David Weaver
...but there's too much in my talk for it to be clear.

I think a 40 year worker could use my try plane without wearing it out. Could two in a row? I don't know. They would go through several irons. as to how much planing that is for someone? I don't know - there are not individuals who can do the act of planing and sawing (vs. moving up and getting younger bodies) for 40 years.

I don't read historical texts, so I have no idea how they address this - I recall seeing a video segment in africa where they are still building house trim/doors/etc by hand because there is no other option. They are talking to some of the carpenters who mention that by the time they are in their late 30s, they are spent and are looking for other career options. They were working in smaller groups and it appeared that in that case, it was more like freelance (So someone in their 30s didn't move past doing the physical work).

All that said, I would expect the double iron planes to last longer than single iron planes. They can plane a larger volume of wood for the same amount of iron consumed (that's a fact based on my use of a high quality early single iron jointer and the need for it to be sharpened more often and inability to do work as heavily as a double iron plane), and the smoothers are more dependent on the fitting and condition of the mouth vs. a double iron smoother.

I'm sure they wore out planes, but the context is important now - for Steve, the idea that he could make a beech smoother and someone may wear it out without abusing it is a chance pretty close to zero.

The other interesting point larry used to try to make is that single iron planes (it's in writing in the archives here) were more common than we think but they were "better" and therefore got "used up". That's borderline comedy material, but I'm not sure that larry ever hand dimensioned anything bigger than a plane.

The long and short of that is, I'm sure people wore out planes. I don't know what proportion of that was accelerated by misuse, and at this point in history, a new beginner may read that and think it's a concern (that the wood plane they're buying is a consumable), and it definitely is not.