Name/Title
European Style Narrow Bench PlaneEntry/Object ID
2010.025.025Description
A narrow, 1 1/2 inch bench plane in the European style with a "horn' front grip. The mouth has been modified with a boxwood insert that is now loose. Lots of wear.Use
Originally, I believe that this was a scrub plane. That is that it had a blade sharpened to a convex shape to take a thick centred shaving, commonly at a diagonal to the grain, to remove the high points of a board quickly. I think that the boxwood insert for the mouth was an attempt to convert it to a close-mouthed smoothing plane. That would have the blade sharpened close to straight to take thin shavings in final finishing of the board.Context
You can see in the photos where the mouth insert is removed that the original mouth of this plane was very wide. That is that the plane blade would have a significant gap between it and the front sole of the plane. A thick shaving would therefore pass the gap, but the surface of the board would be subject to tear-out because the gap would allow it to split ahead of the blade if the grain was going downward at that point. The wear pattern on the front bottom of the plane and behind the mouth suggests that it was used on rough boards. It is likely that the front of the mouth was similarly worn when the decision was taken to re-mouth it. The plane is labelled 1 1/2 inch on the lower front face which would be abnormal for a plane actually made in Europe, so it is likely to have been made in North America for a market niche of European emigrants. There are no maker's marks visible. Only an owner's stamp "J. Jones"
