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Kidney or Keyhole Nostalgia Aside

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Kidney or Keyhole Nostalgia Aside

#1

Kidney or Keyhole Nostalgia Aside

David Charters, Durham NC

>Hi everyone, I was just working on getting an abused and rusty #5 into working order and started thinking about lever irons (is that the right name?). I have a couple kidney hole planes and a couple keyhole, and although I am a sucker for sweetheart era planes, I do find that it is hard to keep the lever iron as far forward as it can go, although it has not seemed to affect performance. I don't get that from the kidney hole planes. SO what do you all think? Is the kidney hole an improvement, or just an easy way to identify less collectible planes?

Re: Kidney or Keyhole Nostalgia Aside

#2

Re: Kidney or Keyhole Nostalgia Aside

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>That's why Stanley did it - it worked better. Previously, they mada and bought many developments that made their planes better, or cheaper to produce, or both. However, soon after they made the kidney discovery, things began to go very, very wrong in New Britain, CT. But, I think what went wrongest was the electric meter on the 2x4 on all the construction sites. Thereafter, the only way the Bailey design could compete against all the other innovations, was by decreasing manufacturing costs, often by decreasing quality control and by moving manufacturing to places with cheaper, less caring labor. You can still find lots of good planes with kidney shaped lever caps, but you will also find a lot more dogs. I have some of each - for example, my #3 works very, very well (even better than my 3PD #4C), while my #5 could only be praised for its ballistic properties.

Blue paint works better than asphaltum, too, but...

Re: Kidney or Keyhole Nostalgia Aside

#3

I've never had much luck...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>With planes that have the kidney shaped lever caps. I've got a totally fetted type 17 4-1/2 that yealds O.K. results on tame grained wood, and a NO. 7 that like Sr. William says "could only be praised for its ballistic properties".

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