I have just bought some weird-looking planes

[tibi]

Hello,

I have just bought "for a tenner" some weird-looking planes. I was interested in moulding planes, but the guy also sold me two bench planes with weird double entendre horns for extra 6 Euros. I initially thought that someone was bored and painted the wood in those boudoir colors, but when I received them, I found out that those horns are made of plastic and that they even have sliding dovetail to enter the wooden body of the plane, so they must be original. Even the part behind the iron is made of white plastic.

The brand is IR (written in Cyrillic). Have you ever seen something like this? One has single iron and one has double iron. I will at least save the irons for making my own planes, because it would feel strange to use these planes.

Here are the two planes that I was initially interested in.

What is this profile used for? I mistaken it for a dovetail plane because it was photographed from a bad angle, but now I see that the steps are parallel. The irons are skewed on both narrow planes.

This looks like a moulding plane.

Thanks for any information about these planes.

 

[tibi]

I have found the same on e-bay. They are Soviet
https://www.ebay.com/itm/295051198048?chn=ps&mkevt=1&mkcid=28

 

[thetyreman]

never seen anything like this before, thanks for sharing, seems like a real bargain as well.

 

[Keith 66]

Horned planes are a continental thing, I picked an old German one up some years ago & it is a delight to use.
The have the advantage over metal planes that they are light & can be used either way round pushed or pulled left or right handed. For fairing wooden boat planking there is nothing better.
Try them out you might like them!

 

[D_W]

Bet the person in question here figured it was cheaper to melt the plastic horn into a mould than it was to try to cut one accurately.

 

[tibi]

Horned planes are a continental thing, I picked an old German one up some years ago & it is a delight to use.
The have the advantage over metal planes that they are light & can be used either way round pushed or pulled left or right handed. For fairing wooden boat planking there is nothing better.
Try them out you might like them!

I have grown up with horned planes, so I know the type, but I have never seen the cheap plastic version before with non woodworking colors

 

[Jacob]

Known as "Bismarck" planes here but relatively uncommon. I have several European originals but just one made in England - for himself, by a long gone furniture maker from Leicester.
Quite nice to use I'd leave them as is. Though one of mine is a scrub and the little bit of holding handle behind the blade is tiny and I have to wear a riggers glove if using it for long. It goes in the cruck of the thumb and first finger (obviously) and the body end is rounded to fit your palm comfortably.
The moulding planes just common window moulding and glazing rebate shapes, except the moulding is inside-out so may not be for windows. Come to think, of you were making window moulding planes themselves, this would be just the job! That could be it - it's a moulding plane maker's moulding plane?
Skew is very common with moulding planes. It pulls the plane into the rebate as you use it. Nearly always for right hand use, never seen a left hander.

 

[D_W]

I initially thought it might be someone replacing the horn, but certainly possible that waste plastic was used to make a horn easier than it would be to make a wooden one.

Some of the planes made now (pinie, etc) have almost no hand work in them at all. Or maybe they don't have any, let alone almost none.

 

[Orraloon]

I have a few continental horned planes and they actually work well. Never seen plastic handled ones however. The single iron one will make a good scrub plane. You can use a rasp and sandpaper to make the rear handle fit your hand and be more comfortable.
I could live with the dark handled one but the pink one looks like it came from an adult supplies shop.
Regards
John

 

[BillHoughton]

...left or right handed....

In my experience, horned planes are often shaped for right or left handed use, specifically. The horn on the plane to the left (brown) looks like it was shaped to be held by the left hand (and, thus, for use right handed). I found an ECE (German) plane once at a shop, and was very interested until I picked it up, and found it very uncomfortable when I held it left handed.

 

[tibi]

I think that in Soviet region, there were only right handed versions, as lefties were often beat up by parents and teachers to learn everything with right hand, as left hand was being considered inferior

 

[johna.clements]

I think that in Soviet region, there were only right handed versions, as lefties were often beat up by parents and teachers to learn everything with right hand, as left hand was being considered inferior

Sadly that was not confined to the Soviet region.

 

[Richard_C]

I wonder if the colour is a meaningful code. If a workshop has a number of similar looking planes propped up on a rack, differing only in the blade shape and function, colour coded handles would improve productivity.