Thread: How old is this Bedrock plane?

Originally Posted by derekcohen

Ian, look at the shape of the rings ...

One is flat on the top, and the other is round.

Sorry to labour this point Derek, but neither is flat. Both pictures show a clear ring around the boss, with a depression between the ring & the boss. I contend these are simply different castings, but both intended to serve the same purpose. The bottoms of all knobs I've seen off later planes are rounded so that they will fit slightly different ring conformations. I think these are both later, ringed bodies, whatever the caption claims.

Compare them with the picture I posted of my old pre-ring-era 5.5. The area around the boss is entirely flat. The 4 or 5 pre-ring planes I've seen have all been like this.

I think there may have been a mistake in the original article & a wrong picture got used. It would hardly be without precedent.

When I was a veterinary student, I was reading an old textbook on horse medicine and not that far into the book, there were a couple of drawings purporting to show two horses with different conditions. I stared at those pictures for fully 10 minutes trying to see the difference, but pixel by pixel (ok, this was well before digital pics, but you know what I mean), they looked identical! It bothered me no end at the time, but years later, I realized someone had probably slipped up and put in a wrong picture.

It may also go a little way to explain why I was never a star in horse medicine.....

Cheers,