plane totes

top view 

Adam Cherubini

>

Nice

Christopher Schwarz

>But they would be even better if they had an acanthus leaf on the toe...

And how French of you! Next you're going to post about how you prefer Abbaye de Vaucelles Blonde over Boddington's.

cms

The illo is from Diderot's L'Encyclopedie.

Re: plane totes

David Hammond, in Powder Springs GA

>Very intriguing Adam! I saw your post about these handles and was hoping for an explanation, because I couldn't quite picture what you were talking about. I've heard you say a lot about downward pressure in hand planing - how do these handles work for this? Becuase is looks as if your hand is either all the way on top of the handle, which gives you little forward pressure - and then if you drop back you don't have the downward pressure, just forward. Are you just holding it inbetween? I'd appreciate any thoughts you've got on technique, because I'm mostly just winging it in my shop with the few hand tools I've got.

I did recently complete my bench plane bare neccesicty collection: a #4 Stanley 'cause it was free, for my smoother, a 16" wooden Jack, 22" wooden Fore, a 28" wooden try, and a #5 I'm in process of turnign into a scrub. I sharpened them the other night; man, what you can do with sharp, curved irons!

Thanks.

David

Curious, it didn't take my illo

Christopher Schwarz

>It showed on the preview. Hmmm.

Re: plane totes

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Nice lines, almost precious. Where'd you get those? Who made them?

Pam

Re: plane totes

GolfSteve in Calgary

>Very nice, Adam. I like the front horn and the carved volute on the wedge, but the rear tote doesn't look quite right to me.

Nice looking planes overall.

The story of these planes (long)

Adam Cherubini, NJ

>GOAL

The goal here was to create accurate, or at least representative tools. It wasn't my intention to challenge preconceived notions or develop the design. I stuck as close to the images I had as possible.

DESIGN

In the pictures I had, the totes looked small. Some look almost like door handles,... very low to the plane. I sized my copies to allow a three finger grip similar to a 19th century closed or ring-type horned tote typically found on try planes, but also tried to keep to the images as best as I could.

CONSTRUCTION

I bought the planes on ebay. I sought the cheapest wooden planes I could find. As I recall, I bought 5 planes in one auction for about $20. There were three try planes, and two jacks. They were all in deplorable shape. One try plane was badly worn, possibly left outside or in a creek or something. All of the totes were broken, one was missing, one iron was missing, one was unsalvagable, etc.

Instead of cleaning these planes, I simply planed the bodies down. I needed planes that looked relatively new in 1700, not planes with 100 years of patina.

The try planes needed mouth patches. I made replacement totes out of curled beech I rejected when I built my workbench. The one plane that was left in a creek became the quarter sawn stock I needed for new wedges. All the wedges were replaced for comestic reasons and because the cap irons were abandoned.

Letting in the tote and wedges was not difficult. Shaping the handles was only time consuming. A coarse 12" turning saw was very helpful.

I sometimes think I could have made these planes from scratch in the time it took me to ressurect and modify old planes. But this is probably wrong. As it is, I got all the wood with the difficult to make throat geometry for $8/plane or so including shipping.

FUNCTION

In use, we found the front horns to be a nice place to hook your thumb. The little snail makes it easy to lift the toe. We universally found the totes comfortable and our hands migrated up the tote to the upper right hand corner. The overall sensation is one of absolute control including control over downforce which helps control the motion of the board under the plane. (keep in mind the board is rarely restrained- rather, its just pushed against a single toothed iron planing stop)

CONCLUSION:

This experience challenged my notions of plane use/grip, workpiece restraint, and workbench height requirements.

Having multiple ways to grip a plane seems helfpul, especially when planing for a long period of time or working with difficult woods.

I think downforce has been overlooked by modern planes and workbenches. Having a light weight plane with handles that let you produce the downforce you need seems a nice advantage. A lower than usual workbench allows you to get more of your upper body mass over the work piece, increasing the amount of downforce you can produce. Instead of the widely anticipated back pain associated with low benches, we found our low benches comfortable for this sort of work and we found ourselves capable of producing the force needed to wrestle our stock.

I've always been wary of benches without "good" holding capabilities. When I built my workbench, I was convinced the tail vise was an essential and superior design. The "English method" of holding (basically pushing against a single planing stop) seemed preposterous to me.

At first try, the board spins about the bench top uncontrollably, cleaning off chisels, and gauges as it passes. It very well could be that the "English Method" requires downforce and low benches.

Because of the way these planes simplify workbench design and offer some (however arguable) advantages or alternatives to conventional or modern designs, I think they are worthy of experimentation.

Adam

See post at the top;-)

Dan Donaldson

>

OK, I'll try again

Christopher Schwarz

>This is from Diderot and shows a plane similar (and yet a bit different) to the ones Adam has made.

Mozilla got me.

Re: The story of these planes (long)

David Hammond, in Powder Springs GA

>Great post Adam, thanks so much for the explanations and observations.

David

Re: In use?

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>Can I assume these were tested by yourself and Sir Dave the Silent at Pennsbury?

Re: The story of these planes (long)

paul womack

>...in the pictures I had,...

What were your references?

BugBear

Re: book

paul womack

>Have you seen this, Adam? It was discussed recently on Oldtools.

German history of planes

oldtools thread discussing ditto

BugBear

Re: Diderot's plane

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>According to the illustration Chris posted from Diderot, your point of downward force is proved, at least for the French.

Pam

How about going back even further...

Mark Harrison -- in Sydney, Australia

>I've wondered what the Roman planes would have been like with not so much as a tote as handle let into the body of the plane behind the blade.

I'm told these can still be found (not original Roman, of course, but the same style) in Switzerland. I guess they may turn up from time to time in the Swiss equivalent of garage sales. Would be interesting to hear from our European colleagues here.

Re: high angle handles...

paul womack

>I found these whilst surfing. They imply a low bench, as per Adam's idea.

planes

BugBear

Thanks Chris

Adam Cherubini, NJ

>Yeah this is the sort of door handle tote I was referring to. You can also see the long sweeping curve of the top of the plane, and the way the snail/knob overhangs the horn in the front.

That may well be a very long plane. Just scaling from the picture, if the body were 2-1/2" high at its tallest (older planes seem to be less tall than the common 19th century English 3" or so), that plane would be 30" long.

Its an interesting design. Thanks for the picture, Chris.

Adam

Re: In use?

Adam Cherubini, NJ

>Dave pushed these a bit, but I was thinking foremost of Gene. Gene planed a whole ton of oak and I watched him out of the corner of my eye.

You know...Athletes video tape themselves to improve their technique by seeing what they are really doing. I write about what I think I'm doing, but I don't really know for sure. I guess that's true of all of us.

That's why going to Pennsbury or Williamsburg (not that they belong in the same sentence) or taking a class or just getting together with comparable woodworkers is really helpful.

I've long suspected my notion of what I do is different from what I actually do.

In this case, I watched Gene.

Adam

Good question

Adam Cherubini, NJ

>Bug-

I don't recall specifically. See there are only a few primary sources, (Roubo, Felibien, Moxon, Diderot) and then everybody else reproduced these images. I think I used a combination of sources including:

"The History of Woodworking Tools" Goodman

"Woodworking tools from 16xx to 18xx" (can't remember the title) by Peter C Welsh

"The Fascinating World of Early tools and Trades:excerpts from "The Chronicle"" (variouis authors published by EAIA)

And of course Moxon and Mercer.

Sorry if I fudged some of the titles a bit. I recall relying on Goodman a fair bit.

I've seen "4 centuries of Dutch planes" but not the German book. My interest is really more in English or Anglo american traditions, not continental european stuff. These French planes were depicted by Moxon, so that opened to door for me. Goodman talks about the introduction of the ring like handle found on early English saws and planes, but that apparently came very near or after 1700 (Pennsbury's official date of interpretation).

More than anything, my job is to interpret and I didn't want to discuss 1700 woodworking with a 19th century plane in my hand. We're not using modern saws either. I can document this plane at this time, but that doesn't mean there weren't other shapes/designs. There's a long er story there, but you'll have to buy me a pint to hear it.

Adam

Re: high angle handles...

Matti Kuikka

>When I was in school in Finland in the late fifties we used planes like these as truing/jointing planes. The bodies were made of birch (if my recollection is right) which is about the only common hardwood suitable here. They definitely din't have any totes in front of the blade and had to be held firmly on the wood with downward pressure of the left hand and lifted at the end of the stroke.

The benches felt a bit high for a 10+years old shortish boy though they were probably not meant for adults.

Matti Kuikka

Re: Finnish museum exhibit 

Matti Kuikka

>

Re: Good question

Todd Hughes

>These planes look more continental ,[French] to me then English , not even the very early english planes like you see from the Mary Rose looked quite like these.....Kind of neat I guess though I like the more tradtional shape of 18th century American and English planes totes and think you could have probably used them and been correct...hey better pull that strike button off that one!....Todd