Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Tell us how you REALLY feel, Cecil...
Rich Glisson (Durham, NC)
>"Perhaps others, like this author, who has a complete collection of Stanley iron smooth planes--all 21 of them-- never use them. I find them without soul, impersonal, cold, hard pushing, and almost always rusty. Enough said; let us go on with the wooden plane and its pleasurable use and construction."
---Cecil Pierce, in FIFTY YEARS A PLANEMAKER AND USER, Monmouth Press, 1992
making planes
Ralph Johnson
>hi
I found i like his book the best on making planes. Has anyone made a plane like in his book. If you have i would like to here what you thought of it.
It is on my list of tools i would like to try to make someday.
thanks
Ralph Johnson
Re: making planes
Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX
>A brief description of how he does it would be useful? For example, does he mortise a whole block or does he glue up 4 (or more) pieces?
Pam
Another pithy excerpt...
Rich Glisson (Durham, NC)
>Cecil Pierce was quite the interesting and opinionated guy. In his book he describes viewing a video on making Krenov-style planes and his comment was:
"It turned out he was not going to need any hand tools, for the plane was going to be made of three pieces of wood, all precisely machined, then dowelled and glued together. I had gone through and abandoned that phase half a lifetime ago".
Needless to say, he chiseled his out of solid blocks of wood, Sometimes they incorporated an integral handle, and other times he added a handle as a separate piece.
Re: Another pithy excerpt...
Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX
>I can't figure how a plane could be made of three pieces, unless it's a bull nose. I agree with Cecil, the Krenov style planes are not as good as the mortised-from-a-block style.
Ralph, I've made a couple of Japanese planes by mortising the mouth, they are wonderful.
Pam
he does mortise out of a solid block, but....
John Truxell-Svenson (jvs)
>...not with a traditional wedge/abutment holding system. His planes hold and adjust the iron like non-adjuster infills, with a screw-tensioned cap over the cap iron with taps to move the iron. Interesting read; as much life story and opinions on a whole bunch of things as it is a how-to on one narrow form of bench plane construction.
/jvs
haven't made one of the design he uses, but...
John Truxell-Svenson (jvs)
>...the book is certainly a good read. For planemaking, Whelan's "Making Traditional Wooden Planes" is a much more comprehensive treatment of different types (as opposed to Pierce' and Finck's narrow focus on two different styles of bench planes), and his "The Wooden Plane: Its History, Form & Function" goes into even more types/styles of planemaking, but without the step-by-step instruction of the first book.
The traditional wedge/abutment bench plane is only slightly more complicated to make than Pierce' screw cap planes. Not sure if the latter has any real advantage, and the former only requires woodworking skills and tools instead of those and some metalworking, too.
/jvs
Re: Tell us how you REALLY feel, Cecil...
Jeff Schmidt (KY)
>Yet look at what he is holding in the picture. It ain't no woodie. :-p
The Pierce approach to WWing and life.
Bob Hackett
>Cecil has always tinkering with things with an eye for how to do things better.He says his iron planes saw little of no use but in reality he had many iron planes that he had bought at local yard sales and flea markets,almost all had been modified in one way or another.There was no such thing as a bad tool to him,only potential to be better.
Cecil prefered to make his planes from one piece of wood,tote included.He would add a tote if the wood for the body wasn`t large enough to make it in one piece.He also prefered closed totes to open.He held the iron in his planes the way he did because he felt it was the best way,doing the metalwork was no big thing to him as he was trained as a machinist and had a small but extensive machine shop in his basement.His woodworking shop took up about half of the house.
If there was anything Cecil hadn`t done related to WWing it was because he hadn`t thought to try it.This pretty well held true for metalwork too.While some may have felt he was opinionated,those of us who knew him saw him as a man who spoke from experience in a straightforward way about what worked and how to fix what didn`t.He gave the benefit of his experience freely to anyone who knocked on his door.He was a gracious host,a patient teacher and a true friend.The only regret I have about having him as a mentor was that our time(his,mine and my son`s)was too short.I posted a story about my son Joe`s first meeting with Cecil on Badger Pond.I`ll see if I can find it,it gives a different side than reading his books.Cecil was far different in person than he was in print.
Mainely,Bob
Actually, it is...
Rich Glisson (Durham, NC)
>...here's a close-up.
Notice the lack of fingers...
Rich Glisson (Durham, NC)
>...on his left hand. Jointer accident.
Re: Tell us how you REALLY feel, Cecil...
Tom in Tipp
>My first introduction to Mr. Pierce was on 'Sunday Morning', a CBS news program. They had an interview with him and discussed his time as a tool user/maker. Very interesting and motivating. In the program he walked out to his fire wood pile to get stock for his next plane. I don't know if that episode is still available, but it may be worth a look.
I had it taped for my personal use, but one of my kids taped an episode of 'Friends' over it. Rats!
Tom
Cecil
todd stock
>I corresponded with Cecil a bit before his death, and was even offered a loaner plane to model my own after - regret not taking him up on it. Interesting guy and very generous with his time. I'm still disappointed that his primary exposure to the community was with the hacksaw dovetail article in AWW (cut close, then pare - pretty wacky), versus his planes or furniture.
Years ago I sold what I thought was my second copy of '50 Years...' - left one of his letters in it and miss it to this day.
Also See John Gardner As Well
todd stock
>Don't forget John Gardner's treatment of boatbuilding planes (and planemaking) - originally in 'More Building Classic Small Craft...' now included in Building Classic Small Craft : Complete Plans and Instructions for 47 Boats, which includes Vol 1 and 2. Good info on razee and other planes.
Gardner also covers the 'politics' of taking care of someone with talent. Turns out that the entire yard crew would cover for the guy that could turn out just the right plane for that certain job. The choicest blocks of lignum and other exotics were likely to end up in the yard crew's planes rather than as components of the running rigging.
Oops...
Jeff Schmidt (KY)
>I stand corrected. Thanks for the closeup. Interesting hybrid.