>This very venerable old Spiers came in the mail today from an extraordinarily honest and generous seller and was largely made possible by an audience that apparently was asleep 4 days ago when the auction closed.
The price was only $138, even though I was ostensibly bidding against everyone in the world at the time. I have more than one just like it that I purchased for more than $300 not that many years ago.
I saw in the seller's pictures a great plane. I think everyone else who looked (in email the seller said 100 with 20+ and me who stayed to "watch") presumably saw flaws, or at least imagined them, or just didn't care about Spiers or infills. The plane I have on my desk right now is gorgeous and functional; it is so much better than in the pictures cosmetically. Everything that matters was as I expected.
How could this kind of bargain be? The fashion and lust for infills has passed I guess. And, some sellers may actually extend themselves too far in "honest" disclosure of wrinkles, pimples and moles. I don't know.
The only comment during the auction from one shopper was about the mouth seeming too wide. Having played with many of these planes, I didn't see that as much of an issue here. I did check when I opened the box. The iron was up in the mouth and the photo angle heightened the effect. After moving the iron to cutting position, I think the mouth is fine. I'm not a fine mouth disciple any more anyway. Even if it was gaping, I know how to shim or order a thicker iron.
In the end it's no museum piece nor is it by any means a rare or collectors piece. It's for a person that wants to try one out for awhile, or for an addict like me.
I'm sure those who are more contemporary or more experienced than me will point out the flaws in this Spiers and the errors of my thinking, but I thought it was a hellofa deal. Looks like now may be the time for anyone wanting to try out an old time infill on the cheap, for better or for worse, to stay awake.
The quality is baked in the cake--never left it. Are these the ones that Spiers had to mark as 'dovetailed', so that people would believe it? Looks like it's ready to go back to work as soon as you sharpen the blade. Bob, when you acquire these infills, do you ordinarily just sharpen them up and use them, or do you detail the blade, chipbreaker, sole, etc?
I'm curious whether there are noticeable differences between Norris and Spiers planes from the same time periods. Do you prefer Spiers in general, or did this particular one speak to you?
>Thanks for the questions Wiley. I know you know the answers and that the questions are meant to possibly benefit those new to this disease who may be thinking of perhaps getting their first old-time infill smoother.
"...do you ordinarily just sharpen them up and use them, or do you detail the blade, chipbreaker, sole, etc?"
The first thing I'll do will be to just set the blade, which looks to have been recently sharpened, and then plane away for awhile on a piece of mahogany or cherry. Nothing taxing. It's interesting to me that unless something is terribly wrong, it takes 10 or 20 strokes for the plane to wake up and wiggle it's things into place. If it's then not up to standards, I'll go through the R.J. Whelan steps to tuning a plane, modified for an infill smoother.
I don't spend the time I used to in trying to perfect every little thing according to my various theories of the moment and various laws of passed down wisdom from books and such. I leave the sole alone unless it's concave at the mouth (I could get very long-winded about this but it's all been said before...I'm a Forrest Addy-ite on this topic).
If it still doesn't work as sweetly as it looks, then it's time to dig in, figure out why and re-fit something. For example, often it's that the lever cap is coming down only on one side of the blade assembly, of the bed near the mouth is functioning like a convex fulcrum, or something structural like that. We think of these planes as rigid and rectangular in cross section. But some aren't -- presumably from falls, abuse or expansion/contraction/twisting of the wood infill. Each plane is pretty unique if you get intimate with it.
"I'm curious whether there are noticeable differences between Norris and Spiers planes from the same time periods. Do you prefer Spiers in general, or did this particular one speak to you?"
I have a few early Norris infills, quite a few Spiers, some very nice Mathiesons, and several Prestons. Except for the various distinguishing marks like makers' marks, the profile on the lever screw head, and so forth, they are basically the same. This is no great surprise since I read that in the day there was a lot of trading, selling and interchanging of some components among these and other makers, as well as components for "craftsman" made copies. Maybe a bit like the 'made in various places in China but assembled in the USA" of today.
The early Norris's command a higher price,which is entirely fashion and cache in my opinion (late-model Norris's are a different species). Next, in price, comes Mathieson. Then, the relatively ubiquitous Spiers, which are perhaps underpriced simply because they've been used more and often show it, and they are available in greater numbers. The sleepers are the Preston infill smoothers, which look just like the rest, but feel different, better, in the tote. Looking at prices of the past 5 years or so, I conclude I'm not the only one to think this. I've gotten bargain Norris's, Mathieson's and Spiers' by being alert and patient. But I've had to pay quite well for the few Prestons. It's subtle and individual. You'd have to have a bunch of them to grab and hold in your hand, or use a little, but it's likely you'd find they all "feel" different and one would be your favorite. It might be a virgin early Norris or it might be a slutty Spiers -- which is kind of the fun of it. But it's not all that much better really than a $9.99 Ebay Bailey if you can tune and sharpen. There's an extraordinary amount of hype, status and elitism in hand tool talk I think. But, much cheaper than defining oneself with automobiles say. Looking back, I'd say my infill sickness was mostly about private yearning and capture far more than necessity...of course, like any addiction.
I don't own and have never tried any of the high class infills of modern master craftsmen such as Sauer & Steiner or Holtey, so my perspective is limited & parochial.
Anyway, he's the point I wanted to illustrate about one kind of problem. This is a British craftsman-made cast iron infill panel plane seemingly only needing cosmetic bun work. But with a blade in it, the plane is a disaster. Look down the throat in the second picture and you see why. It's on my to-do shelf.
The reason I asked the questions is because of your particular expertise. I have seen examples of yours where you took plane rehab far beyond the fettling that I do, and it is an interesting subject. We're in tough economic times and there are plenty of people on this forum who would like to get insight into how you can acquire a plane that is of fundamental high quality, high quality that was in it the day it was made, for not too much money--and bring it back to its original standard of engineering.
Like for example, on that craftsman-made plane you showed. What will you do with it? I see bedding that is out of flat and true. Can't tell if the wood has moved, or if there is a throat plate that is out of whack. Are you going to reach down the throat of that plane with a file or float and begin relevelling it?
So yeah, I'm trying to draw out examples of how you've put your expertise to work. Plane fettling and rehab is not an esoteric topic for folks who want to pursue a hand tool hobby in depth, but who necessarily have to be worried about how much money they spend.
>Wiley, I'm convinced I've pick up a case of fronto-temporal dementia the last few years: impulsivity, prickliness, inability to censor oneself socially, rants & diatribes, and lots of mistakes.
I showed pics of 2 different planes as if they were 2 views of the same plane. It's this kind of public error, speaking too soon or at all, that confirms I am a careless moron who needs a full time editor and a separate attendant. I should not be listened to much of the time.
The plane with the problem lever cap to bed alignment is associated with the little cast iron smoother below, not that big ugly cast panel plane. Both, I think, were in the $100 range at one time because of their equally pitiful appearance. The smoother is a formerly somewhat cute little cast "craftsman" infill which has an extremely inept and trashy handle/tote repair. I bought it to "mess" with, but haven't yet.
This weekend I'll try to spend some time figuring out how much I want to do with it and perhaps make some show and tell pics, I guess. Provided I'm not getting a brain MRI this weekend. I doubt the alignment issue will be improved by working on the bed. Bob
>Bed may not be flat, but lever cap is also way out of parallel with the bed, and will pinch on one side... I have a Mathieson with similar issues. Major drag.
>Rather than annotate the pictures one by one ad nauseum, I'll tell you the bottom line and then you can scan the pictures if you like. Most are self-evident.
Before doing anything, I tried the plane as is; I hadn't handled it for a few years. Predictably, when you just get the blade out of the mouth slightly enough to just bite the wood for the lightest whispy shaving, since the blade is unsupported, blam, it dives, ready to tear out the wood and produce pain in your wrist. I used mahogany and the blade was sharp and I knew what was going to happen and thus took it easy, saved my writs, and got a couple of big thick cigar butt-like shavings. In my experience, getting no shavings or big thick ones means the blade is inadequately support. But everyone knows that.
I checked the sole. It's flat. The mouth is fine, but not very expertly put into the casting. I easily knocked out the lever cap shaft (which from the striations shown later seems to have been a cut-down nail) and removed the cap. The cap bed is flat enough. The infill bed, which looks bad off in the photos, actually was fine in the ways that matter...for me anyway. The flanks are clumsily filed and aren't flat. I spent time measuring the location of relevant holes against reference lines and surfaces of the plane. I can't imagine how somebody could locate them in so far off. The lever cap itself had been obviously cut down originally by a fellow with little sense of symmetry, or perhaps a widower, late at night, while nursing single Malt. My guess is the whole assembly was clamped to together and everything was drilled at once with a drill press in one operation. Nothing is actually square or in the right place.
Originally, I thought about tapping and plugging the brass holes and the cast iron holes with screws and Locktite, and then arduously starting from scratch using heavy duty brain power and anal-retentive attention to precision setups in order to equal Wiley's build-up for this performance.
Instead, I thought about it more, took a 90 minute nap and after watching a football game, I just filed down the flanks of the lever cap to allow some freedom of movement. I also used a 7/32" chain-saw file to turn the relevant 7/32" lever cap hole into an elipse, allowing the "low shoulder" to rise when the screw was tightened. Over vice versus. Whatever. That is, I judiciously put more "slop" into the "craftsmanship".
This took all of 5 minutes and solved the problem perfectly. I rechecked the fit of the cap on the blade and the blade on the bed. Both disallowed passage of a paper strip for the first time in decades and decades. I put the plane back to work on the mahogany scrap piece. It no longer dives. Works fine. More or less.
The closed handle, which no doubt replaces an earlier open tote, that was likely broken when the plane was thrown at a dog or cat, is very gross and seems to me to be an old saw handle made of soft, light fruit wood. It needs replacing. I found some practice infill totes from a couple years ago that I could finish up and fit. But, alas, I ran out of motivation for the day. Less is more, once again.
James, you figured it all out from the blurry picture in the other post. How'd you go about fixing the Mathieson?
>I've come across this problem before and depending on the apparent cause messed around with various "fixes". But it raises another issue.
Over the years I've noticed three kinds of reported outcome with buying a British infill the first time: 1) "Wow!", 2) "What's the big deal?" and 3) "What a piece of crap."
Given what everyone knows about the outcome of seasonally recurring expansion-contraction cycles that the infill timber experiences, the closeness of original wood-metal infill "fit", the thin body sides, and the metal-dovetail joinery, it shouldn't be a surprise these 100 year old objects loosen, distort, twist a little and flop over.
Whether you infill cast iron shells or build peened dovetail shells, you presumably get one or another set of liabilities over time. Thus, the prospect of buying an old infill off the shelf and using it turn-key is a bit of a crap shoot. I suspect there are lots and lots of these venerable old British citizens out there just sitting around on dusty shelves waiting for someone to bring them alive again.
Good luck with your tear-down and retro-fit, James. Don't forget to share the pic's. Regards, Bob
>Thanks for the thread Bob. I always find these restorations interesting - there is usually a vaste amount of problem solving mixed in with historical research, then followed by the application of handskills. A good mix.
A few years ago I bought a real clunker of an infill. At the time I thought it was a shop made copy of a Spier. The infill was shot and I needed to pull it apart. So began a path of discovery that it was a Spier, and what the missing parts looked like. I documented this on my website (link below).
Since most of the parts were missing - in fact all that remained was the shell and levercap (but not the screw) - I decided to have a little fun and express a creative urge.
This is how the plane started out ..
I had the choice of staying with what was probably a coffin design, but was challenged to turn it into a toted smoother. This was an interesting adventure! Part of the fun was adding some bling.
I am now at the stage where I am toying with un-blinging the plane - replacing the brass screws with steel, and shortening the horn on the tote.
The plane works pretty well. I'd say about the equivalent of a LN common pitch #4.
>It`s always enlightening to see someone else`s approach to the solution of a many faceted problem.
I know it`s a big help to me to see the mental progression of establishing a proper baseline and thinking thru more than one approach before settling on the best solution.To see this told in common sense language I can understand and to also have clear pics to relate to is a real treat.
I would suggest that threads like this be archived in the articles section so folks like me(who aspire to someday owning an infill)can more easily find them when the time comes.
