Out wit h the new and in with the old

[AndyT]

I am not sure whether the #044c is different from the #044, but the latter (and the #043) uses a loose shoe as a lever cap. This often falls out and is lost. It is a poor design. I hope the #044c is different.

Just for the Record, the 044 and 044C are entirely different planes. The 044C, as shown in D_W's picture, was the late model with the Design Council award, and did indeed have a depth stop adjustment in which a metal cone pulls up inside a soft nylon sleeve, wedging it against a hole in the body. It works well, but takes some getting used to, and can be tricky to get to the exact setting required until you get the knack of using it.

The holder for the iron is retained on a screw which clamps it to the body, so it is unlikely to get lost.

 

[D_W]

I may have solved the "problem" of using a plough plane (the Veritas Small Plow) as a beading plane. I managed a little time only in the workshop to try this out. Of course, this may be an obvious solution, but I have not heard of another trying it out.

The concern is that a plough plane has no mouth to control tearout. The Stanley #45 has a poor reputation (my experience as well) with beading unless the grain is very straight. A similar poor performance was expected from the Small Plow conversion.

I had my Small Plow converted recently, largely out of curiosity. The beading blades arrived today. I did try the 3/8" blade on a small scrap of Makore, and it produced an excellent result.

For the experiment I chose to use a Stanley #45 beading blade of the same size. The plan was to add a 15 degree backbevel, which would create a 60 degree cutting angle. My reasoning was that, at this angle, a mouth is unnecessary to prevent tearout.

To test the set up, I turned the section of Makore around and planed into the steep grain. The result was successful - not as smooth a finish as with the grain, but no tearout. Planing with the grain at 60 degrees created a finish as smooth as the non-backbeveled blade.

Curlier shavings with the backbevelled blade.

Planed into the grain.

I tried a few other boards (into the grain of Jarrah and Pine) with similar results. I need to do more trials here before I can say that this is a reliable alternate method for beading.

Try it for yourself.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Derek, I had resorted to the same thing with my stanley plane, sharpening them almost like a carving tool. It does make them work, but it makes for a hairy finish in softer woods (that's easily remedied, at lot more easily remedied than large split outs). I've noticed that beading irons I've seen elsewhere (on my beading planes) have also been rounded over a little on the face of the profile. I would suspect that such a thing was done for tearout reduction - since the cut is narrow, it really doesn't matter if the iron is steep in terms of effort.

A lot of my H&Rs with heavy use have been sharpened the same way. Also don't know if that was for tearout reduction, or if it was due to out of flat stones. The first conclusion years ago was that it was the latter, but it may be due to the former.

Nonetheless, if you're putting an article up for people new to the scene, it's a tip worth giving to newbies so they don't just throw their beading irons aside.

(I don't think the mouth does much on the beading planes, either - it'd have too be much closer to the iron to do anything - rather it's the design of the whole plane - the boxing, etc, that seems to me to make them easier to use).

 

[D_W]

I am not sure whether the #044c is different from the #044, but the latter (and the #043) uses a loose shoe as a lever cap. This often falls out and is lost. It is a poor design. I hope the #044c is different.

Just for the Record, the 044 and 044C are entirely different planes. The 044C, as shown in D_W's picture, was the late model with the Design Council award, and did indeed have a depth stop adjustment in which a metal cone pulls up inside a soft nylon sleeve, wedging it against a hole in the body. It works well, but takes some getting used to, and can be tricky to get to the exact setting required until you get the knack of using it.

The holder for the iron is retained on a screw which clamps it to the body, so it is unlikely to get lost.

It did take a couple of tries at figuring out the depth stop, but it works well, as does the iron holding mechanism. All in all, a very lovely plane. I had no clue these things were made into the 80s - nothing of that quality and thoughtfulness was coming out of the US at the time unless it was a power tool.

 

[AndyT]

I bought mine, new, in about 1989. I think I paid £44 for it, which was a significant amount for me at the time. It was the only plough plane option available in the shop.
I spent about the same on a Bosch router a few years later, until I saw the light about noisy, dusty power tools.

 

[D_W]

The veritas plow with extra irons brought $235 on ebay. It's hard for me to regret the switch!! I wish I'd have known where to get the 044C when I bought the small plow, but GSP wasn't in place on ebay, and a $75 plane with 10 cutters in the UK could easily be listed for $150-$200 here.

(plus the hogwash Chris Schwarz posts, making it out to beginners like vintage planes are nearly unusable - I think he did have a post about a plow plane long ago, suggesting the irons were unhardened or something in a sample that he got - the kind of thing that is easily remedied by users. Imagine if he spent his blog time addressing skills - like a quick rehardening of a soft iron - instead of telling everyone stupid things like "vintage tools are false economy". I'm probably wrong about that, though, the blog read numbers would probably be lower if most of the readers didn't think there was always a quick shortcut around just learning to use tools properly).

 

[G S Haydon]

Just for the Record.

=D>

 

[Harbo]

I've got two of the Design Award planes - one I bought myself and one I inherited from my father.
I never really got on with them so I stashed them away somewhere - will have to dig them out.
Cannot remember if they are 44C's or 50's.

Rod

 

[AndyT]

The 044C was a basic plough plane with straight cutters. The single skate is about an eighth of an inch thick, milled square along its base. Cutters are held in place by a captive clamp.
The 050C shares some of the same parts with the 044C but it adds a sliding section (which also clamps the cutters). This makes it more stable in use as there are two skates controlling the cut - especially useful with a wide cutter. The skates on the main body and the sliding section are bevelled along their length, which makes it possible to use beading cutters in the plane. (A bit like the Veritas upgrade described by Derek.) The 050C also includes nickers for cross-grain work.

As a last attempt to help customers or confuse collectors, it was briefly possible to buy a conversion kit to add the beading capability to your 044C. This added the sliding section with the bevelled edge and extra depth stop but I very much doubt whether there was any offer of taking customers' planes back to machine a bevel on them.

You can look at this two ways - you could say that customer service back then was not as considerate of users' needs as it is now with the likes of Veritas. Or you could assume that anyone who wanted to be able to modify their plane was capable of taking a file to it for a few minutes, and would prefer to do so for themselves, if it kept the overall price of the tool down as low as possible.

 

[swagman]

I have some sharpening stones boxes to make up out of Huon Pine. It will suit my Record 043.

 

[D_W]

The 044C was a basic plough plane with straight cutters. The single skate is about an eighth of an inch thick, milled square along its base. Cutters are held in place by a captive clamp.
The 050C shares some of the same parts with the 044C but it adds a sliding section (which also clamps the cutters). This makes it more stable in use as there are two skates controlling the cut - especially useful with a wide cutter. The skates on the main body and the sliding section are bevelled along their length, which makes it possible to use beading cutters in the plane. (A bit like the Veritas upgrade described by Derek.) The 050C also includes nickers for cross-grain work.

As a last attempt to help customers or confuse collectors, it was briefly possible to buy a conversion kit to add the beading capability to your 044C. This added the sliding section with the bevelled edge and extra depth stop but I very much doubt whether there was any offer of taking customers' planes back to machine a bevel on them.

You can look at this two ways - you could say that customer service back then was not as considerate of users' needs as it is now with the likes of Veritas. Or you could assume that anyone who wanted to be able to modify their plane was capable of taking a file to it for a few minutes, and would prefer to do so for themselves, if it kept the overall price of the tool down as low as possible.

I'd file the bottom to get the bevel if I felt like using it as a beader. I would've done the same with the small plow, but buyers of boutique tools generally are not the top decile, so that creates a problem selling.

One of the nice things going to vintage tools and making your own is that you don't have to consider that, or get too upset about a spot of rust (which is a problem in my shop for little used tools, as my shop is over the 63 RH threshhold in the summer.