Thread: Refurbing a cute little Spiers thumb plane

Originally Posted by NeilS

.... the cupid bow dovetails .... are purely decorative, serving no functional purpose, but distinctively Carteresque! ......

Yep, I'm not sure he was the first to do the cupid bows along the dovetails like that, but he certainly has made them a Carter 'signature'. They were put on bridges & wedges on may planes long before Bil, of course, and I've seen a few imitators copy his idea, but no-one else uses them as freely & prolifically! They must add hours & hours to the build.

I suppose when you have made more than a thousand planes it starts to get a bit ho-hum & you look for ways to make it more interesting, but at my stage, I'm struggling enough to make tight, flawless simple dovetails without making it even harder for myself. A 'cupid's bow' on the bridge is about as much decoration as I can manage safely:

6 ETPs.jpg


Cheers,

While looking at the Bill Carter website I came across this example of a very early thumbscrew...

TS in Bill Carter collection.jpg

TS detail in Bill Carter collection.jpg

It has a steel thread with a distinctive brass knob that was used by this plane maker. Not exactly a quick whirl with the knurl to get that. I expect that the TS design was one way of indicating the level of craftsmanship and standing out from the competition.

Early TS design could be a whole area of study in itself!

Neil, that plane is "different" in several ways!

Apart from the knobby TS (I thought the knobs were indentations at first, but then my brain flipped & saw they are extending out of the surface, not in), the lever-cap has some extra work on it too, from the little we can see. But the over-over stuffing is also unique in my experience. It gives a very interesting effect, as if the wood was plasticised & pressed into the plane body, with some flowing over the sides like bread dough.

Interestingly, the infill looks like common old beech. I'm surprised someone going to all that trouble didn't use an exotic wood like rosewood. I wonder if it's an apprentice-finished plane - one of my books mentions there are quite a few planes bought as castings & finished by apprentices & cabinetmakers kicking about in Britain & some are exquisitely done (it doesn't show pics of any, unfortunately).

But back to the point, I have no idea how you would make that knob other than by casting, but maybe it was rolled using a dedicated tool. You're right, I reckon you'd be standing at the lathe for a while to roll that pattern...

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Neil, that plane is "different" in several ways!

Ian

I should have provided a link to where Bill has that plane on his website, so to remedy that, see towards the bottom of this page... About Bill ...it starts with his words ..."Is this not the most beautiful smoother in the world, I think so. I could write a book about this plane... "

Bill describes the infill wood as walnut. He has owned two of the three known planes from this maker.... so perhaps from an over achieving apprentice...

Someone else said of the infill that it "appeared to be poured in, flowing over the sides". Your description of bread dough rising and overflowing is also very apt.

Struth, Neil - I think I need my eyes checked - I would have sworn that first plane's infill was beech - I can even see rayfleck in it & the colour looks nothing like any walnut I've ever seen! But if Bill says it's walnut, then it's walnut & it goes to prove what I am always saying, "colour is the least reliable guide to a wood's identity". Funny Bill used the same terminology, "over-over stuffing" to describe it - I just made that up, btw, but it shows how great minds think alike, eh?

It's not surprising that a few very well-made and obviously related planes turn up now & then - there must have been plenty of blokes busy making planes in their basement or wherever, 100 plus years ago, just as in later years. Some, like George Fraser in NZ were quite prolific given the known number of his planes that survive, unmarked, but recognisable as siblings from one maker. A discussion occurred in another thread some months back as to how well an "amateur" maker could make a plane with simple hand tools & I maintained that there are 'gifted' folks who could probably match a Spiers or Norris on their first or second try (not me! I've still got quite a way to go ), so it's also not surprising that some odd, unmarked planes of excellent quality show up occasionally.

Cheers,

Hi Rob,

It was not me who left the plane on the stove.
It was the first owner who was Bills Friend. I posted a photo
of the plane a while back. I will see if I can find It.

Martin.

Originally Posted by old workshop

Hi Rob,

It was not me who left the plane on the stove.
It was the first owner who was Bills Friend. I posted a photo
of the plane a while back. I will see if I can find It.

Martin.

Hi Martin . I didn't phrase the question well.

"How do you (the original owner) leave a plane on a hot plate with your cup of tea? "
I meant the guy Bill was talking about who ruined it.

I get myself into deeper water tackling phrasing and correct grammar all the time . Before I joined the forum here in 2007 I hadn't typed or written much since leaving school in 1979 and I wasn't so good at it then. 27 years of Just working and not writing much at all had passed when 2007 came around. I wrote the occasional letter or invoice out and that's it. Getting onto the internet changed that for the better. Ive always read but that didn't transfer over to good writing. These more thoroughly educated blokes around here amaze me by the speed a reply can come back and the length of it sometimes. Its just an interesting observation I think about.

Rob

Rob, don't beat yourself up over an occasional mis-wording, you have much to say that is useful & interesting & usually get it across perfectly clearly, imo.

Martin, I went searching for any old posts of yours concerning mitre planes - this was the only one I found. Reading my responses reminded me of how little I knew about mitre planes just a couple of years ago, and how little I've managed to learn since. The darned things have intrigued me since I first saw a picture of one at least 40 years ago, but so little has been written about them based on contemporary written records. Most info seems to come from catalogues, which don't provide much info on how the planes were intended to be used. The sites ian linked to in the thread (post #9) are very interesting, the Shephed site shows a lot of planes, but sheds little light on what they were actually used for, while Joel's suggestions, while based on some sound premises, are still speculative.

I've been wracking my brains trying to remember where another handled mitre plane was shown recently - damn this ageing memory, it was very recent, so someone will remember & put me out of my misery, I hope...

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Struth, Neil - I think I need my eyes checked - I would have sworn that first plane's infill was beech - I can even see rayfleck in it & the colour looks nothing like any walnut I've ever seen! But if Bill says it's walnut, then it's walnut & it goes to prove what I am always saying, "colour is the least reliable guide to a wood's identity". Funny Bill used the same terminology, "over-over stuffing" to describe it - I just made that up, btw, but it shows how great minds think alike, eh?

And here I was thinking that "over-over stuffing" was an established term in the world of infill planes...

On the walnut, I am currently turning some English walnut (Juglans regia) and its colour is highly variable, not just between the sap and heartwood. The species of walnut they have in Nth America can be very dark and given names like Northern California black walnut (Juglans hindsii), whereas the English walnut can be a lighter colour with the sapwood becoming a honey colour with aging.

Here is the variation that can be seen when I was green-turning it earlier in the year. The lighter sapwood area will become more honey coloured with exposure to light and closer to the colour of the infills in Bill's over-over stuffed plane.

Walnut.jpg

Originally Posted by IanW

Rob, don't beat yourself up over an occasional mis-wording, you have much to say that is useful & interesting & usually get it across perfectly clearly, imo.

And IMO, too!

Originally Posted by IanW

I've been wracking my brains trying to remember where another handled mitre plane was shown recently - damn this ageing memory, it was very recent, so someone will remember & put me out of my misery, I hope...

Cheers,

Post 37 here ?

Hand Plane

Rob

Originally Posted by IanW

Some, like George Fraser in NZ were quite prolific given the known number of his planes that survive, unmarked, but recognisable as siblings from one maker.

Had a look at those planes by George Fraser and thought his own personal rebate plane with the removable lever cap a nice 'innovation' and, if not an original idea, nicely done. I imagine that would leave scope for readily adjusting how the lever cap sits in its cradle with just a few swipes with the round file...

nztools103.jpg

But, where he did it as part of the rebate mouth perhaps not so practical for when getting the blade in and out?...

nztools101.jpg

Originally Posted by auscab

Post 37 here ?

Hand Plane

Rob

Yes, that's it.

I used to have a memory once, honest!

Hi Rob and all,

Ian posted a link which reads THIS.
If you click the middle picture it is the plane at
the top of the shelf with the ornate mouldings
which Bill is referring to.

Martin.