Inherited Planes

Wizard9999 · 12 Sep 2015

At the time we cleared out my late father's house I had no interest in woodworking. I always remembered seeing some wooden planes, but didn't take much notice of them and to be honest as I had not seen any sign of them for years assumed they had either been thrown out or had eneded up with somebody else. However, the other day I was searching for something in the back of a shed that is crammed with junk and came across a box I didn't recognise, it turned out to be full of things from my father's garage.

Amongst the things in the box were these:

I found the large (jack?) plane interesting as it has a metal toe(?) on it. It seems to be stamped G Woodcock all over it, but I have no idea if this is a maker or a former owner.

Then there is this one, it appears to have been attacked by some woodworm at some time, but beyond that it appears to be a fairly complex item and I have no idea how it works and what it's purpose is. It appears to have only one stamp on it which is GN.

Any thoughts from those who know about these things would be much appreciated.

Terry.

AndyT · 12 Sep 2015

Very handy.
From the top left, you have:

Razee Jack
Skew rebate
A moulding plane, probably a bead
A re-soled smoother
A dado plane (which has its front wedge the wrong way round)
A moving fillister.

Are you going to use them?

Wizard9999 · 12 Sep 2015

AndyT":cof8xpd4 said:
Very handy.
From the top left, you have:

Razee Jack
Skew rebate
A moulding plane, probably a bead
A re-soled smoother
A dado plane (which has its front wedge the wrong way round)
A moving fillister.

Are you going to use them?

Andy

Many thanks for this info. Afraid I was halfway through typing this when I had a delivery arrive and I found my daughter had submitted it, then when I edited it to finish saw you had already replied

.

Forgive by ignorance, but what is a moving fillister's purpose?

I would love to get them into a condition where I can use them, though I think that may be a long journey for me as I have no relevant experience and I would rather it take a long time and get it right than rush in and mess it up. Even if they prove unusable for sentimental reasons I would give them a prominent place for display in my workshop as I suspect my father would have inherited them from somebody else in the family, just not sure how I will find out.

Terry.

AndyT · 12 Sep 2015

The moving fillister is for cutting rebates on the near edge of the workpiece. It has a fence to set the width and a depth stop to set the depth of the rebate. It also has a nicker to sever the fibres when working cross grain.
The metal equivalent is the Stanley or Record 78/788.

To estimate age, post some shots of any names marked on the toe ends. If they are makers we could give a rough range of dates. Any repeated name will be an owner's name.

D_W · 14 Sep 2015

Wizard9999":207sg63h said:
At the time we cleared out my late father's house I had no interest in woodworking. I always remembered seeing some wooden planes, but didn't take much notice of them and to be honest as I had not seen any sign of them for years assumed they had either been thrown out or had eneded up with somebody else. However, the other day I was searching for something in the back of a shed that is crammed with junk and came across a box I didn't recognise, it turned out to be full of things from my father's garage.

Terry.

Interesting bunch. Woodcock would have been the owner of the plane if his name is all over the sides. Generally maker's marks are impressed with the letters raised and owner's marks impressed into the wood with letters depressed. It's not universally the case, but makers usually marked the front only...and once.

The added sole on the razee jack plane is interesting. It's not uncommon to find metal soles on smoothers, and I've seen another toolmaker who really likes that type, but it's not common on a larger plane like that at least that I've seen. It must've taken some damage and someone decided enough with it and fixed the problem permanently.