How to store Handplanes?

[D_W]

Part of the problem with the LNs and chipbreakers is that some of the planes need to have the chipbreakers replaced to work correctly. My 7 just ran out of adjustment as the chipbreaker was close enough to the edge to do anything, as opposed to being in the middle of adjustment as it should've been.

the thing that's missing from the modern chipbreakers is spring. I know there are people who prefer them, but the fit of the plane is abrupt without that spring, and there's a reason leonard bailey didn't design his cap iron like that and a reason all of the old woodies are the same way as baileys (they are just flat after the hump instead of half moon shape).

Certainly, the modern type cap iron setup will break chips, that's not rocket science. It's just not as good fitting in the overall design of the plane.

I'll disagree on the irons being for soft woods and hard woods only because I've switched only to vintage irons and used them on some pretty hard stuff (persimmon and cocobolo). I think most people will prefer the harder irons if all they are doing is smoothing very hard woods, though.

Long conversations about abrasion resistance usually indicate that someone is taking a shaving too thin to be productive. But that kind of stuff is the bread and butter of catalog ad copy.

I shipped a plane to brian holcombe. It has a relatively soft iron and I was very concerned about that. I know brian is a very skilled user, but sometimes people are looking for something specific and I was very put off by a couple of my irons in stock (dwight and french, and even some of the non-laminated but tapered irons from sheffield) until I used them. I'm sure they wouldn't last as long taking a 1 thousandth shaving, but at several thousandths, the gap closes considerably and you can use them right up to dull with absolutely no chipping. Brian, to his credit, picked up on that right away, all i did was suggest that if he was put off by how easily the plane iron can be sharpened that he should give it a couple of weeks of work first before deciding he doesn't like it.

Some of these things are why I make strange comments like "I think I might not have much advice to offer on forums at this point".

It's sort of in the same vein as the chisel edge holding. I found out quickly last year that a stanley chisel that may fail at 30 degrees in very hard wood will all of the sudden perform world champion quality work at 32, and that the difference between the premium expensive chisels and the cheap ones is a matter of a very few degrees.

Things I thought 5 years ago have been turned on their head.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Certainly, the modern type cap iron setup will break chips, that's not rocket science. It's just not as good fitting in the overall design of the plane.

Without further explanation, this makes no sense. Either a chipbreaker does its job or not. Doing its job includes not just bending the shaving at the leading edge, but the ease and stability of placement there. Most of the Stanley chipbreakers I have used have too much spring, and this means that they move when tightened in position.

Long conversations about abrasion resistance usually indicate that someone is taking a shaving too thin to be productive. But that kind of stuff is the bread and butter of catalog ad copy.

David, that is simply double-talk. Yes, multiple shavings will place more abrasive wear on an edge simply because they are more numerous. However, thicker shavings also place extra wear on an edge, which is more akin to result of increased impact. I have the results of testing completed with different steels at different cutting angles, and the high angles lead to increased wear owing to increased stress on the blade edge.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[D_W]

Certainly, the modern type cap iron setup will break chips, that's not rocket science. It's just not as good fitting in the overall design of the plane.

Without further explanation, this makes no sense. Either a chipbreaker does its job or not. Doing its job includes not just bending the shaving at the leading edge, but the ease and stability of placement there. Most of the Stanley chipbreakers I have used have too much spring, and this means that they move when tightened in position.

Long conversations about abrasion resistance usually indicate that someone is taking a shaving too thin to be productive. But that kind of stuff is the bread and butter of catalog ad copy.

David, that is simply double-talk. Yes, multiple shavings will place more abrasive wear on an edge simply because they are more numerous. However, thicker shavings also place extra wear on an edge, which is more akin to result of increased impact. I have the results of testing completed with different steels at different cutting angles, and the high angles lead to increased wear owing to increased stress on the blade edge.

Regards from Perth

Derek

It's not double talk. The issue has to do with clearance. I don't think clearance reduction is linear from one type of iron to another. What I mean is that on a thin smoother shaving, an iron without much wear resistance soon hits a critical situation with clearance because there isn't enough shaving pressure to push the plane down in the cut. Not the issue of double as many feet, but the issue of what level of clearance is critical for plane function - criticality being determined by when you have to push the plane down in the work to maintain a cut - as soon as that starts, the end is near for work before the next sharpening.

With 1 thousandth shavings, you get to that point very early on in the wear cycle of an iron. With 5 thousandth shavings, the difference in time between something like V11 and older laminated irons is not really very pronounced. It just takes too long for the wear bevel on the iron to get large enough for clearance to be a problem with thicker shavings.

As far as the cap iron goes, it's not a matter of whether or not the cap iron just does it's job or not, but also how the iron assembly stays in the fit of the plane - the spring in an old wooden cap iron makes the wedge and abutment fit better. The spring built into a stanley cap iron makes it so that the iron and cap iron assembly will stay together along with good adjustability over a wider range of settings with the screw that keeps the lever cap on.

If you think about all of these cap irons, when they were made (which is when they were actually economically useful), and why anyone would've gone to the effort to make a cap iron that was bent instead of just making it a slab with a subtle amount left on the end, it would make sense that they cared about the fit of the planes and how a sprung cap iron affects it vs. one that's not sprung.

If you're not dimensioning wood with a softer iron and a harder iron, the conversation about what's different at various shaving thicknesses (not various woods or various effective planing angles, but the thickness of the shaving) really isn't going to mean much. It would be interesting if you posed (on SMC) a question to brian holcombe about what he thinks of the try plane iron, I haven't really had much discussion with him about it except he did mention that he was surprised how well it performs all the way until the wear catches up with it). I haven't primed him with any of my thoughts, and he could give you a very good idea on what he thinks of its longevity.

Now, I do have some experience using metal planes with modern irons and heavy shavings, and recently with V11, too. I sharpened a V11 iron and intended to use a veritas custom plane to dimension a try plane body. I was disappointed that the additional planing time before a plane comes out of a cut with a thin shaving didn't translate to the same advantage of that plane over my wooden try plane with a butcher iron when it came to shavings that I commonly take sizing a blank (.005+ wide shavings). I have no doubt that if I took 1 thousandth shavings, the butcher iron would've run out of steam in 1/3rd the time that the veritas iron did, but with thicker shavings they were much closer to even. And I only sharpened the butcher iron on a washita (I ran the V11 iron through jasper until it was extremely keen and smooth cutting). It's a matter of clearance and not sharpness with those thicker shavings.

That trial was enough to convince me to bag modern irons for good, I just don't have a need for the smoother that holds the edge the longest, because it is a tiny fraction of the time I spend planing something.

 

[David C]

I am not clear why chipbreakers suddenly made an appearance in this thread.

The new improved style has several advantages. The flat top does not cause problems like the curved top of some Clifton planes. Lever cap comes too far over the top of the curve and limits out adjustment.

The classic Stanley design was thin and lightweight. Several articles have attested to the improvement in function caused by fitting modern thick C/Bs to thin blades.

The L-N CB bends the thick blades a little. I do not see how this can be described as without spring?

Veritas have more or less copied the design as have IBC and of course the multitude of Chinese knock offs.

I have used the new models for a considerable time and can find no disadvantages at all.

I think Krenov type plane builders will be benefiting from a nice sturdy Hock version.

David Charlesworth

 

[n0legs]

If this turns into a sharpening argument I'm calling the police.




Sole down on a wooden workbench, preferably in a spot recently cleared :-D

 

[D_W]

I am not clear why chipbreakers suddenly made an appearance in this thread.

The new improved style has several advantages. The flat top does not cause problems like the curved top of some Clifton planes. Lever cap comes too far over the top of the curve and limits out adjustment.

The classic Stanley design was thin and lightweight. Several articles have attested to the improvement in function caused by fitting modern thick C/Bs to thin blades.

The L-N CB bends the thick blades a little. I do not see how this can be described as without spring?

Veritas have more or less copied the design as have IBC and of course the multitude of Chinese knock offs.

I have used the new models for a considerable time and can find no disadvantages at all.

I think Krenov type plane builders will be benefiting from a nice sturdy Hock version.

David Charlesworth

I think most copy the lie nielsen design because it's convenient to grind out of bar stock. If that was a good way to make a cap iron, it would've been done for hundreds of years, but that's not how they were done for hundreds of years.

I brought up the cap iron because (maybe I can't remember exactly why) for the context of stanley and wooden planes, it will take both types and make them go from chattering and tricky to use on difficult grain to able to plane everything and stop you in your tracks with the stock parts.

I wouldn't count chinese copies of lie nielsen planes as doing anything, the planes probably got into their hands because of an original thought by LN that they might be interested in working with someone to make some planes overseas to meet demand. However, there is zero thought on the part of the quangsheng planes, they were copies of the LN designs and the 3rd version of woodcraft's planes had to be redesigned so that they would be more of a copy of LN's planes to

The one chinese company that is making planes capably and not copying those of someone else is Mujingfang. They are using a type of cap iron in their continental and other planes that is essentially a 200 year old design, though I'm sure they could easily make the slab type. Since they are fitting a wedge, they are keenly aware of how important that spring. You can get away without it in a metal plane, but it's not an improvement. All it does is narrow the range of effective use for the lever cap retaining spring - it's essentially like taking suspension travel out of the equation on a car.

Lie nielsen called it an improvement over a stamped cap iron, but they don't know enough about what a cap iron is for to make that decision. I'm convinced manufacturing ease and the ability to pretend that there is an improvement on something to an unknowing crowd, or some part of either of those, is probably what dictated the desire to call it that from the standpoint of other manufacturers.

It's clear that none of the other manufacturers know much about the bailey plane design either. to sum up what we had from all three:
Clifton - had a "stay set" cap iron, which is not compatible with using a double iron to eliminate tearout, at least not for very many sharpenings
Lie Nielsen - has no clue how to use a cap iron properly, or didn't initially. they call it "fiddly" out of some sort of incompetence, or possibly desire to stick to their absurd solution of high frogs. I think they are a great company, but they've demonstrated incompetence on this topic. I know they didn't know how to set a cap iron properly because many of their planes can't actually be set with the cap iron close enough for the chip to be broken - the adjuster runs out of travel if they are set like that, and they can't be used.
Lee Valley - the cap iron does not have a practical benefit.

I hope I didn't sugarcoat that too much!!

The two original designs are still the best. It's the later users that have been deficient, not the earlier planes and plane designs. No true practical improvement has been made since the mid-types of stanley planes, with the possible exception of the large adjuster wheel on some of the later types.

(I am not that familiar with the clifton types, I would regard the original stanley cap iron as the best type ever made in a metal plane. There have been some planes that I've seen - one millers falls, for example - where the lever cap doesn't sit on top of the cap iron hump, and that's an error on their part. If the cap iron was flat, the problem would be the same, though - it limits the pressure on the cap iron close to the iron. Also, the talk of lack of spring isn't in regard to bending the iron, it's in regard to the amount of flex that occurs between the lever cap and the back of the cutting iron. Just a little improves fit. LN planes lack it. The shape that stanley bailey plane cap irons come in is also optimal for breaking chips without adding much resistance, but LN and others don't start that way. The user has to fix them)

 

[mouppe]

So in summary, you know more about everything than anyone else, including Veritas, Lie Nielsen, Clifton, thousands of happy woodworkers and generations of craftsmen. As I wrote in the other thread in which you so kindly enlightened us with your vast knowledge, thanks for showing us all how wrong we've all been.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[shed9]

So in summary, you know more about everything than anyone else, including Veritas, Lie Nielsen, Clifton, thousands of happy woodworkers and generations of craftsmen.

That's also how I read it...

 

[woodbrains]

So in summary, you know more about everything than anyone else, including Veritas, Lie Nielsen, Clifton, thousands of happy woodworkers and generations of craftsmen. As I wrote in the other thread in which you so kindly enlightened us with your vast knowledge, thanks for showing us all how wrong we've all been.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hello,

In summary it is also total bunkum. Suspension is for cars. Planes require a flat, firm and rigid bedding of the iron to perform best. A cap iron that puffins the blade into and arc fails to do this, hence the multitude of variations which have been devised to prevent it. Spring in the cap iron to improve abutment of the wedge in a wooden plane is arguably a good thing, but is not indicated in metal planes. Besides the massively thick irons in an old woodie would not bend into an arc from cap iron pressure like the flimsy Bailey blades. In any case, having made many Wooden planes with Hock irons, there really is no benefit in reality from a curved cap iron with abutment. I and many many others make perfectly working woodies with flat cap irons.

Mike.

 

[D_W]

So in summary, you know more about everything than anyone else, including Veritas, Lie Nielsen, Clifton, thousands of happy woodworkers and generations of craftsmen. As I wrote in the other thread in which you so kindly enlightened us with your vast knowledge, thanks for showing us all how wrong we've all been.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hello,

In summary it is also total bunkum. Suspension is for cars. Planes require a flat, firm and rigid bedding of the iron to perform best. A cap iron that puffins the blade into and arc fails to do this, hence the multitude of variations which have been devised to prevent it. Spring in the cap iron to improve abutment of the wedge in a wooden plane is arguably a good thing, but is not indicated in metal planes. Besides the massively thick irons in an old woodie would not bend into an arc from cap iron pressure like the flimsy Bailey blades. In any case, having made many Wooden planes with Hock irons, there really is no benefit in reality from a curved cap iron with abutment. I and many many others make perfectly working woodies with flat cap irons.

Mike.

The irons in old woodies are cut hollow along their length so that they bed at the top and bottom of a plane. If you're convinced a laminated plane design is as good as an early 19th century design with abutments and wedge fingers all the way down to the top of a sprung cap iron, then i'm not going to spend any time trying to convince you of anything, but I will leave you with one thought - why do you think that planes in china, japan, the united states, england and continental europe all used a more expensive to make system than a cross pin and a wedge, and why do you think the cap irons for every one of those that tapers the iron fat side down evolved with a sprung cap iron like I'm talking about. Somewhere, someone got the idea in this thread that the spring is to flex the iron, and that's not the case. I didn't say it. The irons are already made biased, until the modern era eliminated that detail (which was after planes became an accessory in a shop vs. a main working machine).

Mouppe - I know more about planes that a very large percentage of users, and that includes professional users. If that bothers anyone, it's not for me to worry about.

I usually assume that when someone gets more experience, their opinions will converge much closer to mine than where they started. It's not by chance.

 

[G S Haydon]

Mike, it might just be my wooden planes but when I look down the plane iron after securing the cap iron there is a visible deflection, very similar to a Bailey, sometimes more.

There is always some deflection on a double iron, this means the lower part of the iron and the top are in contact with the bed, the middle is not. On the limited amount of planes I've seen there seems to be evidence on this with polish on the top of the frog and at the bottom where the iron seems to be in closer contact.

I bet the wooden planes you make are wonderful, no question. I'm assuming you've made laminated Krenov style planes with a cross pin? if you don't mind me asking are they mainly smoothers or at least planes working on wood that has seen the heavy lifting done by machines? With the lighter touch and finer work it's not perhaps the hardest workout for proving there is no benefit to abutments and sprung cap irons.

If there was no benefit to having a wedge and abutment why were great lengths taken to make them that way? Same with the cap iron, it's all very precise stuff, highly evolved over a long time frame by people who were building totally by hand. More costly in terms of time and money spent.

As has been alluded to on another thread there is nothing like the threat of starvation to make someone fast and efficient at what they did. If all the effort of abutments, cap irons etc were a waste of time they would of vanished within no time.

I also don't think it's beyond reason for us to question the current designs and offerings provided and compare it with the past and discuss how they might be improved or benefits of modern designs. Modern makers have the quality and attention to detail to very high standards but were they made for an experienced hand tool user market? Surely the volume of most talented and experienced hand tool users were gone after WW2? I hope I don't offend anyone with this comment but I'm not sure there are many people alive today who could replicate the pace, rhythm and quality that people were able to do in the past.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Back again ... David our time zones make a long discussion difficult ...

With 1 thousandth shavings, you get to that point very early on in the wear cycle of an iron. With 5 thousandth shavings, the difference in time between something like V11 and older laminated irons is not really very pronounced. It just takes too long for the wear bevel on the iron to get large enough for clearance to be a problem with thicker shavings.

I'd like to answer this precisely, but need to look up the reference that lurks at the recess of what is left of my brain. Somewhere I recall reading (may have been on Steve Elliot's site) that the chipbreaker experiences a wear bevel in place of the blade.

Regardless, I want a smoother to take shavings of all thicknesses - both gossamer and heavy - since this is a plane for fine work. Perhaps I am misunderstanding you, but I would imagine that the majority of the shavings made with a smoother would not be coarse, and then that would indicate that the steel of the blade becomes more relevant in holding an edge. The chipbreaker is not going to help a lot in this particular situation.

This is bye-the-bye as it is not really the bigger factor here.

As far as the cap iron goes, it's not a matter of whether or not the cap iron just does it's job or not, but also how the iron assembly stays in the fit of the plane - the spring in an old wooden cap iron makes the wedge and abutment fit better. The spring built into a stanley cap iron makes it so that the iron and cap iron assembly will stay together along with good adjustability over a wider range of settings with the screw that keeps the lever cap on.

Dave, it is this area where I see that we have begun to talk at cross-purposes. You are referring to the design of a chipbreaker and its effect on the action of a wedge in a woody. Your argument for a springy chipbreaker to to aid here. But we have not been discussing the chipbreaker of a woody. We were discussing the Stanley chipbreaker being too springy and that the LN and LV chipbreakers being not springy at all. These are for metal planes. the chipbreaker design for a woody is irrelevant here.

In any event, the chipbreaker for a LN and LV is not just a flat piece of steel. It has a ledge at the leading edge. When the screw is tightened, the steel acts as a spring. What I like about the LN and LV breakers is their stiffness (a stiff spring), which in this context is an advantage. This may not be the case with a woody - which makes sense - but that situation is not the debate. In a metal plane the blade is not expected to flex. Indeed, improvements to chatter in old Stanleys can be seen just by adding a thicker blade (regardless of whether the aftermarket blade is deemed necessary).

If you think about all of these cap irons, when they were made (which is when they were actually economically useful), and why anyone would've gone to the effort to make a cap iron that was bent instead of just making it a slab with a subtle amount left on the end, it would make sense that they cared about the fit of the planes and how a sprung cap iron affects it vs. one that's not sprung.

Where did the design come from? Do we have research ... patent papers? Perhaps Kees has some info.

Steve Voigt makes these ..

Steve does a good job, but these look a whole bunch easier to make than the LN and LV breakers ... bend (with a template) in a vise and smooth with files. Hardly rocket science. Perhaps that is how they were made in days of olde? Nothing I say here must be seen as a criticism of chipbreaker use - you know I am the biggest supporter. It is just that I have not yet read information to support your earlier contention that the Stanley chipbreaker is the best shape.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Jacob]

A bit long winded this thread so this may be repeating something already said.
But IMHO the purpose of the cap iron is to transfer the pressure of the wedge or lever cap to as close to the edge as possible so that the blade is tightly pinned down at that point. It doesn't matter much what is going on elsewhere, bent or straight blade, as long as it is firmly held at the pointy end.
It follows that a thin springy cap iron, or a two part stay-set, is going to do this better than a thick one. The advantages of the chip break effect and protection for the face of the blade are secondary.

PS Rather than replacing the blade with a thicker one there is an easier way to reduce chatter in a conventional Stanley; basically you pause for thought and ask yourself what you are doing wrong, and correct it. It's about technique not blade thickness. If it chatters you are doing it wrong.

 

[Trafalgar]

Certainly, the modern type cap iron setup will break chips, that's not rocket science. It's just not as good fitting in the overall design of the plane.

Without further explanation, this makes no sense. Either a chipbreaker does its job or not. Doing its job includes not just bending the shaving at the leading edge, but the ease and stability of placement there. Most of the Stanley chipbreakers I have used have too much spring, and this means that they move when tightened in position.

Long conversations about abrasion resistance usually indicate that someone is taking a shaving too thin to be productive. But that kind of stuff is the bread and butter of catalog ad copy.

David, that is simply double-talk. Yes, multiple shavings will place more abrasive wear on an edge simply because they are more numerous. However, thicker shavings also place extra wear on an edge, which is more akin to result of increased impact. I have the results of testing completed with different steels at different cutting angles, and the high angles lead to increased wear owing to increased stress on the blade edge.

Regards from Perth

Derek

In other words planes get dull when you use them?

Stanley breakers do stretch a little when you sock them down, but I kind of like that. It's easy enough to allow for it.

Jacob is right about chatter, too. I usually get a little bit at the start of the cut. I change what I'm doing and it helps. Leaving a board a little long and trimming the start and finish marks works better though. One shouldn't make a habit of finish planing any board that has been cut to exact length unless it can't be avoided for some reason, and it usually can. Might spoil the fun of all the analysis, wheel-reinvention, and flogging of deceased members of the equine species though. A scraper and gasp even a sanding block take care of residual and occasional unavoidable outcomes. But for goodness sake let's don't let expediency get in the way of all the fun.

Cheers,

Charles

 

[Mr_P]

What are these "cap irons" of which you speak ?

On a serious and back on topic note, I'm a tall chap and have two huge former metalworkers
benches so all my small planes (upto and including my 4 1/2) are always at hand and I still
have almost 21" infront of the red cabinet.

 

[Jacob]

......I change what I'm doing and it helps. Leaving a board a little long and trimming the start and finish marks works better though. ...

There need not be start and finish marks. Practice practice!

 

[D_W]

Hi Derek - I don't see steves cap as being easier to make than the veritas type, given what LV is using to make the caps (it's easy to take flat bar stock and shape it, but bending metal with a stamp and then finishing the edge is a bit different).

I'm not sure how steve is doing his, but it does look like he's got a little less spring than some of the old ones, and I'm sure he experimented to get there.

I'd like to compare this cap iron, though, one that's typical of historical caps for wooden planes (there are details on those that don't exist on modern cap irons):

http://www.hyperkitten.com/pics/tools/fs/part263.html

And I don't need to mention the stanley type, everyone knows what it looks like.

I'm thinking of two different things when I talk about how the bailey plane fits well and how a plane with abutments fits well. I can describe it as this: If you turn the screw that retains the lever cap on a stanley a quarter of of a turn, the adjustability doesn't change much. It gets a little tighter. The lever cap still closes easily, the plane still adjusts easily. If you do that on a premium plane, you go from snug to impossible really quickly. That variation affects how well the cap is bedded at the iron.

As far as smoothing goes, I take coarse smoother shavings until I can go left to right on something with continuous shavings, and then I back off and take one or two thin shavings. The bulk of the work is probably done more at 3 thousandths plus. There's a difference between me and someone pulling a dead flat board off of a machine planer. But, someone using a machine planer with a board that has any attitude, or a board that has sat a day or two would do well to duplicate what I just described.

It is more important that an iron is chip free for the final step than that it is blindingly sharp.

Kees might be able to help with historical references, but I don't really get too far into that, I just try to learn about the things that are in my hands.

 

[D_W]

...need a longer board....chatter at the ends.

Charles

Skew the plane ten degrees or so and give it a tiny bump of momentum to make sure it starts in the cut and you should have no marks. I always smooth plane stuff last (last before assembly at least). The only catch is that can be tough on drawers or things of that sort if you can't get a firm hold on the drawer such that the starting bump doesn't move the drawer instead of the plane.

I'll bet warren smooths finish sized stuff, too (I know he does, of course).

Seriously, though, skew the plane a little bit, feel if it's in the cut to start and give it a tiny tug to stay in the cut at the start of the board and the rest is a breeze. if it doesn't hook up in the wood right away at the edge, abort the stroke and do again.

It's faster to do this than it is to plane then scrape. If it isn't, something's not right.

 

[D_W]

What are these "cap irons" of which you speak ?

There's one on that rabbet plane!!

It's funny, most people have chipbreakers on most of their planes but not rabbet planes. You've got none on most planes, but your ECE rabbet plane has one.

 

[D_W]

A bit long winded this thread so this may be repeating something already said.
But IMHO the purpose of the cap iron is to transfer the pressure of the wedge or lever cap to as close to the edge as possible so that the blade is tightly pinned down at that point. It doesn't matter much what is going on elsewhere, bent or straight blade, as long as it is firmly held at the pointy end.
It follows that a thin springy cap iron, or a two part stay-set, is going to do this better than a thick one. The advantages of the chip break effect and protection for the face of the blade are secondary.

PS Rather than replacing the blade with a thicker one there is an easier way to reduce chatter in a conventional Stanley; basically you pause for thought and ask yourself what you are doing wrong, and correct it. It's about technique not blade thickness. If it chatters you are doing it wrong.

Well, it does those things, too, but it's there to mitigate tearout also. It costs more to make a thin iron and a cap iron than it costs to make one thick iron. The evidence is in the old tool catalogs.

Stanley's genius was in getting the iron very thin so that you could literally maintain it with a single stone without anything else. The cap iron set up is genius, too, it provides support at the edge from forces that are further back, and it's just about ideal for mitigating tearout at a fairly wide range of settings without making too much extra resistance.

Modern makers are good at making very accurate planes, but in terms of genius of design, they are not remotely close to being in the same class as bailey or the individuals who refined the late 1700s double iron planes. The problem for them that handicaps them is that their market doesn't demand it as a matter of economic need, and they don't use the tools in the same context as professional users would've when the best designs were made. Actual design is replaced with things like heavier irons, heavier castings, flatter iron backs, flatter castings.