Thread: Stewart Spiers Smoothing Planes

Hi Rob

The irons look wrong on all the planes (except, perhaps, for the square one). They look tapered when they should be parallel. Yes tapered will work, but not as well as a parallel iron. These are not original to the planes.

Here is a Spier I picked up on eBay some years ago ...





The infill had been replaced a few times, and was stained pine or something.

The iron was a tapered woody. And the screw was ... interesting

It was only when I stripped it out that we - the Oldtools forum - discovered that it was a Spier as there was no name anywhere. What there was was this little number 5 ...



I ended up with a shell ...



... and because there was little original left, built a screw and had a little fun with new infill (blame Peter McBride, as he dared me) ...

It ended up like this ...



That was 8 years ago. A few months back Fine Woodworking magazine featured it in a Shop and Tool edition.

Link to restoration adventure: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolRes...Smoother1.html

Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by derekcohen

Hi Rob

The irons look wrong on all the planes (except, perhaps, for the square one). They look tapered when they should be parallel. Yes tapered will work, but not as well as a parallel iron. These are not original to the planes.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Damn, now I'm gonna have to take all the tapered Ward irons out of most of my early Spiers planes and look for some after market parallel irons.
Thanks for pointing this out Derek.

Melbourne Matty.

lovely collection of spier's planes Rob & good to hear they are still in use , any idea on the age of the upside down spier's ayr mark ? interested as I have one in the plane draw that needs a full restoration & hope my one turns out as beautiful as Derek's restoration.
scrounger

Originally Posted by derekcohen

Hi Rob

The irons look wrong on all the planes (except, perhaps, for the square one). They look tapered when they should be parallel. Yes tapered will work, but not as well as a parallel iron. These are not original to the planes.
Derek

I have a question for you Derek . Do you know what Stewart Spiers did before he made planes for a doyt

He was a Cabinet Maker . I love that , Ha Ha..

And, in his early planes, the ones with wedges and lever caps, they were said to be tapered.

Nigel lamperts Book says so . and that is all I have to go by . I don't know when it changed to parallel or why , so plane 2 and three I think, have the correct style of blade in them ,and they work fine . Plane one of my three would have had parallel originally , it came that way with the tapered blade and I have parallel blades that I could swap into it but that's taking them away from other planes so I leave it , and it works fine. Plane blades have gone from thin to thick , back to thin then back to thick again , so what does that say ?


You did a very nice job of your plane , and turned it into a more stylish tool, that looks very nice . I just think it's a pity that you changed it from a screw sided to what looks like brass rivets, screw sided is considered more desirable in original planes . once they are lost to over changing and restoration like the way you got it then purists should not be bothered what happens to them I suppose. I would have kept it with screws though.

Rob

Originally Posted by scrounger

lovely collection of spier's planes Rob & good to hear they are still in use , any idea on the age of the upside down spier's ayr mark ? interested as I have one in the plane draw that needs a full restoration & hope my one turns out as beautiful as Derek's restoration.
scrounger

Hi Scrounger , Is that the same one you posted in the Antique and collectables thread ? Age of upside down ? it would be more early I think . I don't study the fine details of the history of them though . I think very early for Spiers is 1840s to 1860s and with a guess the upside down in early styles could fit in there . did later styles come with an upside down mark ? I think they may have as well . not sure though .

Rob

I have been reading Nigel's book on Spiers.
I only found out this detail about tapered irons on early versions when Peter Mcbride saw my no 3 plane and told me .

This is taken from the book, in the chapter on screw sided smoothing planes. Through much Tribulation, Stewart Spiers and the Plane Makers of Ayr. By Nigel Lampert

"Observation of these early planes shows that some have more slender mouth openings, and inspection suggests that in some instances the front section has been filed to widen the mouth for the use of a parallel iron. It thus seems certain that some , at least, of these planes were originally intended to have tapered irons, further confirming that the parallel iron emerged around the late 1840s or during the 1850s. Little change is needed to allow a parallel iron to be fitted, and the only evidence apart from sloppy workmanship is the flat vertical surface created when the original mouth opening is altered."

I have been searching for the information on the Speirs Ayr mark as well , I cant find where he talks of the orientation of the mark . It is seen on early screw sided and later Riveted planes though.

Rob

Hi Rob

I was on the point of rebuilding my Spier smoother and returning it to original configuration along with the screws, when I received an email from FWW magazine to publish photos of it. Obviously some like it ... and some don't. It's easy enough to drill out the brass screws and return to original. We'll see.

With regards the tapered vs parallel iron, my understanding is that the tapered irons are for woodies. As you know they are designed to prevent slipping when held by a wooden wedge. Parallel irons are used when there is a lever cap. The cap may be tightened and loosened to adjust the blade. Adjustments are more difficult with a tapered blade.

Unless you can trace your existing blades back to the start, that is, that they came with the plane, I would argue that they are replacements by a past owner(s). That is what tended to happen.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Hi Rob the spier's was a bad ebay buy I made some time ago , it was $150 with bad photo's I took a punt & this is what arrived a so called user infill plane , it's never going to be a nice original so when I get more time i'll knock the stuffed rosewood out & put something nice in it.
would love to think it's a mid 1800s model I'v not done much research on it yet.
scrounger061.jpg063.jpg064.jpg

$150 for that is not a "bad buy" !!!!

Maybe not a screaming bargain ... but well worth having.

Question about the parallel/taper iron reasoning from the Spiers book, 'tho ...

It seems to be saying a parallel blade will take up more room (forward) in the mouth ... but I would've thought that a taper blade would - with the "kick" that the peak of the "triangle" gives to the side profile.

20140920_203910[1].jpg

... compared to a parallel iron the same width as the top of the taper iron that is.

Cheers,
Paul

Auscarb,
Its good to see a working, commercial, cabinetmaker who can make his quid and can do it with some old tools in the mix. Well done. I'm envious! Keep up the good work and forget the peanut gallery comments.

Originally Posted by derekcohen

Unless you can trace your existing blades back to the start, that is, that they came with the plane, I would argue that they are replacements by a past owner(s). That is what tended to happen.


Derek

Yes I think my blades are replacements on these three, with a ? on my no 2 out of the three.
With a lot of Spiers you see the blades or cap iron stamped with the same number on the bed of the plane . which sellers use to point out they have been together since new.

What I'm saying though is, I think my no 3 was made for a tapered blade ,It has the right type of blade in it , even though it's a replacement. What the book says is that for the first eight to ten years of his iron plane making he was using tapered blades. My plane has not been altered to take a parallel blade , the tapered replacement in it now is to thick to go through. That plane is a rare example , I am told that under 5 have ever been seen, that makes me happy. My no 2 is what is thought to be his first type of smoother . And my no 1 there are many many examples to be seen.

Originally Posted by scrounger

Hi Rob the spier's was a bad ebay buy I made some time ago , it was $150 with bad photo's I took a punt & this is what arrived a so called user infill plane , it's never going to be a nice original so when I get more time i'll knock the stuffed rosewood out & put something nice in it.
would love to think it's a mid 1800s model I'v not done much research on it yet.
scrounger

Like Paul says , good buy when are you joining the HTPAA ? I saw one that needed a re build for $85 at the members tool sale on a Saturday night. Plenty of good buying there if your a member. The Rosewood looks pretty good to me Scrounger, I would be trying out restoration of what is there first. I'm not trying to sway you at all , but they bring the best buck the more original they are . It has a screwed add on at the front and a tricky handle repair at the back from what I can see. That plane looks to be 1880s to 1890s They were made with handles from the 1870's. The book says the majority of examples of handled smoothers come from the last decade of the 19th century .

Originally Posted by pmcgee

Question about the parallel/taper iron reasoning from the Spiers book, 'tho ...

It seems to be saying a parallel blade will take up more room (forward) in the mouth ... but I would've thought that a taper blade would - with the "kick" that the peak of the "triangle" gives to the side profile.

20140920_203910[1].jpg

... compared to a parallel iron the same width as the top of the taper iron that is.

Cheers,
Paul

Yes the book is saying that Paul . I will be measuring tomorrow . From memory though, the parallel look at least as thick as the thick part of that tapered blade.

Here is a street view of the workshop where the planes were made. The book says this workshop was used from 1858 till 1899 . The Spiers family home where Stewart grew up and started plane making was at 12 Garden st on the right . The street has been re developed and the old houses are gone though. Just before his death in 1899 the work shop was moved up the road a little to 2-4 River tce.

I did a bit of work on the plane , took off the rust and straightened the lever cap. I covered a block of steel with some copper and used a brass hammer , a strip of copper, not pictured was placed on top as well.
I have been studying the book, some of the features that identify early screw sided Spiers can be seen . Apart from the screws , the front and rear infill's are in two parts the bottom part ends at the height of the sides and the top ones cover the sides, the rear join follows the slope of the metal side . The sole has a tongue and groove joint. The size of the screw for clamping the lever cap is not the thick later one . The lever cap is thin and was known to bend when over tightened. The book says that noted lever caps of this sort are flat on the under side . This one is hollowed and sand casting marks are there . My last hope of finding a mark were under that rust but none there .
The book also says these planes are a plain iron side [ wrought iron , I think it says?] and steel sole , I wonder how they test for that ? I dont want to test it just interested.
I measured tapered irons and parallel, and the ones I looked at are within .5 of a mm of each other, both typed fit the plane . That tapered iron and cap that I had in the plane are big other ones I have fit better.

In the book there are pictures of the workshop taken in the late 1890s , A sign, Spiers Iron Plane Maker takes up a space below the two top left windows.
There are two doors at the bottom left where the left window is now . one is for a general Grocer . outside the other, men in aprons stand . The older looking gent with the long white beard is said to be Mr Spiers . I would like to be able to put it up , not allowed though I suppose.
Under the picture it says , Courtesy of Carnegie Library Ayr.

Rob

Did some more today .I went to the knob shop and had a look at the range hoping to find something that looked right , just about every Spiers knob on early planes are different from each other but this $5.30 brass knob is as close as I could get , some rope knurling would be nice . I'm happy with that though. It has a similar style to what Ive seen. Brass on a steel thread has been seen before as well . I got a bolt , drilled out the back of the knob and fitted it . Brazed it with some silver rod and gas and then some aging up. It's back to work on a piece of Huon . If I do any thing else ,it would be to re set the piece of Rosewood on the front infill in it's right position , it seems to be glued on firmly though.