Well, I suppose it's sort of an infill...

[Scouse]

Picked this up over the weekend. I'm not usually tempted by wooden planes, but I thought it was unusual enough to warrant a trip home for a closer look.



Apparently 'tis a D. Kimberley and Sons coffin smoother.



As you may have noticed, it has a bit of a thing, in the style of a big chunk of metal forming the cheeks and part of the bed of the plane, excuse the poor picture, it's not that rusty.



It's a funny thing really, not seen one before, but as I said I tend to overlook woodies. My best guess is it's one of those things which seemed like a good idea, but either didn't catch on or was almost immediately overtaken by other technology.

 

[bugbear]

Kimberley info:

http://www.leevalley.com/en/newsletters ... atents.htm

http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicat ... &KC=A&ND=4

http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicat ... 4107A&KC=A

Given the number of split out abutments one finds, you can see the motivation.

BugBear

 

[Mr_P]

Cool, well spotted and well worth a fettle.

Douglas also has a very nice but different infill/coffin hybrid here :

g-h-buck-smoother-t77710.html?hilit=spotted

 

[AndyT]

Nice find!

And whoever wrote the Lee Valley note saying that the patents can't be traced ought to apply to BB for some tuition!

 

[bugbear]

Nice find!

And whoever wrote the Lee Valley note saying that the patents can't be traced ought to apply to BB for some tuition!

Indeed. I used applicant=Kimberly, keyword=plane.

Unique search skills indeed! :wink:

BugBear

 

[pedder]

or the patent search has been improoved in the 7 Years between the erticle and bb's post? Things like that habpen.

Cheers Pedder

 

[Carl P]

Here's another on ebay, price seems a little optimistic though

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VERY-RARE...940?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3aa3a58934

Cheerio,

Carl

 

[Scouse]

Kimberley info

Thanks for the links, I did notice the patent stamp, but never seem to have much luck finding them; I will follow your tutorial next time!

Here's another on ebay...

Yeah I saw that one while looking for info. I would be a happy boy if that's what it was worth, but it seems in better nick than mine which has been abused with a hammer.

I wonder why Kimberley applied their stamp upside down? I thought mine might have been a Friday afternoon special, but the ebay example also has this.

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,
An interesting tool. I wonder if the additional iron block just added a weak link in the chain; an opportunity for something to become loose. I bet seasonal movement had a worse effect on the infil than it was supposed to cure in a completely wood plane. I suspect the constant hammer adjustment caused the screws hosing the infil in to loosen, too. A nice idea, but I suspect had pitfalls that made it defunct.

Mike.

 

[matthewwh]

I dunno Mike, it looks sensible enough to me, the sides tend to be the bit that goes on coffin smoothers if the wedge is knocked in too hard.

Looking at the dates on the patent it was around the same era as the stratospheric rise of the Bailey pattern planes at the beginning of the 20th century.

It reminds me of BT replacing all of the phone boxes just before mobile phones took off.

 

[woodbrains]

I dunno Mike, it looks sensible enough to me, the sides tend to be the bit that goes on coffin smoothers if the wedge is knocked in too hard.

Looking at the dates on the patent it was around the same era as the stratospheric rise of the Bailey pattern planes at the beginning of the 20th century.

It reminds me of BT replacing all of the phone boxes just before mobile phones took off.

Hello,

The cheeks were a weak point in coffin planes, this might be the answer. But it looks awfully gappy around the infil on these photos! It could be a great idea, Bailey pattern planes certainly repressed a lot of other (innovative) ideas, which is a shame. I should think that adding an extra part to a plane, such as this infil could only be a source of trouble. Beech wants to move a lot and iron not. I don't suppose the OP would use the infil to make a new plane, so we could find out if it works well?

Mike.

Mike.

 

[swb58]

There's another, the same maker and type, on one of those Internet auction sites at the moment.

 

[goldspanner]

reverse infill! trying to think of a suitable word to describe what it might be like to own a 'coffin' plane, but at the very least it must be interesting......