Theory about the origins of Dutch and English moulding plane

[Corneel]

In the last "Gildebrief" from the Dutch antique tool club Ambacht en Gereedschap http://www.ambachtengereedschap.nl/ was a very interesting article about the earliest Dutch moulding planes found in the Skokloster castle in Sweden. The article is written by Hein Coolen, one of the owners of Ducotools http://www.ducotools.dds.nl/wordpress/ and president of the club.

I am not going to copy or translate the article, because I am not mr. Coolen. But I am sure there are some people overhere interested in his ideas, and because a Dutch article isn't very accessible, I write this short introduction to his theory.

The pictures below are from several Internet blogs:
https://hyvelbenk.wordpress.com/2015/04/25/tools-from-skokloster-castle-in-sweden/
https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2016/09/12/heres-why-i-went-to-stockholm/
http://oldwoodplanes.co.uk/moulding-planes-updated-02-11-14/

The incredibly rich General Wrangel had a castel build in Sweden in the 17th century. He ordered all kinds of toys from all over Europe. One of his hobbies was woodturning, like many aristocrats back then, so he ordered a huge amount of tools from Amsterdam. Among the loot were also 64 woodworking planes, delivered in 1664. Here is wat is left of that collection.



As you might know (or not) the oldest know Dutch professional planemaker is Michel Corneliszn born 1581 in Antwerp, who moved to Amsterdam in 1585 and started his shop around 1600. The oldest known English planemaker is Thomas Granford. From 1654 onwards there were three generations and the second generation (1687-1716) seems to be the one who made a lot of planes professionally. With the Dutch being at least half a century earlier then the English there has always been the question if and how much the English were influenced by the Dutch, but because the Dutch planes look quite different, very "baroque" compared to the more puritan English shapes, a link between the two is not immediately obvious.

And then, a thourough examination of the Skokloster planes brought to light the existance of intermediate shapes which make a link between the Dutch and the later English moulding planes much more logical.

About half of the Skokloster moulding planes look a lot more like the later English ones. They don't have the carved details of the later Dutch planes.



Compare this to a typical early English plane, this one from John Partridge



There are a lot of similarities. The chamfers, the gouge cuts terminating the chamfers, the down sloping shoulder. The length of the plane, Dutch planes were never very uniform in length while the English later standardised on 9 1/2", these planes are about 10 1/2". The Dutch complex moulding planes never used a spring angle, and the earliest English ones didn't either.

Differences between the two are the shape of the escapement and the shape of the wedge.

Interesting is also that the carved Skokloster moulding planes haven't reached their later uniform shape quite yet either. This also indicates that this is a transition period in Dutch planemaking.

This theory of Hein Coolen is very attractive. Of course we will never know for sure, unless someone finds a diary of a Dutch planemaker who moved to Londen and teached Thomas Granford, or something like that.

 

[Corneel]

And here a comparison of the carved planes.

A typical 18th century Dutch moulding plane. This one is made by Ary den Hengst. They all looked more or less the same, with maybe small differences in the actual size of the various details. The later 19th century moulding planes had slightly different nose details, but other wise looked like these too.

And this one if from Skokloster, 1664. As you can see, the nose detail is different, much simpler. And the shape of the roundly carved escapement hasn't matured yet either, it is smaller and less "fluid".

These differences also indicate a transistion period in Dutch plane making.

 

[Droogs]

Thanks Corneel, v interesting

 

[Cheshirechappie]

During the 17th century, the Netherlands became the most prosperous and advanced country in Europe, pre-eminent in art, science and trade. Meanwhile, England was tearing itself apart in a series of civil wars (1640s and 1650s), followed by an uneasy peace, so it developed only slowly.

A close link between the two nations occurred in 1689, with an event known in England as the Glorious Revolution (it wasn't quite so glorious in Scotland or Ireland), when the Stadtholder of Holland, William of Orange, and his wife Mary (daughter of the Duke of York), were invited by the English Parliament to assume the throne of England. The reasons are complex, and somewhat beyond the remit of a woodworking forum (google 'Glorious Revolution' if you really need to know), but take the throne they did.

Whenever a monarch assumes a throne, they tend to bring a retinue of court followers, and they influence the life of the land they rule. So it was with William and Mary - they even had a style of English furniture named after them. I don't know for sure, but it's quite possible that the Dutch influence that gave rise to the furniture style also influenced the making of tools - London was the centre of Court life, and it was also the centre of fine cabinetmaking. The closeness in dates between the arrival of William and Mary (1689) and the rise of the Granfords as planemakers (second generation 1687 - 1716) seems too much of a coincidence.

The 18th century was a period of relative peace in England, during which it developed rapidly in all fields, eventually to the spectacular advances of the Industrial Revolution. Tool making developed along with advances in almost all the wood trades, and as we know from Benjamin Seaton's tool chest, was very highly refined by the end of the 18th century.

 

[Corneel]

Thanks for the social-economic environment Cheshirechappie. The 17th century is indeed know as the Golden Age in our history. Due for a large part to the religous freedom. Well, not really freedom, but when it was good for the trade, the Dutch were very good at looking in another direction. Many refugees from Belgium (the Southern Netherlands which was still under Spanish control), France and even as far as Portugal could live quietly and safely without fear of prosecution for their religious beliefs in the Northern Netherlands. They brought a lot of wealth and knowledge. Combined with the succesfull sea trade made for a sudden rise in wealth, arts (Rembrand!) and of course also in woodwork. So it doesn't come as a surprise when the first known Dutch plane maker came from Atwerp, as a child with his family fleeing from the Spanish inquisition.

There was quite a bit of international influence around Europe in a time when there was war in every quarter and traveling was difficult and expensive.

 

[custard]

Very interesting post Corneel.

What I know about tool history could be written on the back of a postage stamp, but I've picked up a few interesting tools here and there. These two moulding planes fit very well with what you say.

On the bottom is a plane by Robert Wooding (1700-27), so one of the earliest known English moulding planes (incidentally, this actual plane is featured in David Russell's book "Antique Woodworking Tools", I got it when he disposed of most of his collection).

On the top is a plane by William Madox (1748-75).

The later plane is 20mm shorter in length and 6mm taller in height, as well as having a smaller radius on the back, upper corner. So it does look, at least to my untutored eye, as if the English plane from the very beginning of the 18th century shows transitional design elements from your, still earlier Dutch planes.

I've always been surprised at how quickly woodworking innovations propagated around the world. If you look at chair construction there's a very distinctive solution to the problem of how to joint the side rail to the rear leg when you have compound curves. Solving this joinery problem was critical in allowing Chippendale style chairs to be made. Within about thirty years of the first recorded examples you find the identical joinery being used from the most fashionable London workshops to small country workshops in Cumbria, Devon, Norfolk, Scotland, Ireland, and all the way to the east coast of the USA. No internet, no books on techniques, but the exact same method, with the exact same layout lines, spread like wildfire.

How did that knowledge get transmitted so quickly? I don't know for sure but I suspect that the journeyman component of the apprenticeship system may have acted as a conduit. It's fascinating to find something very similar being played out today, the Barnsley Workshops developed some unique solutions to very specific cabinet making problems, for example how to make absolutely precise matching male and female templates for individual curves. I was taught their method, but as far as I know it's never been published nor detailed on the internet. Yet, I've come across the same technique in other workshops and, upon making enquiries, it seems virtually certain that the technique was brought by an ex Barnsley apprentice and then adopted.

 

[Corneel]

Yes a lot of people never traveled much beyond their village limits while others travelede surprising distances.

That wooding plane shows the down sloping shoulder very nicely. Late the shoulder on. English planes was more horizontal

 

[Woody2Shoes]

.......It's fascinating to find something very similar being played out today, the Barnsley Workshops developed some unique solutions to very specific cabinet making problems, for example how to make absolutely precise matching male and female templates for individual curves. I was taught their method, but as far as I know it's never been published nor detailed on the internet. Yet, I've come across the same technique in other workshops and, upon making enquiries, it seems virtually certain that the technique was brought by an ex Barnsley apprentice and then adopted.

Don't be tease Custard(!) - please share the "matching templates" method. I'm hoping to get time to go to their open day tomorrow and I suppose I could ask them, but I may not get there at all tomorrow. Cheers, W2S