more intuitively (moving the cutting edge to the left when you move the lever left); it takes the average person precisely 2 seconds to figure out how the blade moves the opposite way on a Stanley! Being able to adjust the nuts on the adjuster stud to minimise backlash is also a very minor selling point- most of the backlash on a Stanley comes from wear in the cap-iron slot & the cam & I would presume the cam/slot of the Union would be just as susceptible. Why people get their knickers knotted over adjuster backlash is beyond me in any case - like rain & wind, it's just part of life!

    I will happily accept that the Union X is potentially a great user, but I very much doubt it would be substantially better than a good Stanley of similar vintage, but like infills, each type needs someone to love & cherish them & preserve them for future generations to wonder over.....

    Cheers,
    IW

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    Hi IanW. I did giggle a little re. harmonics!

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    Quote Originally Posted by IanW View Post
    Darn it raffo, you just sent me off down a few more rabbit holes!

    Mountan Ash, the north-east of the USA was indeed a hive of feverish activity in the latter half of the 19thC - it seems like every second citizen was busy inventing better mousetraps, as well as entirely newfangled things like "telephones"! There were several (many?) attempts at making metal planes before Leonard Bailey came up with the one that swept all before it (patenred in 1867). Well almost all, it would seem like the Auburn Metallic Plane Co (the ones with the adjustable mouth raffo linked to), which appeared contemporaneously with Lennie's effort, was doing well for almost a decade. Unfortunately, the founder of that company did something silly (he died) & the company ceased to be - who knows?, had he prospered a while longer our Stanleys & Records today might have had adjustable mouths! Actually, I cannot figure out from the patent drawing how it adjusts. In the drawing, it looks like it is screwed to the toe by the front knob but I can't figure out what allows it to slide forward or back...
    Ha! an antique tools store owner in Ohio showed me some nice examples and at a later time I was able to get two examples of the three levered planes. It's a fairly complex plane, I'll make a separate post with pictures of the "frog" mechanism.

    The pictures below show the mouth adjustment mechanism.

    20220521_102256.jpg20220521_102322.jpg
    20220521_102357.jpg20220521_102426.jpg

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    Thanks raffo - those pictures are worth many words!

    What I couldn't see in the patent pics was that elongated hole in the sole to allow the toe insert to slide back & forth. It's quite obvious to me how it works now. And yes please, some more pics of the "frog" & adjuster would be much appreciated - I'm not interested in collecting one of these planes in the metal, but always keen on collecting information.....

    One thing I do like about this plane is the mushroom-shaped knob, I much prefer a wide, flat top on front knobs (or buns on infills) because I like to have the palm of my left hand flat on the front, particularly at the start of the stroke.

    Cheers,
    Ian
    IW

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    The Union X plane is really interesting. I'll have to contact them and find out when the new units will be ready to ship. Fingers crossed that the quality is befitting of the USD375 price tag. In their design, they have addressed problems I had always just learned to live with, like the overly sensitive and counterintuitive lateral adjustment. Judging by the difficulty they are having with their castings, I am assuming this has been one of the major hurdles they have had in the past with one piece frog/body planes. It feels like a bigger leap forward than the Bedrock was, in terms of features.

    I agree with IanW's statements regarding the Norris adjuster. In my opinion, they work well for LABU planes but it's really annoying in a SA bench plane. I would certainly rather have a Norris than not, which is the only reason I haven't bought the LN block plane.

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