The Woodworker 1930 - wooden planes

[StraightOffTheArk]

Here's three articles on wooden planes.

August 1930 - truing the sole and sorting the mouth.

September 1930 - 'The Treatment of New Planes'. Interesting as it's against soaking wooden planes in linseed oil - even stating that certain companies would consider their guarantee void if this is done.

November 1930 - 'The Choking Plane - the cause and the cure'

I have scanned some articles of more than one page and I'll post them when I've worked out how to make sure the pages are in the right order. Let me know if the scans are illegible, and I'll see if I can convert to text.

Cheers,

Carl

 

[DigitalM]

Seriously think it might be worth having a forum called the OOCRL "Out Of Copyright Reference Library" for gems such as this. I love old copies of Woodworker, I have a few bound volumes from where they would put out the whole year as a volume.

 

[RogerP]

Your scans are very legible when I enlarge them with ctrl/mouse wheel.
Thanks for taking the trouble to post them.

Rog

 

[AndyT]

But where are the pages and pages of readers' letters, disagreeing with everything? :roll:
It all sounded so much simpler back then - the experts knew best!

 

[NazNomad]

But where are the pages and pages of readers' letters, disagreeing with everything? :roll:

... or as we know it better today, the internet. :-D

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

I used to have some of these magazines when I was a kid, some given to me by my granddad via my dad. I don't know what happened to them, but I haven't had possession of them for many years. I did wonder if there was some valuable information in these that I had lost, and might never find again in modern writings. Having read the few articles published here, I can only say that the magazines are a pleasant curiosity, but not much use to modern woodworkers, whether they are embracing new technologies in tool making, or old tool enthusiasts.

The article on the choking plane clearly is written by someone who does not know about the cap iron effect. It would be hoped that writings of this vintage would understand this important function, but it seems this may have been the era that it is begun to be forgotten.

The article about oiling the plane body is utter nonsense. Oils absorbsion into wood will not cause it to swell, it simply does not enter the cell walls where the bound water has been removed. It merely filled the pores to act as a vapour barrier so moisture is delayed getting into the cells, which would cause the swelling. (How effective oiling a plane is at preventing cells taking up moisture is another matter; the French polish would likely be just as effective) Perhaps, as Andy says, a reader's letters page where people could question the wisdom of the experts might have had some interesting comments!

Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that my missing magazines are of no real loss, after all.

Mike.

 

[StraightOffTheArk]

AndyT - Yes they didn't print much in the way of disagreement, although I do remember someone writing in about a method (can't remember what now) that he disagreed with and gave his own, much quicker method, I'll have a look though, sometimes there are interesting letters.

Mike - I think that you are right - you haven't lost anything by not having the magazines. There are references in other articles to setting the cap iron close in connection with reducing tearout, which would be close enough to get the 'cap iron effect', but the cap iron effect as we think of it, does not seem to have been recognised, at least in these magazines.

I enjoy the style of writing - quite formal and informative but also fairly matter of fact. A lot of modern books function as a coffee table book and tool porn at least as much as an instruction manual - also I hate the modern need to have a 'story' or to document the author's 'journey' and have the prose burdened with informalities and whichever personality they think will help to sell it. Plus line drawings are generally more helpful than photo's, and it's also written from a handtool perspective which suits me (I do own a bandsaw, and one day I may get round to buying a new blade - I even have an electric drill, but somehow seem drawn to braces & eggbeaters), I even like the furniture designs, although I'd never make anything exactly the same, lastly of course, I enjoy looking through a window into the past - my Grandparents were just the sort of people the magazine was aimed at, practical, not well-off, but had enough to try to better themselves by making stuff that they otherwise could not afford.

Next instalment coming soon,

Cheers,

Carl

 

[nev]

Not wishing to water on anyones bonfire, but are you confident that these pages you are posting here are out of copyright? For obvious reasons we cannot allow such if there is any doubt.
From what I understand in the UK, the copyright rules are the author's lifetime + 50 or 70 years. The copyright in the actual typographical layout of the published editions only last for 25 years from the end of the year in which it was published. In other words reproducing the magazines by scanning them would not pose any problem, but you would still technically need permission to re-publish the individual articles and illustrations unless you were absolutely sure the authors had died more than 70 years ago ie prior to 1942.
Please feel free to correct me if incorrect.
Thanks.

 

[MusicMan]

Nev

That is generally correct (70 years), though if the writer was paid for the work by the magazine, it became 'work for hire' and copyright is owned by the magazine, unless there was an exclusion clause. If the magazine has been defunct for 25 years it is probably OK but not necessarily - can be a minefield. Should be OK with copying the odd articles as Ark has done, under 'fair dealing' but making an archive of OOP magazines would be dodgy unless you really know the copyright situation. I'm not sure when copyright expires for an continuing magazine. I am not a lawyer but have had to learn some copyright rules for academic and musical purposes.

 

[AndyT]

I'm not a lawyer either, but what's the worst that can happen? If someone who owns the rights objects to these extracts being published and appreciated, they or their lawyers will send the site owner a "cease and desist" notice demanding that they get removed from the site. That's it. Nobody's made any money. There's no warehouse full of saleable goods which need to be destroyed.