Thread: Ohio #110 Block Plane

All the adjust-by-feel block planes were (a) utility planes, and (b) built to a low price point. They were likely marketed to the homeowner who, told s/he needed a block plane but not having much money, would jump on a low priced one. A wide mouth surely reduced the amount of finish work needed in the factory, and reflected the utility nature of the plane, which would most likely spend its life planing bits of softwood in the hands of a user who wasn't terribly versed on fine adjustment of a plane iron.

Related: you may be familiar with the Stanley 75, which many U.S. hand tool woodworkers consider a useful paperweight. They're quite popular here among painters, who will use them to knock off paint drips, among other uses. I've owned a couple of Stanley 75s, and, on each, the mouth was wide enough to insert a sleeping cat without waking it.
75.jpg
(Image courtesy of Patrick Leach's "Blood and Gore" treatise on Stanley planes, at Patrick's Stanley Blood & Gore Profit Warning

I've got a Stanley #110 for which I paid an entire US$1.00, picked up because someday, if ever I have extra time, I want to make some little piece of furniture with the cheapest, lowest-grade tools I can put my hands on, just to see if I can do good work with limited tools. But that particular someday is pretty far in the future; I haven't yet even begun to exhaust my design notebook.

Sharpness of the cutting iron is about 90% of making a workable tool from any plane that's hasn't been run over by a road train; so I'd sharpen it up, practice setting the depth, and see what you get from it.

Depth setting: you can hold it upside down and sight along the length of the sole. You can also, if you have a smooth benchtop, put a piece of printer paper under the front part of the sole and push the iron down until it contacts the bench, then tighten the lever cap. Fussing is required regardless, but practice turns the fussing into skill.

Thanks Bill. What sort of reputation did Ohio have as a tool manufacturing company?

It was a respected company, but I know very little about it. It went out of business in 1920, so you've got a plane at least a century old!

Bill, the mouth on a No. 75 is adjustable just as on a Stanley No. 90 or 92, 93, etc. Just release the top screw and slide the top section along the body until the mouth is as desired and tighten it back up again.

But, you're correct in saying that the No. 75 is a hopeless paperweight.

To me the 0110's mouth looks like it was widened with a file by a previous owner; not as it was designed by the Ohio Tool factory.

V

Mr. Leach calls the #1-#8 bench planes "the much-loved & found under every rock" planes, but I reckon the 110 and its multitude of clones and 'improvements' are more numerous than the rocks!

To validate what Bill said, this is my very first plane: First plane 1958.jpg

Yep, a Stanley 110, made in England, and I can still remember what it cost me: 21 shillings and sixpence! That's a shade over $2 if you just translate the figures, but it was a princely sum for a 12 year old at the time, it represented my entire "Christmas money" scrimped & saved over many months. Actually, I was about 20 cents short of the price on he day & had to beg a little extra from a generous uncle. I was so damn pleased with myself, & couldn't wait to try it out. I'd pulled it apart on the way home (naturally, I was 12 yrs old!) & put it back together with the blade bevel-down. You can't imagine my utter disappointment & despair when I couldn't get it to make shavings. Another uncle somewhat harshly enlightened me. I put the blade the right way round, and lo! my first shavings from my first-ever plane. I was a very happy camper that Christmas...

The 110 has stuck by me (it'll be 63 years this Christmas), & still has the original blade which is about 3/4 used up, but it is an excellent bit f steel that I didn't fully appreciate until much later in life. However, the Beech knob parted ways with the body a long time ago. The end-grain thread in the knob just crumbled away over the years until it would no longer stay screwed on. At first I stuck it on with epoxy, but a few years ago I replaced it with a she-oak version. Can't remember exactly how I got a thread in it, but I managed somehow - probably added a bit more epoxy as well, for added security .

As Bill said, these were not meant to be the Lie-Nielsens of their day, they were a very unpretentious & basic plane. The mouth opening on mine measures a shade over 3mm (close enough to 1/8") when the blade is set for a fine shaving: Mouth.jpg

But it's a good demonstration that mouth size is only one of the factors that contribute to function - a sharp blade, a fine set, and a high bevel angle on the blade make it work pretty well - details this plane helped to teach me, painfully slowly, in my impatient youth...

The large mouth is really the result of machining limitations - it's not easy to set up something like this to mill a fine mouth in a rough casting. That problem is solved more elegantly on the "developed" block planes by getting rid of the mouth front & having an adjustable toe-piece. For home builders of low-angle planes, the practical solution is to split the sole to form the mouth, which is what I've done on this "English thumb plane": 18 Sole lapping 1.jpg

That's the entire mouth you see, the blade is withdrawn for lapping in the pic., and it's far too tight to get a file through. When it's set for work, the actual mouth is somewhere between .5 & .75mm wide (as judged by eye). This is one of my best plane builds to date, it works superbly and has become my preferred one-hander (can also be used two-handed): 8 Knob replaced.jpg

It has relegated my faithful old 110 largely to "shelf duty", but there is no way I'll ever willingly part with such an old friend...

Cheers,

Hi D22. Good pick up, I hadn't noticed. I wonder why?

Hi B. Thanks for the timeline.

Hi Ian. The #110 was a bit better than a bag of musk sticks (the sort of stuff I bought at 12 years old). I love that you still have it. Do you know what purpose the little lump at the rear of the base serves?

MA, I once reviewed a modern day version of the #110, "The Orange Block Plane". Perhaps it is time to trot out this chestnut again

The Orange Block Plane ? a review



Regards from Perth

Derek

Hi Derek. Thanks for a giggle before I head off to work. Particularly impressed by the placement of the screw. A well thought and executed feature that surely adds to overall charm.

Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

..... Do you know what purpose the little lump at the rear of the base serves?

Hi MA - strike block?

Just kidding, you would be unwise to wallop a cast iron body, but from the number of mushroomed blade tops I've seen on Bailey planes, there are a few forceful types out there who prefer bashing things to twiddling knobs.

A serious suggestion is, perhaps it's where the sprue entered the mould? The corresponding bit of cone on the sole side would've been machined off. The part remaining doesn't interfere with function in any way, so it's just left as "decoration" (or to make people like us wonder what it's for! )...

Cheers,

Derek,

Being a judge of the plane challenge, I reckon you should submit the Orange Block Plane, as inspiration for want to be Plane makers.
It does seem to have a few desirable characteristics tho can’t see any at the moment.

Cheers Matt.

Originally Posted by IanW

Hi MA - strike block?

Just kidding, you would be unwise to wallop a cast iron body ...

Oh boy, in that case I had better stop hitting mine there! That said though, it was my first plane too, and now that I have several others my #110 gets very little use.

Originally Posted by LanceC

.....Oh boy, in that case I had better stop hitting mine there! ......

Lance, it's a pretty obvious place to whack when you want to ease the set a bit, & given it's English & made when there were still lots of woodies around (in fact they were still making them), I'd have thought Stanley would have realised that many owners would do just that. Mine didn't have any express instructions NOT to wallop it, so p'raps it's ok if you use a wooden mallet on it occasionally. I'm assuming the body is plain old cast iron, but it could be a more ductile alloy, for all I know.

I 'tapped' the back of the sole with a steel hammer one day, on an infill I'd just made. I was becoming irritated because I was having a heck of a time setting the blade. It was going from not-cutting to grossly thick shavings at the merest tap on the blade. I soon grew tired of doing it the way I normally do, which is to loosen the LC, push the plane forward to force the blade back, tighten LC a bit then try advancing the blade again, more carefully. But the damn thing was going from zero to 100 however carefully I tapped it. (On calm inspection later I found it was due to a high spot on the blade block).

I quite often ease set on my adjusterless infills by giving them a small but sharp rap on the top of the front bun. That will usually ease set by a tiny fraction. However the 'soft' mallet I would normally use was out of immediate reach, but a steel hammer was right there on the bench. Well, no doubt fuelled by my growing frustration, I must've hit it harder than I thought, & at a bit of an angle, 'cos when I took the next swipe on my test board, it left a dirty great track from a small burr I'd caused on the bottom edge of the sole. Not a major disaster, a few swipes with a fine file soon fixed that problem, but it was sufficient "punishment" to remind me to curb my temper & investigate a problem properly rather than just try & wallop it away.....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

...so it's just left...to make people like us wonder what it's for! ...

That's likely the purpose - like the nib on handsaws.