Marples hybrid plane?

[AndyT]

Back in the 1960s, Marples offered a line of 'hybrid' planes. They had a wooden body - built up by gluing blocks between thin outer sides - and a Bailey style adjuster.

Paul Sellers did a recent blog post to introduce a video on how to make one, which seems a good idea if you have a donor plane and some suitable wood around the place.

I don't have a Marples catalogue recent enough to list these planes but I do have a little supplement to The Woodworker in May 1960 which listed the planes then available, from Stanley, Record, Marples and Woden. It showed two models, a 10" smoother, at 32s 6d and a 14" Jack, at 40s. (The equivalent Stanley no 4 was 41s and a no 5 was 49s 9d.)

Both models pop up fairly often on eBay and by studying the pictures of completed lots I think I can list their characteristics:

- The front block sticks up above the sides and is rounded at the top, chamfered behind.
- The sides rise up in a nice curve, like a metal plane.
- The name MARPLES is stamped on the front block.
- A transfer appears on one side.
- The beechwood body is protected with a clear varnish of some sort.
- The metal frog is painted gold.
- The lever cap and iron are marked MARPLES.

At Richard Arnold's bring and buy charity tool sale, there was a ratty old plane which looked like one of these. Actually, it was there last year but nobody wanted it, so I bought it this time round. It looked like this:

I have now cleaned it up and put it back in working condition. In doing so I noticed several things.

The lever cap and iron are both by Stanley, which is no surprise in itself. They fit the frog ok. Both iron and frog are 1 3/4" wide - which is the No 3 size. As far as I know the Marples planes were only offered with a 2" iron, and there is plenty of room for one to be fitted.

The frog is non-standard - it is flat at the bottom with no 'step' and no obvious signs of having been cut down.

- but it is painted gold, like the Marples frogs in their planes.

There is no Marples name marked - I looked carefully before scraping off the old dirt and finish - and there was no trace of any indentation at all.

So what have I got here? The profile looks exactly like a commercial Marples plane. I can see that the design is easy to copy, so if this is a copy it is well done. But would a copier have hit upon a Marples frog or gone to the trouble of painting another one gold?

Could it have been factory made but with the wrong size frog used? That sounds a bit unlikely.

The other big difference is that this plane has a closed handle, while all the others I have seen have a common 'spike' handle.

Does anyone have anything similar to compare, or any other ideas?

 

[MIGNAL]

I can't recall seeing one with that type of rear closed handle, then again I've only seen half a dozen or so pictures of the Marples through the internet.
Lurcher bought a Marples one, don't know what style of tote that had.
User made? user modified? perhaps the rear tote broke and a replacement was put in.
This style of transitional has fast become my workhorse Plane. An absolute joy to use. I'm not joking when I state that I wouldn't swap it for a LN, Veritas or any other of the fancier Planes. Those Planes might give you the ultimate finish (which is very marginal anyway) but these get the job done quicker and in a much more comfortable way. That factor is often ignored far too readily in all these Plane reviews/comparisons.
Someone needs to start making these again. They are too good to ignore.

 

[Mr_P]

Incredible, are you sure that's the same plane ?

No help here from 1961, 14 page catalogue.

 

[AndyT]

Wow, this must be a first - a plane which got a Design Council award is reliably said to be a good plane to use!

It's perhaps also worth mentioning that the "aircraft glues" have done a good job - there was no sign of the parts separating.
Thanks guys.

 

[lurcher]

andy what you have is an original i have both of the planes both have a gold frog and a marples iron
they do work well apart from i have big hands so had to carve a little of the side si i can get to the adjusting wheel

 

[MIGNAL]

Wonder what the 'aircraft glue' was. Casein?

 

[profchris]

Wonder what the 'aircraft glue' was. Casein?

Probably Aerodux, a resorcinol/pheno formaldehyde resin (I looked up the last bit). I fly gliders, as well as making the odd ukulele, and quite a few wooden gliders from the 50s and 60s are now exhibiting signs of gradual glue failure. Apparently Aerodux came in around that time, and those aircraft glued up with it are showing no signs of problems.

 

[bugbear]

I have a Marples Catalog #15, printed 1965.

Here's the hybrid plane page.

The catalog came with (only) a 1972 price list, where these planes are listed as "withdrawn".

BugBear

 

[AndyT]

Thanks BB, that's further confirmation that the range was really just the two sizes, both with open handles and 2" irons.
I do think mine was made by Marples but it's a bit odd!

 

[bugbear]

Wonder what the 'aircraft glue' was. Casein?

Probably Aerodux, a resorcinol/pheno formaldehyde resin (I looked up the last bit). I fly gliders, as well as making the odd ukulele, and quite a few wooden gliders from the 50s and 60s are now exhibiting signs of gradual glue failure. Apparently Aerodux came in around that time, and those aircraft glued up with it are showing no signs of problems.

Aerolite?

http://www.seqair.com/skunkworks/Glues/ ... olite.html

BugBear

 

[bugbear]

andy what you have is an original i have both of the planes both have a gold frog and a marples iron

How wide are the frogs?

BugBear

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Aerolite I wondered. I remember long ago reading a letter in a mag. from an ex pilot who used Aerolite for everything on the theory that it kept him in the air through the war, so it was good enough for anything. Aerodux I'd not heard of - it seems to be a resorcinol, so wouldn't it leave a coloured glue line?

 

[MIGNAL]

Actually virtually any decent wood glue would be suitable for these types of Planes. I tend to use Hide glue (I'm a purist!) but there's so much gluing surface that the glue type is a lot less critical than you think. If you look at the amount of tension that a Lute or Guitar bridge (50 Kg) is under and it's such a small footprint. I haven't had one single joint come apart on any of the laminated wooden Planes that I've ever made. Even if a joint started to come apart it would be a simple matter of a bit more Hide glue and a clamp.
If they were withdrawn around '72 they had a relatively short production run, 12 years or so? I'm obviously somewhat biased but I think the basic idea was a very good one - a lightweight Plane with the slick feel of wood on wood, yet had the adjustment knobs/levers that folk saw on their metal Planes. Maybe they just didn't look 'expensive' or sexy enough.

 

[profchris]

Could have been Aerolite, which among other things glued de Havilland Mosquitos together - I think the structural problems of aircraft come from casein glue which suffers fungal attack when wet (but don't quote me on that - I'm prepared to play a musical instrument I've glued together, but want a specialist to glue any aircraft I fly!).

I'm with Mignal on hot hide glue for musical instruments which has many virtues for working with, in addition to it being the best for most structural applications. For example, on a complex joint such as the back of a guitar to its sides, you can do an initial glue and clamp up and then re-set any sections which aren't quite right by introducing some fresh glue and a little heat and then re-clamping. For something like a double bass I think this is the only way to get a good glue join, as Titebond would have skinned over before you'd finished assembly and clamping.

Its main drawback for planes would be if they ever got damp, otherwise the stuff works for ages. I have a ukulele from the 1920s which is holding together just fine.

 

[AndyT]

This style of transitional has fast become my workhorse Plane. An absolute joy to use...
Someone needs to start making these again. They are too good to ignore.

I see that Graham Haydon has just done a nice video showing how to fit a metal frog into a conventional mortised plane which he makes very quickly!

https://youtu.be/mKo2sYyklEE

 

[MIGNAL]

Pine! That will be super light. You can tell. Look how fast he is able to plane at 5:21.
You couldn't possibly plane that quickly with your fancy metal planes.
More seriously that fast frame does kind of illustrate their advantage. It's when one has a fair amount of planing to do, either at any one time or when it's spread throughout the day. The difference is like picking up a No 7 and trying to use it as a fast removing Jack Plane. After a minute or so you'll slow down to a snails pace when using a No 7.
I haven't weighed mine but I'll take a guess and say that it's under half the weight of a No. 5. So for the vast majority of the time my metal No. 5 sits idle on the shelf and I reach for the transitional. I only use the No. 5 now when I think the added weight might be an advantage, which is fairly rare.

 

[G S Haydon]

Lol! Andy, "made quickly" is all that's going for it . Seeing this thread and Mignal's build had me thinking about the concept and I wanted to have a go but just "rough out" the concept first to get a feel for it. More to follow soon

 

[AndyT]

Excellent stuff Graham I shall await developments with interest.

It's at the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of pace but I'd like to make sure that you and anyone else reading this has seen one of my all time favourite toolmaking videos. It's on the Swiss TV archive and features a father and son duo in the last surviving wood tool making shop in Geneva, in the 70s. You don't need to speak French to understand it if you can follow what they are doing. There's much to enjoy including a demo of how to pare the bed of a long plane using a big paring chisel and your shoulder and a great no nonsense sharpening sequence.
No apologies to those who already know about it, it bears repeated viewing.

http://www.rts.ch/archives/tv/culture/suisse-au-fil-du-temps/3464421-les-outils-de-bois.html

 

[G S Haydon]

That is a good one Andy and the content is pure gold. Closest thing we'll see to proper back in the day stuff!

 

[AndyT]

A belated footnote to this question.
There's a dedicated collector and historian of Marples tools, Roger Ball, who is gradually extending an unparalleled in-depth study of the huge range of tools made and sold by the foremost UK hand tool dynasty.

This page shows all of the history we came up with and plenty more that we missed.

https://williammarplesandsons.com/prefabricated-planes/

The closed handle variant is at the end of the page.

My plane resembles his Type 3 in frog details - except that it's a number 3 size and has a Stanley iron, cap iron and lever cap, which are presumably not original.