Worlds Longest Plane ??

Re: Worlds Longest Plane ??

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>You don't push planes like that Instead, they are stationary and the wood travels. Also, if it was for a brewery, the barrels would be huge, much larger than a regular barrel.

Pam

Cooper's jointer

Andrew F in Australia

>Paul,

It's a jointer for a cooperage, by the sound of it.

The plane was used upside-down at an angle of approx 20 degrees to horizontal and stationary. The wood was pushed downward over the blade.

CHeers,

Andrew

I remember seeing...

Steve Kubien

>a picture somewhere of a pair of coopers planes being held up by a friend of Todd Hughes. If anyone has is it or a link, post it. For those who have never seen these planes before, they are really neat.

Steve Kubien

remove the _9 to email

Re: Worlds Longest Plane ??

Ben Franklin

>Saw one that was being used by a cooper at Colonial Williamsburg (Virginia, USA). I should have measured the length, too. It was, as described in other responses, positioned "bottom" up, at an angle, with one end on the ground. It was 5 or 6 feet long. It was being used at the time to make buckets to hold about a gallon, or so. He was using it on pieces of wood that may have been a little over 12" long to form the sides of the bucket by smoothing and truing up the mating surfaces.

Now I wish I'd paid more attention to the exact layout.

Make your own

Bill Ward

>One of my friends built a "cradle" for his regular Stanley #7 or #8 that forms a 6 ft long bed. One end is supported by inverted V-legs, the other rests on the ground. This setup is used just like the coopers plane described by others, above.

Re: Worlds Longest Plane ??

Ben Knebel

>Firstly there are planes or at least were that were longer than the plane you describe--as much as 8 feet.

In addition to being used for cooperage they were also used for floors---particularly ballroom and dining room floors for the final truing and flattening of same. When used for floors they were pushed and/or pulled.

Barrels for beer could be as much as 18 feet high and 12 feet in diameter---wouldn't surprise me if there were even bigger ones.

Btw---I've had a 6 1/2 foot plane in my hands.

Regards

Ben

Re: Jr Made one! *LINK*

Rob in Kansas

>Jr Strasil made one from scratch (at least I think it was from scratch). I don't know if a picture of it is included on Roger Nixon's web site, but check the forum gallery near the botton


http://www.traditionaltools.us

Re: Jr Made one!

Roger Nixon

>Did you get a chance to try it out, Rob? I tried it and did a horrible job :). Jr. made it look easy.

I've attached a pic of it.

Re: Worlds Longest Plane ??

Todd Hughes

>Doesn't sound like a coopers plane since it has a tradtional handle.I have a couple of cooper planes and they as well as the others I have seen don't have a handle since they are not held but most do have a slot or hole toward the toe where they go into a suport which holds the plane up at an angle so you can slide the barrel staves down the sole to plane them.I would rate them as being uncommon but not rare.The other week i saw one for sale in a DC flea market that was marked if I remember right Chapin, was nice but at $65 I thought overpriced so I passed on it. Was tempted to offer $50 but was afraid they would take it.

Wish I could remember what i did with the disk that had the photo of the Miss Jazz holding the two big planes, was kind of neat.......Todd

Re: Worlds Longest Plane ??

Ernie Miller Topeka

>I remember that picture NICE PAIR and I'm not talking about the planes

Re: Worlds Longest Plane ??

William R. Duffield on the Cohansey

>"kind of neat" is a bit of an understatement, don't you think? I don't think anyone was interested in doing a type study or any statistical analysis on the length, width or breadth, eventual ebay sale price, provenance, etc., of the cooper's planes you scored that day.

As far as I'm concerned, that was the all time "Gloateus Maximus" galoot old tool posting.