Original, wooden low angle plane described

[bugbear]

I have, in my accumulation of car boot bargains to cheap to resist, a low angle coffin bodied plane, by Griffiths of Norwich.

The key statistic is the bedding angle - a rather low 36.5 degrees.

The other measurements are:

* overall length 8 1/2"
* toe to mouth 2 1/2"
* blade width 2"
* body depth 2 3/8"

Since the shaving aperture is currently 4mm, I was concerned that the apparently quite shallow body had been caused by sole-jointing, but a quick scale diagram showed that 2mm more body depth would close the aperture entirely (low bedding angle leads to a rapid mouth-opening effect with sole wear).

The bed is NOT excavated for the bolt for holding a cap-iron, so the plane is clearly intended for a single-iron. Despite this, the present (I Sorby, usual for Griffiths) iron is "cut". It would seem reasonable to infer that these planes were therefore rather specialist, selling in small numbers - at least, too small to justify producing a special blade.

The only use I can think of for this plane is in conjunction with a mitre-jack; the coffin body precludes the other kinds of shooting board. I'm assuming it's for end grain, given the bedding angle.

BugBear

 

[Philly]

Thanks, Paul - interesting!
Any chance of a photo?
Philly

 

[bugbear]

Thanks, Paul - interesting!
Any chance of a photo?
Philly

I didn't bother - it's a coffin smoother with a low bedding angle - not much to see.

BugBear

 

[Philly]

Fair 'nuff :lol:
Philly

 

[bugbear]

A little late...

BugBear

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Salaman (Dictionary of Woodworking Tools) p307 lists a 'Plane, Box Maker's - also known as Flogger, Box Maker's Smooth Plane'.

He describes it thus;

'A coffin-shaped plane up to 9 1/2" long, rounded at both ends, with an iron, 2 - 2 1/8" wide, set at about 35 degrees. Used by box-makers for cleaning up rough timber used in box and crate making. See also Plane, Roughing.'

The illustration accompanying the entry is almost identical to BugBear's photograph.

These would, at a guess, date from before the introduction of the ubiquitous cardboard box, when goods of almost any description were packed in wooden boxes or crates of every size and description, some quite rough and ready. The Lost Art Press title 'The Joiner and Cabinet Maker' dating originally to about 1839 has a lengthy and very complete description of the making of such a box by the village joiners' shop for the transport of some books, though a special plane for the job is not mentioned. It could be that the special plane was a cheaply made tool for (presumably not well paid) specialist box-makers, and joiners undertaking such a job would use their regular kit.

 

[bugbear]

Salaman (Dictionary of Woodworking Tools) p307 lists a 'Plane, Box Maker's - also known as Flogger, Box Maker's Smooth Plane'.

He describes it thus;

'A coffin-shaped plane up to 9 1/2" long, rounded at both ends, with an iron, 2 - 2 1/8" wide, set at about 35 degrees. Used by box-makers for cleaning up rough timber used in box and crate making. See also Plane, Roughing.'

The illustration accompanying the entry is almost identical to BugBear's photograph.

These would, at a guess, date from before the introduction of the ubiquitous cardboard box, when goods of almost any description were packed in wooden boxes or crates of every size and description, some quite rough and ready. The Lost Art Press title 'The Joiner and Cabinet Maker' dating originally to about 1839 has a lengthy and very complete description of the making of such a box by the village joiners' shop for the transport of some books, though a special plane for the job is not mentioned. It could be that the special plane was a cheaply made tool for (presumably not well paid) specialist box-makers, and joiners undertaking such a job would use their regular kit.

Ah - with the low angle, I has assumed end grain. Thanks for your careful reading.

The question becomes - how to tell an Coffin bodied (American, per Whelan) mitre plane plane from a Box Maker's plane?

BugBear

 

[Jacob]

Salaman (Dictionary of Woodworking Tools) p307 lists a 'Plane, Box Maker's - also known as Flogger, Box Maker's Smooth Plane'.

He describes it thus;

'A coffin-shaped plane up to 9 1/2" long, rounded at both ends, with an iron, 2 - 2 1/8" wide, set at about 35 degrees. Used by box-makers for cleaning up rough timber used in box and crate making. See also Plane, Roughing.'

The illustration accompanying the entry is almost identical to BugBear's photograph.

These would, at a guess, date from before the introduction of the ubiquitous cardboard box, when goods of almost any description were packed in wooden boxes or crates of every size and description, some quite rough and ready. The Lost Art Press title 'The Joiner and Cabinet Maker' dating originally to about 1839 has a lengthy and very complete description of the making of such a box by the village joiners' shop for the transport of some books, though a special plane for the job is not mentioned. It could be that the special plane was a cheaply made tool for (presumably not well paid) specialist box-makers, and joiners undertaking such a job would use their regular kit.

Ah - with the low angle, I has assumed end grain. Thanks for your careful reading.

The question becomes - how to tell an Coffin bodied (American, per Whelan) mitre plane plane from a Box Maker's plane?

BugBear

The answer is of course - if it's used by a box maker it's a box maker's plane.
But would it be any use as a mitre plane? Surely too short, too wide, not enough handles.

PS I'v just discovered I've got one too. It was in this collection of junk recently bought for a proposed sharpening demo.
Middle of front row, varnished for show it seems.
It has a metal sole which means hard work (box maker rather than mitrerer) and the angle is a bit higher at 40º. The others are all 45º I think.

 

[bugbear]

But would it be any use as a mitre plane? Surely too short, too wide, not enough handles.

It would work superbly in conjunction with the Rolls Royce of mitreing appliances, the mitre jack.

http://www.cornishworkshop.co.uk/wwmitrejack.html

http://www.toolemera.com/womack/womackworkmitre.pdf

BugBear

 

[Jacob]

But would it be any use as a mitre plane? Surely too short, too wide, not enough handles.

It would work superbly in conjunction with the Rolls Royce of mitreing appliances, the mitre jack.
....

BugBear

But so would virtually any plane big enough.

 

[János]

Hello,

Planing end-grain or mitres could be accomplished wit a wide array of methods and tools. The British wooden mitre plane, with bevel up blade, the American bevel down variant etc. German craftsmen used the "bestosshobel" for planing end-grain and mitres: this is a standard horn grip smoothing plane, with an iron or steel sole-plate. Mitre shooting clamps were the preferred tools to plane mitres, and on these clamps one could use coffin and straight sided planes with equal ease.
As I see, the main difference between a box-maker's plane and a bevel down miter plane is not bedding angle (which is similar: 32-35 deg), but the length of the tool: mitre/miter planes tend to be longer: 10 inches/254 mm and upwards.

Have a nice day,

János

 

[bugbear]

But would it be any use as a mitre plane? Surely too short, too wide, not enough handles.

It would work superbly in conjunction with the Rolls Royce of mitreing appliances, the mitre jack.
....

BugBear

But so would virtually any plane big enough.

But it's low EP.

With a plane effective pitch is all.

:lol:

BugBear

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

Planing end-grain or mitres could be accomplished wit a wide array of methods and tools. The British wooden mitre plane, with bevel up blade, the American bevel down variant etc. German craftsmen used the "bestosshobel" for planing end-grain and mitres: this is a standard horn grip smoothing plane, with an iron or steel sole-plate. Mitre shooting clamps were the preferred tools to plane mitres, and on these clamps one could use coffin and straight sided planes with equal ease.
As I see, the main difference between a box-maker's plane and a bevel down miter plane is not bedding angle (which is similar: 32-35 deg), but the length of the tool: mitre/miter planes tend to be longer: 10 inches/254 mm and upwards.

Have a nice day,

János

Hello,

Was there such a thing as a wooden, bevel up mitre plane? This would give an awfully high EP, about 65 deg with a bedding angle of 35, and no use for endgrain. Surely a BD plane at these bedding angles would be the lowest EP obtainable, till you go down the route of metal bodied mitre planes with lower bedding angles still. In which case a coffin mitre plane or box makers plane would be indestinguishable, wouldn't it? Reversing the blade would make a good scraper, though, so a dual purpose plane could be an interesting side effect.

Mike.

 

[János]

Hello,

Dear Mike, to answer your question: yes, there has been a bevel up mitre plane. And this plane has had a high pitch, around 60 deg. This tool was a British tool, often made from very heavy and dense tropical hardwoods, and with that ingenious mouth key. You might find descriptions and illustrations in the aforementioned Whelan book, or in Hack, Garret: The Handplane Book, for example.

The wooden miter plane with a bevel down blade has the lowest cutting angle amongst the different "mitre planes":

Bevel down wooden miter plane: 32-35 deg
Bevel up wooden mitre plane: 55-65 deg
Bestosshobel: 45 deg
Stanley No.9 metal mitre plane: has a 20 deg bed angle, so with a 30 deg blade angle the cutting angle is 50 deg
Low angle block, smooth, and jack planes: have a bed angle of 12-15 deg, so with a 30 deg blade the cutting angle is 42-45 deg.
Low angle block, smooth, and jack planes: have a bed angle of 12-15 deg, so with a 22 deg blade (which is the practical minimum for planing end-grain) the cutting angle is 34-37 deg.

So the bevel down miter plane has the lowest cutting angle, and a blade sharpened to 25-28 deg.

It would be possible to produce a low bed angle metal plane with a bevel down blade, with a 30 deg bedding/cutting angle for example, but the idea has not appealed to manufacturers yet.

Have a nice day,

János

 

[bugbear]

So the bevel down miter plane has the lowest cutting angle, and a blade sharpened to 25-28 deg.

It would be possible to produce a low bed angle metal plane with a bevel down blade, with a 30 deg bedding/cutting angle for example, but the idea has not appealed to manufacturers yet.

Perhaps the infill/one-off guys are looking in... ?

BugBear

 

[Corneel]

It looks like you have a floggers plane, like described in this Preston catalogue : http://www.handplane.com/100/edward-preston-sons-1901-catalog/ A simple smoother like plane. A bit more expensive then a smoother, but just a hair cheaper then a Jack. In the same price category as a compass plane. So, a specialist plane, longer then a smoother, shorter then a jack, would explain this price.

I don't think end grain planes played a large role in the past. Endgrain surfaces were rarely shown, and the little endgrain planing a cabinetmaker or joiner had to do, would just as easilly been done with a normal plane. Even on a shooting board he could have used a normal straight sided plane like his tryplane. Special miter planes were expensive. In the wooden configuration also technically troublesome because of the weak thin wedge of wood under the bed. But metal versions were expensive. My humble two pence: mitre planes were a specialist tool for picture framers and the like.

Very low bedding angles in BD configuration also have clearance problems. When the blade wears during use, you get a convexity just behind the edge, effectively lifting the edge out of the wood. So when you start with just 5 degrees under the blade you quickly run out of clearance.

 

[Jacob]

......My humble two pence: mitre planes were a specialist tool for picture framers and the like........

And/or speculative ventures by tool makers, to see if anybody would buy them and find a use for them, which is true of a great many of the less common tools, especially planes, IMHO.

 

[bugbear]

It looks like you have a floggers plane, like described in this Preston catalogue : http://www.handplane.com/100/edward-preston-sons-1901-catalog/ A simple smoother like plane. A bit more expensive then a smoother, but just a hair cheaper then a Jack. In the same price category as a compass plane. So, a specialist plane, longer then a smoother, shorter then a jack, would explain this price.

I don't think end grain planes played a large role in the past. Endgrain surfaces were rarely shown, and the little endgrain planing a cabinetmaker or joiner had to do, would just as easilly been done with a normal plane. Even on a shooting board he could have used a normal straight sided plane like his tryplane. Special miter planes were expensive. In the wooden configuration also technically troublesome because of the weak thin wedge of wood under the bed. But metal versions were expensive. My humble two pence: mitre planes were a specialist tool for picture framers and the like.

Very low bedding angles in BD configuration also have clearance problems. When the blade wears during use, you get a convexity just behind the edge, effectively lifting the edge out of the wood. So when you start with just 5 degrees under the blade you quickly run out of clearance.

Agreed - my plane looks to be a flogger.

I note that the 4th image from the Preston catalogue shows a splendid "shuteing plane", with many permutations of handle, blade and plating listed.

Oh - and while I'm posting, here's some USA centric data which I found whilst searching yesterday.

link to woodcentral article

These appear very different to anything mentioned so far in this thread.

BugBear

 

[Corneel]

......My humble two pence: mitre planes were a specialist tool for picture framers and the like........

And/or speculative ventures by tool makers, to see if anybody would buy them and find a use for them, which is true of a great many of the less common tools, especially planes, IMHO.

Well, yes of course. But in the case of the miter plane I think there definitely was demand for this type. It has a very long history in continental Europe. The German Vergathobel, which is a bevel up, low angle infill miter plane, has been mentioned as early as 1714, as far as I could track it down, in a technical dictionary of that time. This type of plane is also mentioned in Roubo in the marquetry section. And Roubo was a serious guy! During the days of Gabriel and the Seaton chest, they sold Endplanes, the wooden miter planes as described by Janos, and also you see the start of making and marketing the steel miter infill plane.

Interesting stuff, but it all remains highly hypothetical of course.

 

[János]

Hello,

"A BOXMAKER'S SMOOTH, or FLOGGER, is an oval smooth with a pitch about 35deg from horizontal." The quote is from Whelan, John M.: The Wooden Plane, p. 50.

The weakness of the low angle bed was the reason to make these planes from tropical hardwoods, like bubinga, ebony, rosewood, as these are stronger than domestic hardwoods like maple or beech.

A miter plane was/is used to plane and fit mitered surfaces, AND TO SQUARE UP/SHOOT SQUARE ENDS, and this latter work is very common in a woodshop: miter shooting clamps could have been called "squaring up clamps" instead.

A five degree clearance angle is large enough in a hand plane, especially in a plane intended for planing end grain.

The wear and rounding of the cutting edge is natural, and the remedy is not a large clearance angle, but frequent sharpening.


Dear BB, your plane is a nice and useful one, and you might call it as you wish :wink:



Have a nice day,

János