Hey, Rob! Shoulder Planes?????
William Duffield, on the Cohansey
>After using your bullnose shoulder plane for a while, I got a really crazy idea. I really like the ease with which it converts from bullnose to chisel plane and back again. I've probably said that here before. But while enjoying the comfortable grip even with the nose removed, I got to thinking about the inherent limitations in the short support in front of the blade, and then I slipped the nose off and on again a couple more times, and looked at the machining between the two pieces.
There are probably lots of reasons this doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I figured I should at least ask, just in case you guys hadn't thought of it.
Why not one body, one blade, one Norris adjuster, and two interchangeable noses, something like this?
With all those gloatable metalworking tools you guys have to play with, machining two matching noses to fit one body shouldn't be impossible, should it? My fear is that the brass knob and the mating surfaces wouldn't be substantial enough to keep the nose from flexing unacceptably. But, I figure it's got to cost less than a bullnose plane and a medium shoulder plane, and it would be a bit wider, easily filling a perceived gap in your lineup of shoulder planes. That may be a good thing, or it may be a bad thing. It would certainly make the guys making the 3-in-1 at Clifton sit up and take note.
If you build it, I'd be glad to test it for you, and I promise I wouldn't complain that it's ugly :^)
In case anyone has any doubts, the "plane" in the image, or anything similar, does not exist, as far as I know. It is not a Loxahatchee Toolworks prototype. It is not a Lee Valley prototype. It is just a sloppy photomanipulation of a scan of my LV bullnose plane.