Unusual Japanese large smoothing plane.

Object/Artifact

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Heritage Acres

Overview of plane.: It's big, the cutter is very thin and very wide, and it's really heavy.
Overview of plane.

It's big, the cutter is very thin and very wide, and it's really heavy.

Name/Title

Unusual Japanese large smoothing plane.

Entry/Object ID

2010.020.008

Description

A very large and heavy Japanese plane with a very wide but unusually thin blade secured with two wedges. It is of some kind of rosewood, carved from a single block, well made though not finely finished or decorated. We had a word of mouth reference to it being a "flooring plane", but no sure description. The mouth is interesting, there is a piece or iron or steel dovetail wedged into place to make the mouth very fine. It would suggest that it would be set to take a very thin shaving, albeit a very wide one. The twin wedges under a cross dowel also suggest it would be driven lightly. I have found only one reference to such a plane on the internet, an auction house near Boston sold one a few years ago. They described it as a smoothing plane but provided no more details. Other Japanese planes I have come across have been simple and square oak bodies with very thick irons.

Use

We simply don't know, but we like it. Any information on this would be very welcome.