Largest plane I have ever seen .... *LINK*

A peanut

nealwhite46

>I've seen several over 6 feet (2 meters) long. They were used "upside down", propped up on one end on a saw horse and the stock - barrel staves - were moved against the blade. However, I think that's the largest one I've seen where the plane was intended to be moved against the stock. I'll bet the apprentice got to provide most of the "push" on that front handle.

What we need to do is...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>Build a large wooden rabbet...

Scott, Who watched The Holy Grail last night;^)

Re: Largest plane I have ever seen ....

Todd O. Cronkhite Maine Native in FL. Exile :~(

>Derek,

You live in Oz and yet you question "What was it used for"? this coming from the land of the Platypus and the 'Roo and a whole host of other critters? Wonky Bloke. ;~)

I bet it was/is a jointer.

Nice plane tho, wonder it's age.

A few years back on Badger Pond Todd H. posted a pic of two huge planes, which IIRC where coopers planes and where at least 6 foot long, and 18" wide. Real beauties.

i've got a poor photo-copy of a plane that size that was homemade, used a broad ax bit for the blade, had handles similiar to a hand-push cultivator and was pulled by a horse to square up logs. One man rode on it, and another man guided it with the handles. "the shavings" where 3/8" thick.

Re: Largest plane I have ever seen ....

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

>Yeah, I anticipated it was a jointer. I should have said, I wonder what it was used to joint? It is just too big to be used by one person, so it has to have had a specialised purpose.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: Largest plane I have ever seen ....

James Watriss

>The thing that I noticed, apart from the fact that the iron was bent, is the rear handle.

I have a 29" razee jointer, it's big, but not unwieldy. But it still has a standard tote. That plane, on the othre hand, has a handle that's inline with the plane... my guess is that it wasn't used on anything that was horizontal at the time.

It is a very cool plane, though. :)

Re: Largest plane I have ever seen ....

Mike Fitterling

>My bet is it was used on ships' decks. I've seen really large planes that were pulled across the decks by a winch, and I assume, with a man at the end guiding it. The probably passed a bowline around that cross stick in the font and hauled away. It does seem, however, that I remember those planes being much wider than that one.

Re: Largest plane I have ever seen ....

ernie miller

>Todd H posted a picture of a Nice Pair of coopers planes on Badger pond They were very distracting to look at but they were a nice pair both sets.

Re: Largest plane I have ever seen ....

Mark Harrison -- in Sydney, Australia

>I think it was Matti Kuikki (sorry if I have mis-spelled his name) who posted pics of a plane in use in Finland which had four guys hanging on with two handles each side plus a rope pulling the monster. I just can't find it at the moment. Hopefully somebody else will remember where to find it.

The pic show the guys planing a log or large beam, from memory.

I'd put it down to the "only in Finland" (I'm 1/4 Fin so I know what I'm talking about :-) category except it seems that every culture (including Japan) seems to have these monster "hand" planes!