Thread: UNKNOWN Handplane ?

In the mood of wandering in and out of the topic a bit, or maybe a strenuous link.
just to give some kind of scale to the number of workmen using these tools, and how far removed we are from the scale of hand work from the golden age of hand tool making and use.
Have a look at "SOME" of the workmen at Pengelley in Edwardstown, South Aust, around 1907 where there were more than "200 hands working"
The kids in the front row made me think a bit about the state of the world then...
Cheers,
Peter

Thank you Peter

Originally Posted by lightwood

'morning Ian
There are two types of plane there, the rebate and the shoulder plane.
Although they evolved over time to two purposes, having two different names also, that's not to sat they can't be used interchangeably if the work or grip allows it.

The square top ones are the steel version of the wooden rebate plane, made with a 20 - 25 degree low angle/bevel blade, since metal construction will provide sufficient strength where a wooden one is marginal.
As the name suggests, used for the making and finishing of rebates/dados in corner and lap joints or other elements in a construction in wood. Eg case work or moulding elements.
Mostly used upright I guess.

The curvy top ones are a group known as shoulder planes, for working tenon shoulders as IanW above has noted, and also things like veneer endgrain.
Again a low angle plane, with usually a lower blade angle, around 20 degree max.

The grip in the lay down orientation where fingers can't get around is helped with contoured, and in some cases "rhino horn" grips, and the extended hand grip wedges.
The handle grip front buns can give a good two handed control grip also.

I'm not really convinced they are the best for prolonged heavy use, and as Ian said already, set up right they are a joy. For coarser work, and a bench handled version might be better. Stanley saw that opportunity, and jumped in there.

that was sort of what I was thinking myself.

The rectangular rebate planes were used upright, and almost always with a two handed grip?

while the shoulder planes could be used one handed, like a small block plane, or with the second hand on the front bun.
Do any of the shoulder planes have a relatively long toe, which would aid their use as a miter plane. Somewhere I read that miter planes were virtually unknown in the English speaking world prior to the French revolution, and the author speculated that emigres from France, with it's rich tradition of marquetry, brought the tool to England. And that originally the tool was designed for levelling marquetry and veneer.

Originally Posted by lightwood

Generally speaking contemporary woodworkers don't do anywhere near the extensive hand work as yesteryear, so...these ergonomics aren't as critical perhaps.
Kind of a two edged sword though. Your current "Artisan Class" woodworker seems to demands perfect comfort, soft start saws and skill sacrificing gizmos, and predictable skill proof tools right out of the box. Past woodworkers had to learn to adapt to what was available.(a pretty wide range of tools!!!) or maybe build their own Great Northern Rebate Plane.

I think you are overly generous with your comparison of "artisan class" vers past woodworkers.
Past woodworkers made a living from their tools. The knowledge to use those tools was acquired through a long period of apprenticeship and working as a journey man. During this period of training and consolidation, the woodworker didn't so much learn to adapt what was available, but rather used their skills to make what was available work and work damn well.

to my perspective, most current wood workers are not even wanna be "artisan class" which would equate with the 19th century "Gentleman woodworker", rather most are both self taught and generally unskilled -- very few have obtained a level of understanding that would equate with an old style apprentice / journey man which would entitle them to be elevated to "artisan class" or "gentleman woodworker". And unfortunately, with industry demanding employees who can screw melamine boxes together and not much else, very few of the current crop of apprentices will develop the skills needed to truly work wood.

The skill defeating gizmos you decry are marketed to the unskilled as a form of crutch to substitute for their unwillingness to develop the skills required to properly use a tool. The saws made by Glen Drake being a case in point.

Originally Posted by ian

The skill defeating gizmos you decry are marketed to the unskilled as a form of crutch to substitute for their unwillingness to develop the skills required to properly use a tool.

My personal take on it is that the unskilled aren't necessarily unwilling to learn, but they do know enough to know that their lack of skill is limiting them, and are searching for a way to address that. In the world we live in today, we're used to instant everything and faster than that even, so it's natural for people to try out some of those gizmos as a first option. Many of those who buy them will use them a couple of times, realise that hand tools are not for them and move on. Some will realise that the gizmo doesn't actually compensate for a lack of skill and will use the lessons learnt from trying them to buy something more mainstream, and slowly start to pick up those skills. If we write off everyone who has bought a gimmick hoping it would save them time or make something tricky easier, then I'm on that list too.


Perhaps if we view the gizmos as "gateway tools" to help get the uninitiated addicted to woodwork, then we can accept them a little more readily?

Govest69,

I had a little time today to go hunting through some books to refresh my pretty reliable visual memory with some solid recorded information about your plane...
A dutch rebate plane with an adjustable throat and a double iron is known as a DOPPELSIMSHOBEL.

It is pretty easy to see the heritage of your plane from this configuration below.

Many wooden rebate planes I see are worn very much, almost to beyond usefulness.
A metal one is an obvious upgrade in durability, and in expense. Putting a handle on one is a standard US plane maker catalogue product from the era we are considering. So one with with a wooden handle on a steel plane is a completely natural, and unremarkable progression. I one two vintage planes of that narrower type, and you have one as well.
There was also something niggling at the back of my brain, and that was something I'd seen in a book on US patent planes many years ago.
There is a Jan 13th 1857 US patent for an adjustable throat in the rebate plane style below, by TJ Tolman U.S.16,412
Follow this link to get a PDF file

Every commercial wooden plane maker in history of plane making, since Roman times, made rebate planes. Many were, are still being user made. It's one of the most common plane types I see.

US makers had catalogue planes in a rebate style, with an integral closed handle in the stock, also a handle planted into the back of the stock, and also with a handle attached to the side and rising up, off set to the user side.

Here are some current wooden planes for sale.

Here is a catalogue page

And another

As I type this I'm thinking of all the wonderful European palaces, stately homes, luxury ocean liner builders, cathedrals, churches, city halls, banks, shops, and more that contain kilometers of woodwork with rebates, dadoes, trenches and mouldings. Imagine the workshops that made that work, and compared to the modest Australian one with 200 workers I pictured above....how many rebate planes must have been worn down to nothing, and the amount of callused hands making and smoothing rebates over the century from 1850 to 1950.
That is why your plane got me so exited in the first instant, and has held my attention through the last few days.
And finally, I'm not moved to entertain the views expressed that contests my knowledge about this from someone who claims a position of not having enough information.

Cheers,
Peter

Peter; this one with the skewed blade is very appealing.

Stewie;

Originally Posted by planemaker

Peter; this one with the skewed blade is very appealing.

Stewie;

Thanks Stewie,
My mate bought a pair in cast gunmetal, one very like that one, and one with a curved base.
Very talented bloke, was raving about the straight bottom one, and showed me how he used his on fine cabinet work.
I decided to draw around it and try a construction method I'd never done before.
I drilled and riveted it. Used coat hanger wire I think????
Here's a pic of the two sides. I drilled the end two, put a pair of temp rivets in, then drilled the rest.
2 sides at 1/8 inch, and a 1/4 square bar for the base = 1/2 inch wide body.
It was extra quick to make, less than a day.
More pictures here

Cheers,
Peter

Peter; you have most likely been told this before, but can I re affirm your an extremely talented craftsman. Very appreciative of the time taken to share your depth knowledge with other forum members.

regards Stewie;

Originally Posted by lightwood

....It was extra quick to make, less than a day.....

Hmmm, I would've spent at least a day fussing about how I was going to angle the bed, before putting a single file to iron! I assume you had all that well-sorted before assembly, as I see no way of making any 'adjustments' once the body is riveted together?

Making a skewed rebate is on my 'to do' list, more for the challenge than perceived necessity, but I have been tossing around how best to join sides & body. My shoulder plane is sweated together using lead solder, but I don't like that method for a couple of reasons, not the least being it's awkward to do. Rivets would seem to be the obvious answer! With that many rivets holding it, it should be a rock-solid construction, & I can't see even a hint of a rivet in the pic of yours, so it's a very neat solution. Thankyou for that tip, I have just mentally moved my plane project a little closer......

And while on the topic - another factor that has impeded my progress is deciding on a skew angle. Is there any magic figure for the skew (or bed) angle for these things? The few I've had in my hands varied a bit, so there doesn't seem to be a 'standard' angle, or is there?

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Hmmm, I would've spent at least a day fussing about how I was going to angle the bed, before putting a single file to iron! I assume you had all that well-sorted before assembly, as I see no way of making any 'adjustments' once the body is riveted together?

Making a skewed rebate is on my 'to do' list, more for the challenge than perceived necessity, but I have been tossing around how best to join sides & body. My shoulder plane is sweated together using lead solder, but I don't like that method for a couple of reasons, not the least being it's awkward to do. Rivets would seem to be the obvious answer! With that many rivets holding it, it should be a rock-solid construction, & I can't see even a hint of a rivet in the pic of yours, so it's a very neat solution. Thankyou for that tip, I have just mentally moved my plane project a little closer......

And while on the topic - another factor that has impeded my progress is deciding on a skew angle. Is there any magic figure for the skew (or bed) angle for these things? The few I've had in my hands varied a bit, so there doesn't seem to be a 'standard' angle, or is there?

Cheers,

Ian,Thanks. Yes, that didn't include the drawing and dreaming phase of the plane making.
I've met you at least once in Melbourne that I can remember.... All the stuff is here, come here, down to the Magnificent Morning Pen, and we'll make one in a day!
A couple of the blokes in the HTPAA have been harassing me to start Master Classes in plane making, I need a guinea pig help to run through it before I finalise the system.

A Mate and I have been making a repro Spiers Thumb plane together, which is more like a weeks work, so is more difficult than I first thought to do in weekend.

A significant aid is understanding what happens when, and this is VERY important, a plane, a line and a point intersect with each other. (when curves intersect a whole 'nother world opens up)
It can't be emphasized enough how much a help it is to have more than a couple on the bench to assist.

The skew on commercial planes is surprisingly varied, from near square to almost 45*. Since the skew pulls the plane towards the shoulder, and provides the shearing action, my thinking has always been ...how much do YOU want of both those things? Look to the work you want to do - and perhaps a mid-range compromise is the way forward.
The bed angle for a shoulder plane is around 20 deg, but here is where most folks brain starts to explode....are the left and the right bedding angle on a skew mouth plane the same angle from the base??
Before you read the next post, see if you can work it out just visualizing it in your head. That is something I've tried to teach. If you've got it, or can get it, making stuff becomes an order of magnitude easier.
Some folk get it, and they show it as kids, and might get into the making-or-designing-things steam. Others go elsewhere into the world where its not needed, and might come to woodwork and the like later in life. Don't know about it, don't want to know about it ... and without it will be working with a fraction of the brain power needed for the task.

Most importantly, I make NO judgement about the quality of the person who can't get it. It's more inherited than learned I think. UNLESS they demonstrate a particular propensity to promote themselves as the BEST in the field, and show a lack of understanding about it. Or they start to tell me I don't!

I was literally shouting at the screen when I read Holtey winning about the nightmare he had coping with making skew mouth planes, and saying he would never make them again. ..... Karl, throw your crutches away, I know you can walk without them...
I thought, what's so hard about it?? I'll show why a little bit later in this post or the next one....later today.
They (we all know those people, the famous "THEY") should take the NC machines off him, and make him understand it first, prove he does, then give them back to him.


Anyhow, here we go.
From the top to the bottom....
PMcB - 70 deg
PMcB - 73 deg
Buck - 84 deg
Mathieson - 82 deg
Rt. Towell, London - 60 deg
Mathieson - 85 deg
TJ Gardner, Bristol - 78 deg
User made Badger - 82 deg
Cheers,
Peter

IanW,
If it's cool with you, I think a pictorial description of the key to the skew might be better in another new post??

Edit: woops, a new thread....not a post!

Cheers,
Peter

Originally Posted by lightwood

A couple of the blokes in the HTPAA have been harassing me to start Master Classes in plane making, I need a guinea pig help to run through it before I finalise the system.

Now there's an offer you'd be crazy not to jump at. I doubt there's anyone more qualified that Peter in plane making anywhere.

You don't need a workshop full of machine tools to make planes.

Originally Posted by lightwood

The bed angle for a shoulder plane is around 20 deg, but here is where most folks brain starts to explode....are the left and the right bedding angle on a skew mouth plane the same angle from the base??
Before you read the next post, see if you can work it out just visualizing it in your head. That is something I've tried to teach. If you've got it, or can get it, making stuff becomes an order of magnitude easier.

pmrp.jpg

I figure you can picture PS's poorman's router plane.
The chisel is the iron and the bottom of the rebate is the sole of the shoulder/rebate plane.

The 'iron' is inserted "flat" and so intersects with the sole at 90deg.
If you want it to intersect at an angle, you have to rotate the pmrp.

That would give you a shewed iron and equal angle od bed on the left and right ... but necessarily your iron would stick out at an angle to the body of the plane, just like rotating/skewing the pmrp.

To get a skewed iron AND have the iron lie in the plane of the plane ( ) you need to rotate the chisel/iron in place. (ie turn around its long axis)
Which means the left and right beds are going to become unequal angles.

Paul
(... maybe they will increase and decrease from eg 20deg by equal amounts???? )

Actually now I'm thinking my two conclusions should be exactly reversed (swapped).

Originally Posted by lightwood

IanW,
If it's cool with you, I think a pictorial description of the key to the skew might be better in another new post??

Edit: woops, a new thread....not a post!

Cheers,
Peter

Peter, go for it, I'm sure I won't be the only avid reader.

Too many times in my life have I started thinking I knew something well, only to discover I had merely scratched the surface of my ignorance! However, thanks to a pretty thorough grounding in Euclidian geometry way back there in junior high school, I can generally summon up a mental picture of how planes, lines and angles add up. But I also spent a working lifetime as a (veterinary) pathologist,looking at things upside down & back to front, and down microscopes where the scene moves left when you move the stage right. So while my concepts are usually sound, they could be upside down, back to front, or both, (or even, occasionally, correct! ).

Anyway, I'll bite on the bed angles: The bed obviously has to be a plane, & it's going to form a straight line with any other plane it intersects, ergo, the two angles between the bed & sides are constant & complementary.

Thankyou for confirming my suspicion that plane skew angles are as constant as the weather. Apart from the tendency to push the plane against the side of the rebate, there is the 'slicing' action of the skewed blade, so in choosing an angle, you would also have to consider the real or perceived merits of this, too? More food for thought!

Originally Posted by RayG

Now there's an offer you'd be crazy not to jump at..... :

Yes, thankyou Peter, as much for your vote of confidence as anything else, but it isn't likely to happen any time soon, unfortunately. I will be down that way next March, for my son's wedding, but I don't think I'd win any popularity contest be sneaking off for a plane-making weekend, much as I'd prefer such activities to the sort of socialising weddings entail......

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Peter, go for it, I'm sure I won't be the only avid reader.

Too many times in my life have I started thinking I knew something well, only to discover I had merely scratched the surface of my ignorance! However, thanks to a pretty thorough grounding in Euclidian geometry way back there in junior high school, I can generally summon up a mental picture of how planes, lines and angles add up. But I also spent a working lifetime as a (veterinary) pathologist,looking at things upside down & back to front, and down microscopes where the scene moves left when you move the stage right. So while my concepts are usually sound, they could be upside down, back to front, or both, (or even, occasionally, correct! ).

Anyway, I'll bite on the bed angles: The bed obviously has to be a plane, & it's going to form a straight line with any other plane it intersects, ergo, the two angles between the bed & sides are constant & complementary.

Thankyou for confirming my suspicion that plane skew angles are as constant as the weather. Apart from the tendency to push the plane against the side of the rebate, there is the 'slicing' action of the skewed blade, so in choosing an angle, you would also have to consider the real or perceived merits of this, too? More food for thought!



Yes, thankyou Peter, as much for your vote of confidence as anything else, but it isn't likely to happen any time soon, unfortunately. I will be down that way next March, for my son's wedding, but I don't think I'd win any popularity contest be sneaking off for a plane-making weekend, much as I'd prefer such activities to the sort of socialising weddings entail......

Cheers,

Ian,

It did cross my mind about the veterinary work. I've spoken to a couple of surgeons my wife works for, and discussed the visualization in 3D. Since I was kid I've been able to stare into space and imagine I'm inside something, looking around at what's happening. Used to get me into all kinds of trouble at school...staring into space, a sense of wonder at what was happening inside the gas heater or the pulley system and on the moving blackboards.

so ... we will be seeing you at the HTPAA March tool sale?

Yep,
Two parallel planes, the sides - and an another two intersecting planes NOT parallel, the base and bed, will form two lines on each side as they intersect the sides and create an angle at a point where they meet on each of those parallel planes. Join those two points with a line and you have the throat.

Cheers,
Peter