G. Eastwood Sash Fillister Plane

[Rhyolith]

Found this pretty thing at the car boot few weeks back. Its missing its main blade but think everything else is there.

19th Century Sash Fillister Plane by G. Eastwood by Rhyolith, on Flickr

Got the usual questions:
Age?
Maker?

Anything else interesting about these tools I should know? I have minimal knowledge of these.

19th Century Sash Fillister Plane by G. Eastwood by Rhyolith, on Flickr

19th Century Sash Fillister Plane by G. Eastwood by Rhyolith, on Flickr

19th Century Sash Fillister Plane by G. Eastwood by Rhyolith, on Flickr

I must admit, it was one of the finest patinas I have seen to date, alright for £20 I thought.

I've done nothing to it but a bit of dusting.

19th Century Sash Fillister Plane by G. Eastwood by Rhyolith, on Flickr

Edit: post corrected from "Plow Plane" to "Sash Fillister Plane"

 

[Orraloon]

It's not a plow but a skew rebate. The boxwood insert has me wondering if it may have been converted. Normally a rebate just has a plain beech sole so it may have started life with a profiled sole then someone has flattened it.
Still a nice old plane.
Regards
John

 

[DonMc]

According to British Planemakers from 1700, third edition, George Eastwood worked at three different York locations between 1851 and 1899.

Incidentally, as has been pointed out, it is not a plough plane. Rather, it is a sash fillister plane, unfortunately missing its iron. Otherwise, it looks to be in good condition. Nice find.

Don McConnell
Eureka Springs, AR

 

[AndyT]

As Don has said, it's a sash fillister. A specialist tool for cutting the glazing rebates on sash window moulding bars. The point of it is that the reference face is the one closest to the user and is the same face as is used as the reference for the moulding. This fits with the English style of sticking board.
The area of greatest wear is the near arris of the main stock, so this was reinforced with boxwood on all but the most basic models. Makers developed more and more elaborate ways of fixing this boxing, using as many as nine special narrow planes to make sliding dovetails along the beech and box components.*

Outside of window making, you may find little need to rebate the far side of a board. One possible use that has been found is on pre-industrial floorboarding. Rather than plane the whole board to thickness, you could use a sash fillister on the edges, cutting down an inch or so to define a margin. Then use a plain rebate plane to connect the margins, only in the places where the joists would be.

Yours is a very nice example, at a gloatworthy price. The men who could make these to order, quickly enough to be commercially viable, were at the top of their game.

* There's a brilliantly concise account of how to do this, written by WJ Armour, who was a nineteenth century professional planemaker. It's reproduced here http://www.handplane.com/35/practical-p ... g-part-iv/

[Edited to add link to dovetail boxing information.]

 

[DonMc]

As Andy pointed out, the configuration of the sash fillister plane allows its fence to register off the same reference face as the sash moulding plane. This allows for uniformity of these features from piece to piece, flowing from the critical reference faces. Presumably, any slight discrepancies from piece to piece can be dealt with at the off-side of the sash rebate.

An additional advantage of this arrangement, sometimes overlooked by folks demonstrating traditional sash-making, is that, with the use of a proper sticking board, both the fillister plane and the moulding plane can be used in the same direction. That way, with a careful selection of material and its orientation, one can always be planing "with the grain." This helps produce very neat and clean results directly from the planes, which is is particularly helpful with sash, where these details are so visible and often back-lit.

Don McConnell
Eureka Springs, AR