Badger Hospital

[Sheffield Tony]

How remarkable. A couple of evenings ago, I did exactly - and I mean exactly - what Richard T did - I tried out my badger plane working cross grain in a bit of scrap oak. I ploughed a grove a la Mr Underhill, using my Record 050C (!) and proceeded with the badger in just the same way. Both planes impressed me by how clean the result was - the only flaws were down to my competence, not the tools.

 

[neilyweely]

Just out of interest, and I know it is not a badger plane, but it is a Badger plane......
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Antique-C...ultDomain_0&hash=item4d06b69248#ht_307wt_1170

Perhaps these guys were someting to do with the naming of the skew blade badger. As in Hoover hoovers. I hope I got all my grammar correct here. Otherwise I guess I'm not making a lot of sense, am I?

Neil

 

[AndyT]

Just out of interest, and I know it is not a badger plane, but it is a Badger plane......
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Antique-C...ultDomain_0&hash=item4d06b69248#ht_307wt_1170

Perhaps these guys were someting to do with the naming of the skew blade badger. As in Hoover hoovers. I hope I got all my grammar correct here. Otherwise I guess I'm not making a lot of sense, am I?

Neil

It doesn't seem likely. From what I have read, the term 'badger plane' was in widespread use in England in the C19th to mean a skew bladed plane. The ebay plane was made by an American Mr Badger; there was also an English planemaker called Badger in the 1850s. John Whelan says he has found the term in an English catalogue dated 1838-46 which would be earlier than the English plane maker. (Anyone know the dates for US Mr NL Badger?)

Roy Underhill refers to an old but widespread belief that badgers had legs longer on one side than the other as a possible but unlikely origin for badger as a name for an asymmetrical plane. There's a nice essay on this in Thomas Browne's book "Pseudodoxia or Vulgar Errors" (1672) which anyone who enjoys C17th prose can read here.

 

[Argus]

Roy Underhill refers to an old but widespread belief that badgers had legs longer on one side than the other as a possible but unlikely origin for badger as a name for an asymmetrical plane.

I can vouch for that.

Many years ago I undertook some research in association with the Scilly Associated Regional Society on Endangered Species (SCILLY A.R.S.E.S) on how Badgers are able to run on un-level ground and we came to exactly the same conclusion.

We caught some of these badgers and found that they were able to run clockwise on one side of an east-facing hill only; if you cornered them, they would turn and pull at your legs……….. just like I’m pulling yours now.

.

 

[neilyweely]

I can vouch for that.

Many years ago I undertook some research in association with the Scilly Associated Regional Society on Endangered Species (SCILLY A.R.S.E.S) on how Badgers are able to run on un-level ground and we came to exactly the same conclusion.

We caught some of these badgers and found that they were able to run clockwise on one side of an east-facing hill only; if you cornered them, they would turn and pull at your legs……….. just like I’m pulling yours now.

.

=D> Brilliant.
Made my night. Thanks

Neil