Wooden router plane - made or adapted?

[AndyT]

Over in the projects section, I'm recording the long slow process of making a chest of drawers. Inevitably, some of the pictures show old hand tools, (!) and in this post, Sheffield Tony asked about this router plane I was using:

and whether it was made like that, or modified from a smoothing plane.

I'd always thought it must have been made new, because it is so neatly done and because although uncommon it was a style listed in catalogues. Now I've looked again, I'm not so sure.

I can find two old engravings. This is from the 1908 Preston catalogue

and this - from Salaman's Dictionary - is from a Ward & Payne catalogue of similar date:

Both of these pictures show a plane where a small, squarish mortice enclosing the cutting iron all round. (The iron would have been a standard plough plane iron of suitable width - that's why you could buy the plane without an iron in it.)

But my plane, although superficially similar, holds the iron behind a broad wedge, in a mouth which is unnecessarily wide.

So was it user-made by sawing the front off a smoothing plane? Here are some photos of it side by side with a typical "coffin" smoother:

If you did modify a smoother, the stopped groove for the nut on the double iron would need to be extended to the sole. It would also need to be made shallower, either by packing it out or by cutting back the whole bed. I can't see any sign of this on my plane.

Clearly you would need a new wedge, without any cut-out, except at the very tip

The wood used on mine is a good match for the body, which suggests that it was made at the same time.

Also, looking at these side by side, on the smoother there is minimal thickness of wood at the front of the throat - so that the throat is as wide as it can be - but that's where my plane has quite thick bits on its double curves.

So overall, despite the lack of a maker's mark, I think my plane was professionally made and intended to be a router plane from the start.

But looking at it closely, it does seem perfectly feasible to make something similar by modification. I don't want to encourage anyone to ruin a good old plane, but if anyone has a suitable basket case and fancies trying to change it, I'd be interested to see the results.

I'd also be interested to see examples of either pattern of commercially made wooden router plane. I know the 'old woman's tooth' pattern was common and was a tool traditionally made by the user, but I don't believe I have the only example of this sort!

 

[bugbear]

I'd also be interested to see examples of either pattern of commercially made wooden router plane. I know the 'old woman's tooth' pattern was common and was a tool traditionally made by the user, but I don't believe I have the only example of this sort!

From memory, I've only ever seen 1 example in the flesh.

BugBear

 

[JohnPW]

Also, looking at these side by side, on the smoother there is minimal thickness of wood at the front of the throat - so that the throat is as wide as it can be - but that's where my plane has quite thick bits on its double curves.

I think that would suggest it was made new, not a modified smoothing plane. I would guess user made, because the design would be easier to make than the type where the wedge and blade is completely surrounded.

On a wooden plane, the width of front of the abutments gets narrower going from the top down towards the mouth, it's matched by the 'prongs' of the wedge.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

I think it's made, not a modification of a smoothing plane.

Looking at the throat and blade bed of the router and the smoothing plane, the central clearance sinking for the cap-iron screw head on the smoothing plane bed is much deeper than the blade slot on the router. If the router were a modification, it would be clear that wood had been added here to reduce the sink depth, and (from the photos at least) I can see no evidence of that.

Googling 'Wooden Router Plane' in Google Images, I found three other examples, two almost identical to the catalogue illustrations in Andy's post, and a third quite similar, but rather better finished, clearly stamped 'Varvill and Sons' - a well-known planemaker; so that one, at least, was a commercial product. Three examples out of a whole page of Google Images does suggest they're not very common, bordering on downright rare, though.

 

[JohnPW]

The shallowness of the slot doesn't rule out a modification if the donor plane had a single iron, assuming a single iron plane won't have a slot on the bed.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

Thanks for the pictures Andy. Having had a closer look I think I'm going to join the emerging consensus that it was made as it is. Although it has a lot on common with the smoother, I think the throat area would be too narrow for it to have been a successful smoother.

In all these years of trawling ebay, I've never seen one like that before !

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Pardon me having 'double dibs' as it were, but another thing that makes me think it was made and not modified is it's back-end. It's got quite a fat posterior in comparison to the tight, pert rear-end of the coffin smoother. (And no - I wasn't thinking of Kim Kardashian or Jessica Ennis!)

 

[Trafalgar]

Oh goodness, hadn't heard of Jessica Ennis... Wow!

 

[bugbear]

Oh goodness, hadn't heard of Jessica Ennis... Wow!

Did the Olympics pass you by?!

BugBear

 

[Trafalgar]

Totally. Did not watch one minute of the games which is fairly unusual for us.

 

[JohnPW]

Salaman's has this drawing of a user made one, which is sort of similar to the one being discussed.

 

[bugbear]

What's the bedding angle on your router plane, Andy?

BugBear

 

[AndyT]

What's the bedding angle on your router plane, Andy?

BugBear

If measured on the flat of the bed (ie where a smoothing plane would lie) it's 51°. (So quite a lot like a cabinet pitch smoother.)

If measured on the shallow groove where the iron goes, it's 52½°

If measured on the front of a plough plane iron in use, it's between 50 and 51½° - depending on whether it's a thick and chunky or relatively slim iron. (One nice thing about this plane is that it works fine with either.)

Overall, I reckon it was user made, by a skilled worker, who had maybe made smoothing planes but was not familiar with the standard-but-rare design as made by Ward, Preston, Mathieson and Varvill (and Salaman's user) or else thought his way was better.

Is it better? (Do I need to buy another plane to compare it with? I could buy the one at Old Hand Tools, but at £39 it's more than my one cost.)
The other big difference is that so far, all the commercial offerings are full height at the front, without the lovely curved step down. (The user-made example in Salaman has the step, but not the same sort of wedge as mine.) As far as I can tell, it's entirely symmetrical and there are no tool marks on the curves, which flow through just as they should.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Could always save yourself £39 and make another one to compare it with.....

 

[bugbear]

What's the bedding angle on your router plane, Andy?

BugBear

If measured on the flat of the bed (ie where a smoothing plane would lie) it's 51°. (So quite a lot like a cabinet pitch smoother.)

If measured on the shallow groove where the iron goes, it's 52½°

If measured on the front of a plough plane iron in use, it's between 50 and 51½° - depending on whether it's a thick and chunky or relatively slim iron. (One nice thing about this plane is that it works fine with either.)

I though it looked steep - yet another factor in favour of custom made (either user or factory) versus converted.

I looked through some of my old catalogues. Neither Tyzack nor Melhuish (both in the 1920s) list it, but Buck & Hickman in 1935 have this;

It is surprising (to me...) that the smoother pattern is cheaper.

BugBear

 

[AndyT]

Wow, thanks BB I should have thought of looking in there - it's in my copy too!
In the 1953 edition, the old woman's tooth pattern is still there - at 18/3 - in a much reduced range of wooden planes.

So, this 'commercial' version (with a small enclosed mortice and a moulding plane style wedge) is offered fairly widely, but rarely found in the flesh, even though it could (from one supplier at one time) be bought cheaper.

I've done a bit more digging around too.

There is a very comprehensive advertising bill from Summers Varvill of York which has been reproduced*. It's not dated but refers to the "Ebor Works" where Varvill traded from 1840 until his death in 1862. Although not illustrated, it does list many varieties of plane, some quite obscure, including

Old Woman's Tooth 1s 8d
Ditto, Smoothing Plane way 1s 8d.

which gives us an early sighting for the design, and fits with the Varvill and Sons one CC spotted.

As for the angle, it's probably lower than most OWT pattern versions. As one example, the instructions from Charles Hayward on how to make one** say to set the iron at 70°. Maybe the scraping action of the steep pitch was preferred over the slicing action of the lower pitch? Or maybe woodworkers have often been set in their ways and reluctant to embrace change! Perish the thought! :lol:


* http://www.taths.org.uk/resources/downloads/journals Journal No 3, p 78
**http://toolemera.com/Books & Booklets/booksplans.html p24

 

[bugbear]

As for the angle, it's probably lower than most OWT pattern versions. As one example, the instructions from Charles Hayward on how to make one** say to set the iron at 70°. Maybe the scraping action of the steep pitch was preferred over the slicing action of the lower pitch? Or maybe woodworkers have often been set in their ways and reluctant to embrace change! Perish the thought! :lol:

In the shallow, narrow body of a OWT the pitch HAS to be high; there's no room for anything else. This gives a more scraping cut, but also means that access is good in small recesses; in a carver's bedding/grounding router the blade is nearly vertical.

Conversely, in the longer, higher, smoothing plane style, the bedding can be (and is) much lower, giving a nicer cutting action, but not such good access.

BugBear

 

[toolsntat]

To be considered in saying yours is not a converted smoother Andy is the fact that the front abutments for the wedge taper down to nothing in the bottom of the opening where a "mouthed" plane is concerned.

Mine is a rare Preston model as you have shown. 8)

Andy

 

[AndyT]

To be considered in saying yours is not a converted smoother Andy is the fact that the front abutments for the wedge taper down to nothing in the bottom of the opening where a "mouthed" plane is concerned.

Mine is a rare Preston model as you have shown. 8)

Andy

Any pics?

 

[bugbear]

Andy - I've been googling; most "smoother pattern" routers have a wedge for the blade a lot like a moulding plane; like the B&H model.

From stag tools, a user made version thereof;

Yours it quite different, with a full width "open face" wedge. I cannot find a catalogue picture of this, but...

JohnPW's picture from Salaman of home made types shows such a wedge, albeit narrower than yours.

I'm (therefore) tending towards yours being very well made by a skilled craftsman for his own use.

BugBear