The Marples/Sellers transitional Plane. These are all the rage at the moment. . .
Knocked up over a very intensive weekend. A wooden plane that utilises the Bailey frog and it's adjustment. In the manner that Bill Carter uses old Brass saw backs for his planes I guess it's a form of recycling unwanted Stanley/Record plane parts.
My version is a little different in that it features a Rosewood sole and the sides are formed from a Cherry and Walnut laminate. 2 x 2 mm Cherry and 3 x 0.5 mm Walnut makes the side walls at 5.5 mm's. It helps to keep the whole plane looking slimline without compromising on strength.
The rest of the Plane is from quarter sawn Cherry, the domed palm pad from Indian Rosewood.
At just 12.5" long it's a small light 'nippy' Jack Plane. The finish is still rather soft but I did try it out on a few timber types before it was introduced to the varnish. These are lightweight planes. They excel at working soft and medium density hardwoods. So it proved when I tried it on Walnut, Sapele, figured Maple and some Cherry. Sellers refers to the shavings as 'shooting out', he isn't wrong. They were landing on the floor 2 ft ahead! . . . . OK, some of them were.
You can work these planes fast (as with most other wooden planes), slick over the wood they are less tiring to use. The one disadvantage I see with them is that you don't have the mass that seems to help when dealing with hard cranky timber. I did briefly try it on some Bubinga, it worked perfectly well but that particular Bubinga happened to be well behaved straight grain stuff.
There you have it. There is no one single plane that is 'the best', there are certain planes that are more suited to the task at hand. This transitional is the most comfortable plane that I've ever used (I've tried a few). Don't underestimate that domed palmpad at the front. Marples got that right.
My special thanks goes to Roger (Dodge) for donating the Stanley frog, gratis.
Knocked up over a very intensive weekend. A wooden plane that utilises the Bailey frog and it's adjustment. In the manner that Bill Carter uses old Brass saw backs for his planes I guess it's a form of recycling unwanted Stanley/Record plane parts.
My version is a little different in that it features a Rosewood sole and the sides are formed from a Cherry and Walnut laminate. 2 x 2 mm Cherry and 3 x 0.5 mm Walnut makes the side walls at 5.5 mm's. It helps to keep the whole plane looking slimline without compromising on strength.
The rest of the Plane is from quarter sawn Cherry, the domed palm pad from Indian Rosewood.
At just 12.5" long it's a small light 'nippy' Jack Plane. The finish is still rather soft but I did try it out on a few timber types before it was introduced to the varnish. These are lightweight planes. They excel at working soft and medium density hardwoods. So it proved when I tried it on Walnut, Sapele, figured Maple and some Cherry. Sellers refers to the shavings as 'shooting out', he isn't wrong. They were landing on the floor 2 ft ahead! . . . . OK, some of them were.
You can work these planes fast (as with most other wooden planes), slick over the wood they are less tiring to use. The one disadvantage I see with them is that you don't have the mass that seems to help when dealing with hard cranky timber. I did briefly try it on some Bubinga, it worked perfectly well but that particular Bubinga happened to be well behaved straight grain stuff.
There you have it. There is no one single plane that is 'the best', there are certain planes that are more suited to the task at hand. This transitional is the most comfortable plane that I've ever used (I've tried a few). Don't underestimate that domed palmpad at the front. Marples got that right.
My special thanks goes to Roger (Dodge) for donating the Stanley frog, gratis.
I told you. It's lying on the floor 2 ft. out of shot!
