Any information on this plane

[dickm]

Got the plane shown in the pic as part of a job lot. The body is ?beech?, but it's fitted with a modern type metal frog. Has an awful, thin modern Stanley blade but is also marked Marples.
My guess is that this might be a wartime/postwar attempt to get round shortage of steel, or maybe a cheap "schools model" - it's certainly not a "transitional type" antique! With a better iron, it might be useable as a scrub plane?

 

[GazPal]

It is a beech bodied Marples transitional jack plane - they also produced a smoother - made primarily for school use (During the '50's when schools were moving between wooden and iron soled planes) with a decent crucible steel iron, but limited frog adjustment. Limited frog adjustment - via two round headed wood screws - means you've little recourse when sole wear becomes excessive - apart from re-lining the sole/shortening the cap iron - and little/no longitudinal blade movement available during set up.

 

[baldpate]

Marples made this line of planes in the late 50's/early 60's (laminated beech-bodied planes with Bailey-type blade adjuster). I own one of the smoothers, with the original Marbles cutter, which is slightly thicker than the modern Stanley ones.

See here for more info:
http://www.handplane.com/44/marples-prefabricated-smoothing-plane/

 

[rxh]

Here is an ad from The Woodworker, May 1960.

 

[dickm]

Thanks, guys. Had a feeling it was probably a schools model, but it's good to have it confirmed. Probably the best that can be said for it is that it is "interesting".