small bedding area
ydb1md
>I imagine chip breakers rather than heavier irons were used for a couple of reasons. #1 being cost. A thick iron would have been harder to produce than a thin iron. If you slap two thin irons together (the blade and the chipbreaker) it's cheaper than one thick iron. And, when you wear out a thin iron, a replacement costs you less than a thick one. #2 thick irons take longer to sharpen. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't most users sharpen the entire bevel? I think the widespread use of microbevels is relatively recent development. I'm sure they existed but did the average woodworker use them? #3 I wonder if the average user back then had the same exacting standards for their planes that woodworkers do now -- most woodworkers now are perfectionists. Perfectionists back then would have had an infill smoother and not cared much about chatter in their fore or jointer planes. It would have been easier to clean up chatter marks with a scraper than obsess over the plane setup #5 Chatter has a lot to do with the bed area. The average Stanley (or other plane) didn't have a large bedding area. That meant that you had to find some ways to tune up your plane or deal with chatter. Most used planes don't come in a highly tuned state so you have to wonder.
Just a couple of thoughts that I had . . .
Dave