Tyzack router plane question

[nabs]

here we go:

the adjuster is 5/8'' diameter.

The larger wheel from a 71 does indeed bridge the gap to the iron when it is in a narrow slot, but unfortunately the thread is not the same (it is only screwed on a couple of turns in the pic below). If the deeper slot was filed by hand to accommodate a smaller wheel, it was done very neatly!

Hopefully DoctorWibble has nothing better to do and we will hear back from his shortly!

71 adjuster and narrow slot:

deep slot:

 

[DoctorWibble]

Doctorwibble most likely does have better things to do but never misses an opportunity to engage in displacement activites. No excuse too small.
My wheel is 0.625. Same as yours.

 

[DoctorWibble]

Lets consider the likely manufacturing process for something like this plane. Do jump in if I get this wrong.
First of all Tyzack would've outsourced this to the lowest bidder. They didn't manufacture metal planes. I'm fairly sure that by this stage Tyzack were primarily a retailer.
We can start at the stage where the raw still warm castings are being cursorily checked for defects. Some annealing might then take place and then a rough clean up. Just like with our own timber prep the makers now need a reference face so the next job would probably be to grind the base flat. If budgets allowed some further annealing would be done after grinding and the base checked again for flatness. Rinse and repeat if necessary. Once flat the casting needs three accurate holes for studding being two for the handles and one for the height adjuster. And it needs four slots one for each of the possible cutter positions. All need to be in plane and at right angles to the base. the primary reference surface being the ground base makes this quite hard to get wrong. However the position of these holes and slots and the slot depth are likely referenced from an edge. Given a bit of variability in casting sizes (shrinkage) this makes placement and slot depth potentially less accurate than perpendicularity unless special attention is devoted to each plane. Relaxing the machining tolerances here would potentially save a lot of time but risks a few dodgy planes. So the last few holes can be drilled before painting and final assembly. Job done.
A few observations:
Its possible some or all of the annealing stages were omitted or foreshortened. Perhaps they failed to properly anneal after grinding which might go some way to explaining the twisted soles.
Checking the fit in each of the four positions would've been time consuming so probably wasn't done.
A wider wheel in combination with a deeper slot in the cutter would've given them the machining leeway they wanted without risking dodgy planes. This though is often the kind of improvement that comes later as production experience builds. Maybe no-one really cared or maybe they weren't made for very long.

 

[AndyT]

Now we know that both examples have the same size adjuster, and it's not the same as the one from a No 71, I think it's safe to conclude that both adjusters are original.

I'm also convinced by the good doctor's description of the likely manufacturing process. These would have been milled on a machine totally dependent on the skill and attention of the operator, who was most likely on piece work and bored out of his mind.

If the lucky owners want to use slots where the threaded adjuster won't help, they can still adjust the cutter the alternative way, by slackening the collar a touch and tapping the cutter with a little hammer.

 

[nabs]

thanks for the explanation DoctorWibble - the edges on my plane do not appear to have been ground and are very rough, so i think it is very plausible that the narrow slots are the result of measuring from these unreliable reference points. I will keep an eye out for something I can repurpose as a larger adjuster wheel.

Incidentally, what you will know as an owner of one, but others may not, these routers were made/factored by Joseph Tyzack, Meersbrook Works and not W. Tyzack, Little London Works prolific maker of the 'elephant' brand saws.

Apparently the legs of man logo was adopted after he set up working with the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company:

http://www.seven-square.com/dert/Tyzack_trail.htm

http://www.tyzack.net/hackney.htm

some more info here, including some interesting info into Rapper Swords made by Joseph and co.

http://huk1.wkfinetools.com/01-BritishS ... ory-02.asp

*Warning* fellow tool fiddlers, even a cursory search into the Tyzacks will take you to:

http://trowelcollector.blogspot.co.uk/2 ... n-ltd.html

... and there is a lot of trowel related info here, some of which you quite probably do not need to know!

 

[DoctorWibble]

Wonder if between us we can tie down dates for the Tyzack plane?
The Preston original was patented in 1907. If that patent was maintained for the full twenty years (assuming max length has never varied) then it could've lasted until 1927. So 1927/8 seems the earliest possible date for the Tyzack copy. Their scarcity though doesn't suggest a long production run and I've seen a few boxed examples and a few others which look relatively new. Boxed tools always look to me like an amateur sale and that would imply to me 1950's or even 1960's. But all this is speculation. Anyone seen catalogues?

 

[DoctorWibble]

Actually I suppose talk of production dates could be wide of the mark. If it was a slow seller, which seems certain, then perhaps there was only ever one "production run". Its not hard to imagine Tyzack ordering in 500 of the things then taking 20 years to sell them. If they got bored looking at them cluttering their warehouse perhaps they eventually discounted a remainder stock to clear it which could go some way to explaining the small number of recent looking and virtually unused examples which are still out there. Impulse buys at a bargain price of a tool which the buyer then finds little use for. But still it would interesting to figure the dates when it could be bought new.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

The Tyzack dynasty is complicated - more here; http://www.riversheaf.org/sheafrwp/?page_id=3440

The Tyzacks split their business into three separate entities, as far as I can tell. Joseph Tyzack and William Tyzack have already been mentioned, but there was also the firm that later became Tyzack, Sons and Turner ('Nonpareil' and elephant brand saws, among other things). This firm still exists, I think, though no longer making tools. The last Tyzack Sons and Turner plc saw was made in 1990, I gather.

There's a further complication, in that there was a retail business in London using the Tyzack name. I'm not sure whether there was a family connection, but I suspect there probably was at some point!

Edit to add - the 'three legs of Man' trademark is still in use, now part of the Spear and Jackson empire - http://www.spear-and-jackson.com/

 

[nabs]

the 1940 catalogue does not contain the plane - the intro confirms they are still making things at the Meersbrook Works in 1940, and that the firm was founded in 1837

https://archive.org/details/J.TyzackAnd ... ogue71.1MB

 

[nabs]

nor in this 1963 catalogue (By which time Brades, Skelton & J. Tyzack had merged to form B.S.T. They still have '3-leg' branded tools though...

http://huk1.wkfinetools.com/01-BritishS ... ackCat.asp

 

[DoctorWibble]

"Each tool is thoroughly examined and tested by experts before leaving the Factory, and comes to you fully guaranteed for Quality and Workmanship. ."

Send it back Nabs!

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Done a bit more rummaging.

Seems there were three Sheffield Tyzack businesses, all originating from the same family roots. Joseph Tyzack, W.A.Tyzack and W.Tyzack, Sons and Turner. There was another brach of the family (Henry Tyzack) who moved to London in the mid 1800s, founding another dynasty. BPM2 lists two London firms, Henry Tyzack (53 Old Street), and S.Tyzack (Samuel, later Samuel and Son) at 153 Shoreditch, later 8 Old Street, and sometime about 1926 til 1976 at 341-345 Old Street. There was also another, C.W.Tyzack, close to the others; according to the Hackney Tools link, it's still going, though not under Tyzack family ownership.

From somewhere (it may have been a freebie with a woodworking magazine) I have a copy of catalogue dated 1990 from Romany Tyzack. They list 4 companies;

Romany Tyzack, 52-56 Camden High Street
Parker Tyzack, 107 Rushey Green, Catford
Parry Tyzack, 329 Old Street and 15 Borough High Street (this was the holding company, according to the catalogue)
Hall Tyzack, 88-92 Merton High Street, and five other locations - Bath, Bristol, Taunton, Cardiff and Plymouth.

(Romany Tyzack's main business was cabinet fittings, but they offered tools too. The catalogue illustrates Ulmia try-squares, Perfect pattern screwdrivers, and London pattern turnscrews (3" - 18" blades). This must be the latest catalogue offering new London pattern turnscrews I've seen.)

So - London Tyzack history gets complicated!

I know that between the wars, one of the London Tyzacks (S.Tyzack) offered small modelmaker's metalturning lathes under the brand name 'Zyto', which they made themselves - http://www.lathes.co.uk/zyto/index.html . It could well be that they offered other tools made in the same workshop. It's also the case that many engineering firms were looking for any work they could get in the 1920s and 1930s.

I'll place a small bet that the router in question was made either by S Tyzack, or by an unknown engineering company for one of the London Tyzack ironmongery businesses. That would explain it's shortcomings - someone was working outside their usual field of expertise, and did the job at a low price just to get some work. Perhaps if anyone can locate any Tyzack of London advertisments in 1920s or 1930s woodworking magazines, they might yield an answer?

 

[DoctorWibble]

S Tyzack might be a good shout. If they got on. Families and all that. I have a very well made steel brace branded S Tyzack. They may not have made it of course but if they did that would take a great deal more skill than a router plane.
I'm not sure though that I'd blame the firm that actually made these planes or their workers. I'll post some pictures of my Tyzack and the Preston version so you can compare. The Preston doesn't look, on the face of it,to be much better but the blade seats far more securely in the wheel. I suspect this is an issue with reverse engineering someone else's design. You have to create your own drawings. And you have to calculate the tolerences the maker needs to quote you for. Make them too tight and its too expensive. Too loose and the product will have problems. Optimising this probably takes some thought and some testing. Perhaps Tyzack when they commissioned the drawings (or did them themselves) didn't allow enough time for that kind of refinement. I think I'm right in saying that often practice production prototypes and practice production runs would be made in order to prove (amongst other things) that the tolerances were tight in the right places and only in the right places. A low volume plane might not have merited (in the eyes of Tyzack) such treatment.