# 'Hutchens Patent' Mitre shoot board / plane



## toolmatt (12 Feb 2011)

Hi

I have this interesting old Hutchens Patent Mitre Shoot board / plane
I am wondering if anyone can help me with any information about it, its age etc. 

I can only find one link online about it, but nothing else. 


It is very heavy!

Thanks fo rlooking, any information would be a great help (and any idea of value?!)


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## adidat (12 Feb 2011)

thats a really nice item you have got there, any interesting personal history?

adidat


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## adidat (12 Feb 2011)

p.s. welcome along

adidat


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## matthewwh (12 Feb 2011)

I've done some digging and they were very poorly regarded - worthless in fact. Best you just pop it in the post to me and I'll give it a humane burial :wink: .

Just kidding!

Looks like a beautifully engineered piece of kit and I'll venture that with a nicely honed iron you could knock out an accurate mitred frame in minutes. No idea of the value but if it were to be made new you'd need to ask £500 odd to make it worth cracking a sweat over.


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## yetloh (13 Feb 2011)

Welcome to the forum. Don't know anything about ti but it looks like a lovely piece of kit.

Jim


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## AndyT (13 Feb 2011)

Hi Toolmatt and welcome. That's an impressive gloat for a first post!
Can you tell us a bit more? Are you a woodworker? Do you understand what this tool does, and why it's rare and desirable, or are you just a very lucky person who had this fall into his lap?


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## Alf (13 Feb 2011)

Welcome to the forum, Toolmatt.

This one bugged me because I could have sworn I'd seen it somewhere before, so I did some digging. Only links online I found was a NZ tool collector site (wonder which magazine it was in?), a classified ad from the local paper in Wellington, NZ from 1922 and an unanswered question on the Old Tools List - if no-one on there knew anything, we're in a spot of bother. So I dug amongst my own various references and the best I've come up with is in an article on picture framing from The Woodworker magazine of March 1928. Viz:




Accompanying text says


> For trimming the mitres of large gilt and composition frames the trade workshops use the special mitreing machine illustrated at Fig. 2. This consists of a large metal box-like frame which carries two cutting blades about 4 ins. in width, the blades being adjusted by the usual thumb-screw motion. This box plane travels in a grooved metal bed, and the power is transmitted from the hand lever to the plane by a rack and quadrant motion. Suitable adjustable angle fences are provided to give the required mitreing angles. This machine is (and has been) in general use by the trade gilders and frame makers for many years. It is unequalled for the production of gilt frames because it takes off the mitres a shaving so fine that there is no risking of shattering the gilt and composition edge.


As to value, I came up blank recently on the same question concerning a Roger's Patent Mitre Planer and that's a much better known model, so who knows?

Cheers, Alf


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## jimi43 (13 Feb 2011)

Welcome Matt and what a wonderful tool that is! I simply love these gizmos...great to tinker and play with let alone make mitres!

Be very careful before you consider any restoration work on it. Given the sparcity of information on it I would hazard a guess that it might astound you when you learn its value.

If you don't intend keeping it I would put it up on eBay with a big reserve and test the water...it could go for a few bob but more likely hundreds!

Nice start...tell us more about yourself.

Jim


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## bugbear (14 Feb 2011)

Alf":1s2zq4n1 said:


> Welcome to the forum, Toolmatt.
> 
> This one bugged me because I could have sworn I'd seen it somewhere before, so I did some digging. Only links online I found was a NZ tool collector site (wonder which magazine it was in?), a classified ad from the local paper in Wellington, NZ from 1922 and an unanswered question on the Old Tools List - if no-one on there knew anything, we're in a spot of bother. So I dug amongst my own various references and the best I've come up with is in an article on picture framing from The Woodworker magazine of March 1928. Viz:
> 
> ...



From memory, there was an article in woodworker in the late 1980's about a guy buying one from an antique shop, talking to someone who'd used it in anger, and being told to make sure he had also got the spare blades (which he went back for).

I'll check tonight.


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## bugbear (14 Feb 2011)

matthewwh":32s20j8r said:


> No idea of the value but if it were to be made new you'd need to ask £500 odd to make it worth cracking a sweat over.



Gotta be higher - you're looking at a #51 AND a #52.

BugBear


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## toolmatt (15 Feb 2011)

Thanks to everyone for all of the help, lots of interesting information, Its good to learn about its use, the Diagram Alf posted is very interesting. 

I am not a woodworker, so have no real use for the item, so at some time in the future I will look to move it on. 

Would ebay be the best selling point, or a real tool auction (david stanley?)


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## bugbear (16 Feb 2011)

toolmatt":3fqet785 said:


> I am not a woodworker, so have no real use for the item, so at some time in the future I will look to move it on.



So ... how did you end up with the tool?!?!

BugBear


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## Jacob (16 Feb 2011)

Pretty similar to the mitre guillotine, which is simpler, cheaper and probably performs just as well for most purposes, with the Hutchens perhaps just having the edge with fragile composite mouldings as mentioned above.


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## glnnsmokey (18 Feb 2011)

Hi, 
I have just found a Hutchens's Mitre shooter, and if this will help, mine has a plaque on it.
It reads ;
Hutchen's Patent Mitre Shooter
"ECLIPSE"
No: 1700 (number stamped manually on the plaque)
SOLE MAKERS
N.Holman & Sons, St.Just.Penzance.
Hope this sheds some light,
regards,
G


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## AndyT (18 Feb 2011)

Great work - now Alf will have to buy one! :lol: 

A quick google reveals that they were the one-stop-shop not just for mitre cutters, but also good for second hand steam engines, reversible desks and manure drills!


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## jimi43 (18 Feb 2011)

Holman's are a big family business in Penzance. Holman's Dock is a large dry dock on the road from Penzance to Newlyn. It has a big swing bridge to let larger vessels into the dock behind.



> The pier had been extended again in 1812 and John Matthews opened a small dry dock in 1814, the first in the South West. In 1840 Nicholas Holman of St Just opened a branch of his foundry business on the quayside.[20] These facilities proved valuable in supporting the steamships that were soon calling at the harbour in increasing numbers.



Some fantastic engineering went on with that company when I was a junior down in the toe of England. Lots of history...I believe it was sold at the end of the 20thC

ALF would probably know more about their latest family progress.

Jim


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## Alf (18 Feb 2011)

Don't look at me - I only knew about Holman Bros. in Camborne. Truly I've been down here too long and have adopted the mentality that anywhere over 3 miles away isn't local, and over 12 is foreign parts... #-o And no, Andy, I don't have to buy one now, thankyouverymuch.


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## jimi43 (18 Feb 2011)

Alf":2yfsw8xy said:


> Don't look at me - I only knew about Holman Bros. in Camborne. Truly I've been down here too long and have adopted the mentality that anywhere over 3 miles away isn't local, and over 12 is foreign parts... #-o And no, Andy, I don't have to buy one now, thankyouverymuch.



I think Holman Brothers were a huge family...I will ask the missus...and they had many business interests in West Penwith and beyond. 

I keep forgetting how huge a county Cornwall is....when I lived in Porthcurno...Penzance was a "once a week" trip and Cambourne was "up country"....so I know exactly what you mean.

Go on ALF...you *know* you want one!

Jim


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## Alf (18 Feb 2011)

No I don't. [-( 

And it's not so much that Cornwall's big, as long. With a really lousy transport network. And no decent tool shops.


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## bugbear (18 Feb 2011)

glnnsmokey":19i1bm6g said:


> Hi,
> I have just found a Hutchens's Mitre shooter, and if this will help, mine has a plaque on it.




Has some damn great warehouse full of these things just been tipped out onto the streets when I wasn't looking?

BugBear


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## AndyT (18 Feb 2011)

bugbear":3bm9o6ww said:


> glnnsmokey":3bm9o6ww said:
> 
> 
> > Hi,
> ...


 :lol: =D> :lol: =D>


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## Alf (18 Feb 2011)

Yeah, they waited until your back was turned, BB. 
"Has he gone?" 
"Not yet. Tell you what, I'll go and distract him with a bowsaw while you shift the goods..."
:lol:


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## toolmatt (18 Feb 2011)

glnnsmokey":vpcv1p3z said:


> Hi,
> I have just found a Hutchens's Mitre shooter, and if this will help, mine has a plaque on it.
> It reads ;
> Hutchen's Patent Mitre Shooter
> ...




This is very interesting, thank you!


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## VWQuantumdriver (12 Jul 2017)

I just acquired one of these tools in partially incomplete and damaged condition. One of the blades is missing together with it's clamping piece and knurled knob which locks it tight. Also one of the depth adjusters has sheared a section of it's perimeter where the blade fits in to adjust the depth. Lastly the long bar with counter weight is missing. Does anyone have the bar who could let me have detailed dimensions of it all in order to give me a chance of reproducing one as near as possible to the original. I will try to get someone to copy the cast piece which holds down the blade and there are a spare pair of blades present so no problem on that issue. Mine also has the brass plaque with same details as previously posted. The number stamped on it is 1850. The tool came from a former gilder and frame maker here in Leeds who passed away recently in his 90's, together with a few of his agate burnishers and old books of leaf and gilding brushes which all look to have been in use since the early part of last century.
Dave Brown, Leeds.


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## Dovetail (3 Jan 2021)

I know this is an old thread, but I just received this information from someone that is part of the family.

*Hutchens Patent Mitre shooting board*
While researching my family history I discovered one of my ancestors by marriage invented this item. Googling it brought me to your website where a number of your members were looking for details. I can clarify that it was invented by William Hutchens carpenter and undertaker in Penzance and for it he received the silver medal from the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society in 1890. He died in 1929. As much as woodworking is interesting I didn't want to become a member to pass this on personally so can you pass this on to them for me. Thank you.


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