Thread: German Planes - Show and Tell

Originally Posted by Cklett

Hi Guys,

I just noticed that when I copied my pre-written original post the links I had in there did not copy properly. It seems I cannot edit my original first post anymore. Not sure if it can still be fixed.

Fixed

Hi All,

Here Is a picture of my German Plane.
There Is a stamp mark in metal that says 1876.
The plane has a metal bridge which holds the
blade in with a wedge. The bridge says Orig Hieber
The plane blade has the date 1875 with the words

Garantie la Qual suss stahl extra.

Martin.IMG_20230129_163913.jpgIMG_20230129_163827_1.jpg

Originally Posted by old workshop

Hi All,

Here Is a picture of my German Plane.
There Is a stamp mark in metal that says 1876.
The plane has a metal bridge which holds the
blade in with a wedge. The bridge says Orig Hieber
The plane blade has the date 1875 with the words

Garantie la Qual suss stahl extra.

Martin.IMG_20230129_163913.jpgIMG_20230129_163827_1.jpg

Nice one. I think your plane is made by Heinrich Hieber, Laupheim.

Deutsche Werkzeughersteller und -handler: Heinrich Hieber, Laupheim

1876 is the year when the company was founded. They still do exist under a different name. Now they are a smash repair shop for cars though. I doubt that they even still use planes. Let alone making them [emoji57]

"Orig Hieberon" on the medal would actually be "Original Hieber"

The words on the blade would be "Qualitäts 1A Guss Stahl" = "Quality 1A Cast Steel"

"DRGM" stands for "Deutsches Reich Gebrauchsmuster" = "German Reich Utility Model". It is form of protection for the design. Not as strong as a patent though. It was introduced in 1891 and used up to 1945.

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I am sure I have a another one of these.
It is possible that the Germans bought them
over to Jersey in the 2nd world war when
they occupied the Channel Islands as they
did bring a lot of stuff. Up until when my
father passed away there was a German
cupboard in a shed but my brother smashed
it to bits before I could get to it.

Martin

25B4793C-7063-42EB-A2DF-0DF711E349CA.jpg

I love this topic, and I love using continental European planes. The picture above, includes, from left to right: An Ulmia scrub plane, Nooitgedagt schlichthobel (single iron from Netherlands), ECE doppelhobel, a Steiner putzhobel, an Ulmia reform putzhobel, a Nooitgedagt coffin smoother (compact putzhobel?), ECE einhandhobel (the little block plane), ECE single iron simshobel (rabbet plane), ECE dovetail plane and stair saw, and in the back an Ulmia raughbank (jointer).

These are all user planes I acquired through the years, purchased used and at good prices. The dovetail plane came in a Craigslist lot of other stuff, a bit of a luxury item as far as I’m concerned. I have only used it on one project which I was glad I had it. Otherwise the small Nooitgedagt and ECE block plane only get used occasionally. As for the rest, I use them all the time, especially to break down rough lumber.

I think the single iron roughing plane (schlicthobel) is an underappreciated plane here in the US. It is a hero at my workbench and was $30 shipped.

I am eyes open for a a good price on a Toothing plane to round out set. No hurries though.

This is a site I found useful for learning more about these planes Hobel Austria It is an Austrian site, not German, focused on Weiss and Sohn planes. The tab in center titled “Weiss & Sohn Catalog -No.” I found to be especially useful.

all the best

Originally Posted by Cklett

Does this give you an idea?

Think I might have it; a kerfing plane, or a stair/dovetail saw plane like Phair shows in his post

Originally Posted by Chief Tiff

Think I might have it; a kerfing plane, or a stair/dovetail saw plane like Phair shows in his post

Nope, Chief, I saw what was in that box this morning & I think it's more interesting than either of those.

But I can't spill the beans, you'll have to wait til Ck reveals all, which I'm sure he'll do soon - can't keep you in suspenders tooo long.....

How do I know if my jointer plane (pic) is a German Plane?
Label on plane front and iron and chip breaker are all different but not very readable.

Originally Posted by reuelt

How do I know if my jointer plane (pic) is a German Plane?
Label on plane front and iron and chip breaker are all different but not very readable.

From the shape it looks more English to me. The old German ones I have seen tended to have tote much further back. Nearly at the end.

Even if the labels are in bad shape, maybe try to take as good fotos as you can and post. Also see if there is a stamp at the front or back.

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Originally Posted by Cklett

From the shape it looks more English to me. The old German ones I have seen tended to have tote much further back. Nearly at the end.

Even if the labels are in bad shape, maybe try to take as good fotos as you can and post. Also see if there is a stamp at the front or back.

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Thanks
My plane was Made in Glasgow, Scotland.
Comment #10 show a similar try (jointer) plane in one of the pictures.
Pic of labels from blade and chip breaker. The front of the plane stamped similar label with the chip breaker.

Here we go. Tada!





It's an other Howal plane. This one is from 1974 and based on a Howal patent from 1966. I am already telling you this will not become a regular user for me. would like to mention that this one is for me an expression that there we brilliant engineers also in the former socialist country. There is a lot of proof in different technologies that they came up with a lot of brilliant stuff way before their western colleagues. Only their restrictive regime held them back, sadly.


However, on this plane I think they had good ideas, but it does fall a bit short.


I came a across it and got it for little money and thought it will at least be an interesting unique plane to play with and show. So here we go...


First an overview of all the parts it comes with.





They call it "Universalhobel", means universal plane. It is meant to cover all your bases you might need as a woodworker.


You can use it as a scrub plane, a jack plane, a smoother, a high angle smoother, a rebate plane and a moving filister plane.


I tried them all out. Well not all, because I couldn't be bothered to sharpen the scrub blade.





Also this plane was not used much, and the blades still had the original grinding marks.


Interesting is the structure of the blades. The upper part is pressed sheet metals and then the blade parts are welded on, and I believe a better blade steel welded or forged onto the blade. So, they are very thick. I guess they needed to safe costs.





I was afraid the quality will be same as for the first plane. But no, it sharpened well and kept it's sharpness at least as long as I played with it. So far so good. The cap iron needed to be mated again to the blade. That was never done. Still black paint all over the front edge. That took a little as the front edge was very rounded and so I had to grind it from both sides to get a good fit.


First test was just as usual benchplane. They do describe like three different modes for using it as jack or smoother in the instructions, but all they describe is different distances on how close the cap iron sits to the edge and how much you should close the mouth. So basically normal tuning of you plane to whatever you want to achieve in that moment.


The mouth is adjusted by loosening the front horn and then you can move the entire front part of the sole.





Oh yes and I had to flatten the sole on this one as well.


With a sharp blade it worked quite ok on pine and my mystery red hard wood.





Next stage I tried it as high angle smoother. There is a small plastic wedge which is then put into the back rest of the blade and hence increasing blade angle from 45 degrees to 49 degrees.





Ok I could get some shavings, but a lot of chatter. Maybe with a fresh sharpen and some more tuning of the cap iron I could have gotten a little better result. However, if you look closer the blade only rests on the white wedge at the top and a very thin area on the wooden bed at the bottom. The lever cap ends fairly high. I believe there is not enough pressure at the bottom to press the blade onto the bed. I do not believe it will really work well with the high angle. Nice idea though.


After that put it back to the 45 degrees and tested it as a rebate plane free hand.





That worked very well and I could just by using my fingers as fence cut a nice rebate.


For the moving filister plane function they provided a fence and depth stop with some screws. To attach it some threaded inserts are installed on the plane body. I cannot really make out the material of the fences and screws. They have some weird patina. Maybe aluminium or tinplate? don't know.


Anyway, cutting a rebate with this plane felt quite good. Teh best of it's functions so far. I could imagine that for some more difficult wood it might be handy to have a double iron instead of the single iron in most rebate planes.



But latest here I noticed one annoyance on the design. Because of the double iron with screw sticking out the back and the fence design, it means you have to take the fence completely off and loosening the horn to move the front sole forward so the blade can come out the bottom for sharpening. You always have to open the mouth to get the blade out in any configuration.....


And finally, I also installed the nicker it comes with. Naturally first had to sharpen that one. Definitely never been used. The nicker sat very tight in it's slot. Too tight. I had to widen the slot carefully. With the nicker installed the front sole can only sit in one position. To get the blade out you now have to remove the nicker, remove the fence and open the mouth.


Anyway worked well across grain as well.





If I ever want to use this plane I believe I would set it up as moving filister and only use it that way. That worked in my view the best of all the functions.


Although I am glad I bought it, because it is a bit unique and a piece of German plane design history (even if not a very successful one), it will most likely go back in it's box and only comes out for show. If I am honest it also is not really a space saver in one's tool box. All you need is a decent double iron plane and a rebate plane and you can cover 90% of it's claims and they do not take that more space. Plus you are not having so many small parts, which you would sooner or later loose. Speaking of loosing. One thing I like is that everything is metric. At least if you loose a screw it is easy to replace [emoji6]


Anway that's it from my side for now. Maybe I find some other interesting German plane in the future and can share again.


Thanks for reading [emoji1]


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CK

That is a wonderful find and thank you for sharing with such detailed descriptions. I suspect that with any combination device, whether it is a machine or a hand tool, it is necessarily a compromise and that is both the versatility and primary weakness. I think it is an insight into the East German culture of the time and the need for austerity. They, and other communist block countries had great ideas, but were severely compromised by the governing regimes.

As you have intimated, you would only go to the trouble of swapping the blades around if you absolutely had to. Luckily, we capitalist pigs have the luxury of more than one plane (maybe a lot more ) and truthfully so do they today. Back in 1979 I took a trip into East Berlin. The transition from the raunchy, glitz of the West along Unter den Linden was as if the East side had been painted straight up and over with battleship grey paint!

Regards
Paul

This is one of my German or European planes.
I found it at a tool sale and bought it just because I was amazed at the size of it . It been attacked a bit wood Borer unfortunately . Mainly visible in the sole.

Its 37 inches long . And there it is with a Stanley Bedrock No 8 next to it!


IMG_1174a.jpg IMG_1181a.jpg

Its huge ! Approaching the length of those upturned coopers planes you see . They were longer again I think. It would be interesting to have a go with it one day. The sole has a bit of wear as well so would need some attention . It shows it was reasonably well used though.


Nice and neat around the wedge. The blade stamp . And the front end is stamped with what looks like PD and a Crown or floral design above possibly .
IMG_1175a.jpg IMG_1179a.jpgIMG_1176.jpg IMG_1176a.jpg

Some woodworm .

IMG_1178a.jpg

Rob .

Hi Rob,

From the stamps the plane was made by Peter Duesing, Anholt, Germany

Deutsche Werkzeughersteller und -handler: Peter Duesing, Anholt

The blade seems to have been made by Jan Nooitgedagt, Netherlands.

Niederlandische Werkzeughersteller und -handler: Jan Nooitgedagt (Niederlande)

That makes sense because Duesing produced also for the Dutch market. At some time Duesing and Nooitgedagt were some of the biggest plane manufacturer.

From the first link it puts your plane somewhere between 1830 and 1938

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