Latest news

10/01/12

 The new year has started with an exiting find.

 This stunning moulding plane is by Nathaniel Gamble . It is just over 10 1/2 inches long, and 1 7/8 wide. the complex mould has been altered at some time in the past, Note the unusual wedge shape. Nathaniel Gamble was Thomas Granfords first apprentice to become a plane maker. starting his apprenticeship in 1692, and was working on his own by 1701.

30/10/11







Bench planes from the 18th century are not often found as they had such a hard life. This example might have survived due to it's unusual features.

 The plane was made by John Kendal of Bristol. and the uncut iron is by Hannah Green of Sheffield. The stock is 14 3/4 inches long, and is quite shallow due to a lot of ware. The iron is just under 2 inches in width, and is heavily skewed. As with all 18th century bench planes, the open handle is well offset. What I can't decide is what the original use was for this plane. Perhaps it was intended to be used on a shooting board?

This plough plane has
a few interesting features.

The maker is William
Wheeler of Thatcham, who seemed to be quite inventive when it comes to
designing ploughs, and fillisters.

The stock of the
plane has a very comfortable raised hand hold to the rear of the blade, a
feature I have seen on other Wheeler ploughs.

What I have never seen
before is an integral spring steel device mounted inside the depth stop mortice.

 This prevents any up and down play in the
stop.

The stop itself is
unusual in that instead of the usual brass stock with a steel shoe, the stock
is a hollow steel box, infilled with beech.

I do have another
plough with this feature, which is by William Squire

For a long time now I
have been wondering when the transition from the simple wooden depth stops, to
the adjustable brass and steel variety, on British plough planes occurred. One
problem is that without careful examination, it is difficult to tell if the
brass adjuster is a later addition that replaced a wooden depth stop. I have
seen several early ploughs where this has occurred. The earliest example that I
have is by John Cogdell, who’s will was probated in 1773, Interestingly, the
brass, and steel on this depth stop appear to be brazed together, where as all
the other examples I have are fixed with two rivets. The steel shoe is also
notably shorter than later examples.

05/06/11

Some planes throw up
more questions than answers, and this example certainly qualifies. The plane
bears the unrecorded mark, “Moodey- Birmingham”. The letters are in two separate,
plain lined borders, and the Moodey stamp is a different size to the examples
recorded in Goodmans, British planemakers.

The plane retains its
original iron, and bears the name. Edward ……. Unfortunately the second mark has
corroded away, but I am 100% sure this is an Edward Dingley iron. Having done
some research, I managed to find the will of Edward Dingley, which was probated
in 1741, so one could conclude that the plane was made before this date.

One other thing about
the iron is that it is probably the longest iron I have ever seen in a moulding
plane. Back to the plane itself, the stock is just over 10 inches long, and 2 ¼
inches wide, the flat chamfers are massive, being over ½ inch wide. There is a
heavy fillet between the upper part of the body, and the cove. The shoulder at
the front is finished with a Phillipson pattern termination, but at the rear it
is a heavy gouge cut. This shows that the maker thought about the design, as a Phillipson
pattern at the rear would make the stock uncomfortable to hold during use. I
have mixed opinions as to the wedge in this plane, my first impressions being
that it was an early replacement, but I am not so sure now. It seems to be an extremely
good fit, to good a fit for an owner to have made it. The wedge slot is relived
at its front edge.

 To conclude, this plane bears all the
hallmarks of a Plane made in the first quarter of the 18^th century.
The problem is why is this plane marked Birmingham,
and not Worcester?
We know that Thomas Moody started working in Worcester
before moving to Birmingham, and Don and Ann
Wing have suggested that the early looking planes marked Worcester may be the work of Thomas moodey’s
father, Joseph. Someone has suggested that it may be that a member of the
Moodey family was working in Birmingham before relocating
to Worcester. Hopefully
further research will give us some answers



19/04/11

At the last David Stanley auction, I was lucky enough to complete a life long ambition, to own a Robert Wooding plough.

 It was nice that most of the plane is original, with just the wedge being a replacement, but then again how many early 18^th century ploughs survive with there original wedges!

 It still has fence stems that were friction fitted, with no cut outs for wedges.

Overall, the plane is quite basic, with very little decoration to the fence.

13/3/11

This pair of moulding planes are not all that early, but they are of interest.

 They were made by John Lund of London, and probably date to somewhere around 1800. The planes are numbered 1, and 2, and are a matching pair of astragal, and hollow sash planes.

 What makes them stand out is the incredible boxing. I have read a number of descriptions as to how these boxwood dovetailed inserts were worked with specialist planes, but this only works if the insert is placed in a rebate which allows access for the plane. These dovetails run down the side of a trench, so a conventional plane is not an option.

Has anyone got any ideas as to how this ingenious plane maker managed to do the boxing?

13/02/11

There are a number of early planes in my collection that have double irons.

  From the planes that have been found, the double iron is an 18^th century innovation, but the exact date, or first maker are unknown.

 One thing I have observed is that the back iron is often a different maker, than that of the main cutter. One could surmise that perhaps the original iron wore out, and was replaced by a new one from another maker, but some examples I have appear to be virtually unused, so this is not always the case.

 The irons in the photo are as follows-

Reading from left to right,

Philip Law, (back iron, T Hildick).   Hanna Green. Mottram.   P Law.   Jane Green (back iron, P Bishop). John Green.   Fredrick Stones, (back iron, Partridge).

04/01/1

A recent acquisition is this interesting moulding plane.

 The stock is just under 10 ¾ inches long. The wedge and iron both appear to be original. Unfortunately the iron does not bear a makers mark. You can clearly see the compass point, and scribe line where the wedge finial was marked out. The setting out marks for the moulding are present on the toe, and heel of the stock. Also this is the first time I have seen the setting out continued down the side of the stock as well as the ends. The chamfers are ½ inch wide. All things considered, this plane bears all the hallmarks of being made around the turn of the 17^th to 18^th century.

  Now for the tricky bit, who made it?

 It has often been suggested that the earliest planemakers probably used there initials, or some form of other mark, rather than there full name.

 The initials, ‘R D’ are stamped at the top of the toe on this plane, and are not present anywhere else on the stock. Unfortunately there is no way of proving that this is the maker, but if other isolated examples of planes with similar features could be found, it would make it more probable.  

  Thanks to Don and Ann Wings splendid work, ‘Early Planemakers of London, a possible candidate for the maker has come to mind.

  Richard Draper was a member of the blacksmiths company, and also a possible planemaker. Two of his apprentices became planemakers, Richard Burman, and Richard Mealing. Richard Draper began his apprenticeship 1687, and was working up to at least 1717, so the dates fit quite nicely.

  If anyone has any planes baring this mark, I would love to hear from them.

1

18/12/10

My interest  in tools began many years ago, and the following plane sparked it all off.

   This plough plane by Kay of Nottingham, first belonged to a carpenter, G Shelton.

It then passed in to the ownership of my Grandfather, Cecil Incles.  On his death,  the plane, and a whole chest of other tools lay dormant for a number of years.

  On leaving school I started an apprenticeship with a small local building firm, that happened to be where my grandfather had worked most of his life. I was lucky enough to inherit the tool chest, and its contents, and as time passed , tried to work out what they were all used for. The fence had been seperated from the body of the plough , and it was along time before I worked out that the two parts went together! 

 I decided to have a go at using the plough, and this led to my lifelong passion for collecting, and using antique tools.

 the old photo is of my Grandfather making a flight of stairs, and if you look carefully you can see the plough plane on the window cill.

  Incidentally, I ended up working at the very same bench in the photo for about ten years!

05/12/10

At the last David Stanley auction, I bought this panel plane from my good friend, Brian Jackson. It is almost certainly a craftsman made plane, particularly with the wood choice being oak. A cut from the centre of the tree at that.

   The handle is made of beech, but looks as though it may be original.

When I first acquired the plane, it had lost its depth stop, and fence. Also it had a later, poorly fitting beech wedge.

 I have recently been working on the restoration of some Jacobean oak wainscot panelling, and having a few of cuts, I decided to fashion some new parts for the plane, from the old oak.

  I have always liked the shape of the wedges in the three planes on John Jennions trade card, (see British plane makers, front piece) so I decided to use this as inspiration for the new wedge. I also had the Robert Wooding panel plane in my collection which has this style of wedge.

I always thought the relief on the upper sides of the wedge were probably the last remnants of an earlier form of decorated wedge, but having now set the plane up, a practical reason for the relief became apparent.

 To laterally adjust the iron you tap it gently on its edges, and with it being round topped, the relief to the sides of the wedge make this easy.

 By the way the iron is probably original, and is by John Wilde of Sheffield

09/11/10

This is another pane with puzzling marks.

 It has the look of an early 18^th century plane, and has the infamous triangular ‘WW’ mark. As well as this it is also stamped by the later 18^th century maker, William Boyd. I wonder if Boyd perhaps inherited this plane, and used it in for his own plane making activities.

  The plane is uncharacteristically short at only 9 ½ inches.

10/10/10

I have in my collection a panel plane with a John Green stamp that has been puzzling me for some time

  The stamp is as far as I can tell, unrecorded. It does not match any of the marks in British plane makers, or any I have seen elsewhere. The plane has all the hallmarks of being 18^th century, and has marked similarities to another panel raiser in my collection, witch has the rare John Green of York mark.

 Both planes have identical Newbold irons. The plane in question has a stamp stylistically very reminiscent of early London makers. Does this mean that it was made by the London John Green, or is it yet another York mark?

  If anyone has any planes with this mark, or has any thoughts on this, I would to hear from you

07/10/10

I picked this plane up at the recent David Stanley auction.

  The maker is J Sym of London, and the blade is a double iron by John Green.

I’m never quite sure as to how to describe this sort of plane, are they moulding planes, or cornice planes, or maybe even a form of panel raiser?

 The handle is small, and well off set in the usual 18^th century tradition.

Last weekend I tried this plane out at  Mike Cawthorns open day (://www.mactimbers.co.uk), it performed really well, and was easy to use.

Like a lot of these early handled planes, it looks like it has had very little use.

25/08/10 

   I know this is not a plane, but I thought it was of sufficient interest to post, and it does involve an 18^th century plane maker.

  I recently came across this saw amongst some tools. It is 11 inches long, so it would probably best be described as a carcass saw. It has arround 15 teeth per inch .

On cleaning the brass back the name I Peters appeared. On doing some research I discovered that J Peters was one of the saw makers that supplied Christopher Gabriel towards the end of the 18^th century. I then noticed a very tiny mark on the other side of the brass back. With careful cleaning this revealed the name W Squire. Squire was a plane maker, saw maker , and ironmonger  who worked in London around 1760 to 1770. In Goodman's listing for Squire it mentions a billhead dated 17... of J Peters, saw maker states " successor to Mr Squire , 102 Wardour Street Soho " (Banks collection, British  museum ) . One has to wonder was Squire and Peters at one point working together or was this saw just old stock that Peters bought in. If anyone has any thoughts or information about this I would be very pleased to hear it.

15/8/10

 I visited my good friends Bill, and Sarah Carter yesterday. While I was there, bill very kindly gave me two OWT routers he had found. One by John Green of York, the other by William Kendal of York. they are both  similar in style, and are quite small, being 4 1/2 inches wide, and 3 inches high. I wonder if this shape and size is peculiar to the york area?

  The example by John Green has a new wedge of rosewood, beautifuly crafted by Bill. They both have early looking irons, marked Partridge, but I'm not sure who this is. Possibly John partridge of Birminham?.