Unfinished business: Deconstructing a plane construction

An interesting handled smooth plane surfaced at a local flea market this past summer. The author passed it by, but fellow EAIA member Bob Bernard realized what an instructive object it was. This plane was only partially manufactured, a work in progress, so from it we can learn a good deal about how tools of this sort were actually made (Figure 1). A possible reason for its abandonment in mid-manufacture is a large flake along one side of the top of the tote. The flake was glued back into place, but the finished plane would not have been marketable. One wonders why it survived at all.

The wood is beech with the growth rings inclined about thirty degrees from the sole. The sole clearly shows the regularly spaced, parallel tool marks of a powered rotary planer. It is rougher than on a finished plane. The front of the block was cut to length with a circular saw, about twelve inches in diameter. The centers of the saw marks are directly above the block, thus the blade came down from above.

The shaping of the curved sides of the body is a little puzzling. In strongly oblique lighting, the left side shows a series of marks, slanted slightly forward and nearly equally spaced at about three-eighths of an inch. This is the sort of pattern one might expect from a bandsaw, with the slant resulting from the forward feed of the block. Superimposed are some curved fine scratches and ridges, having a fairly large radius of curvature, perhaps from a sanding disk. The right side of the body, however, shows an irregular pattern of small facets, as though it had been shaped, or at least finished with a hand plane. No "sander" marks are apparent. A subtle feature is that the sides are not perpendicular to the sole; the top of the plane is about three-sixteenths of an inch narrower than the sole, and the plane has a slight tilt to the right. All of the marks on the sides are very faint.

The profile of the tote and the finger hole were sawn roughly to shape. The saw marks are parallel, indicating a powered saw, and these cuts must have been made prior to the shaping of the sides of the body, since they are at right angles to the center line of the plane. The curved areas at the top and bottom of the finger hole were sanded with a rotary cylindrical sander about three-quarters of an inch in diameter. The curve at the top of the back of the tote was also sanded. No other finishing work was done.

The primary cuts to narrow the width of the tote were made with a twelve-inch diameter circular saw, the marks of which are visible in the illustration. The bottom corners where the saw didn't reach appear to have been cut with a chisel, as were the little coves where the front of the tote joins the top of the body There are no tool marks to indicate how the top of the block in front of the tote was cut down to its final height.

The opening in the body of the plane was cut with a combination of rotary cutters, saws, and chisels (Figure 2). The blade bed was cut with a two-and-three-- sixteenths-inch diameter cutter, down the slope a distance of about three inches. This cutter seems to have been about three-eighths of an inch thick. The same, or a similar, cutter was used to cut the front of the blade/wedge pocket, where the front of the wedge would sit. This cut, of course, is at a slightly steeper angle and is not quite as deep. The sides of the cavity show chisel marks where the waste was removed. A rotary cutter was also used to cut the blade opening in the sole and the lower part of the blade bed. This cut just barely meets the cut from the top, and is aligned with it to about a thirty-second of an inch. A rotary cutter was also used to make the groove for the cap screw.

The front of the cavity was cut with a one-and-- three-quarter-inch cutter to a depth of seven-eighths of an inch, with chisel marks below that point. There is a saw cut on each side of the opening and much of the waste has been crudely chiseled away. The bottom of the throat where the blade and wedge would go was never completed (Figure 3).

It is possible to deduce the probable sequence of operations in making the opening in the body of the plane. Since to clear the shafts of the cutters for the plane bed, the center of the opening had to exist, the cut at the front and a second cut in the blade/wedge opening were probably made first. The material between was roughly chiseled out. This made room for the cutter shafts, so it would be possible to make the final cuts on the blade bed and wedge seat. A saw cut was made on each side from the throat to the top of the block to aid in waste removal. Saws, chisels and perhaps floats, could then have been used to complete the throat opening, although this last step was never finished.

This plane clearly involved some fairly sophisticated tooling, with rotary cutters that could be advanced into the work while maintaining the correct angles with respect to the block. Particularly impressive is the accuracy with which the blind cut of the throat through the sole met the cut for the plane bed coming from the top of the block.

It is unfortunate that there is no way to date or determine the maker of this plane, since there is, of course, no mark. Still, it is an interesting example of the use of power equipment combined with the traditional hand tools of the planemaker.

Author

Kenneth "Ted" Kinsey is professor emeritus of physics at the State University of New York at Geneseo. Since retiring he spends his time at the Genesee Country Village and Museums, where he is a wagonmaker and oxen teamster. He has also undertaken architectural research on the museum's two newest buildings: the Opera House and the Peter Campbell house. He wrote about a paint brush found in the Peter Campbell House in the September 2002 issue of The Chronicle.

Copyright Early American Industries Association Dec 2002
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