Call that a plane blade?

[Anonymous]

Now that's a plane blade...

This modest hunk of iron turned up on the OldTools list, and I thought it deserved a wider audience. (I mean the one on the left natch; the other one is an ordinary jack plane blade. <gulp>) For the number crunchers amongst you, it's apparently 16" long, 4" wide and 3/8" thick. Its weight is shrouded in mystery, but you could hazard a guess at "heavy". :wink: Now, I wonder what the plane looked like... :shock:

Cheers, Jester

 

[Adam]

I'll keep my eye peeled for one at the CBS :wink:

A

 

[Argus]

A prodigious weapon and no doubt.

The only planes of those proportions that spring to mind was a coopers jointer which was used for edging the barrel staves. These planes were anything from 3 to 5 feet long, of wooden construction and used static, edge uppermost in the inclined position with one end supported on a trestle and the other on the bench. The work was moved on the plane.

There is a description of these planes in R A Salaman’s ‘Dictionary of Woodworking Tools’ including an illustration of a metal one plus one with two mouths and another extract in ‘The wooden Plane’ by John M Whelan.

I seem to recall seeing one in the Rural crafts museum in Reading, some years ago and presumably there are some Coopers still working, though they may have mechanised this bit. (probably not, when you think of it, as a barrel joint from a rotating plane head would be inherently leaky)!