A brief history of the Western Handplane | Hand Tool Shootout

hey guys welcome to woodwork life it's been a while but it's time for another hand tool shootout and today we're looking at the number five plane the jack plane the four plane the panel plane there's a lot of different names for it but we're gonna look at the number five plane and through that we're gonna look at sort of hand planes through history the aptly-named jack plane is the jack-of-all-trades of hand planes it's got a short enough soul he could use as a smoother but oftentimes it's got a wide enough mouth Bri can put it in a curved iron to use it for dimensioning as a scrub plane you could even use it for a jointing short stock if you needed to its intended uses to remove the scallops left behind by a scrub plane before taking it to a jointer plane thus they call it also a four planned in reality though you can use a jack plane for anything from scrubbing to smoothing if you have a set up right but first I want to thank Squarespace for making the hand tool shootout series possible it takes a lot of time money and effort to bring all these tools together for these hand tool shootouts I really want to thank them for supporting small creators and pet projects like this one I'm actually working on a website to consolidate the timeline of significant hand planes through history and I'm hosting it through Squarespace it's so easy to build a professional looking site using Squarespace you just pick a template drag and drop photos of elements and hit go is there a pet prodigy you want to get started on in 2019 well fulfill your New Year's resolution with a great new website from Squarespace click the link down below in the description for a 10% off your first purchase and help show Squarespace what a great idea it is new supporting small creators like myself thanks now let's get onto the action [Music] it's utterly impossible to go through every single historic landmark plane okay so some notable exceptions off the top of my head the Norris plane infill planes really anything Eastern or Scandinavian there's a bunch of other noteworthy planes that I'm omitting but I can't possibly list them all let me know if there's any noteworthy emissions you can think of in the comments like I said I'm trying to collate all that together into a timeline on that new website and if there's enough worthy emissions maybe a little follow-up video in this looking at you know Eastern claims in the history of Scandinavian planes there's some really interesting stuff out there but it's gonna be a little bit harder to get hold of in the United States a jack played between 12 and 18 inches long and this has been true since ancient times one of the earliest complete like workable examples of a Jack plane was the Goodman ham plane named as such because it was dug up by British Petroleum on Goodman hem on the Yorkshire Wolds in England it's an ancient Roman plane made of ivory and iron this plane measured thirteen and a quarter inches by two and three eighths inches so things unique of dudas completeness and the nature of the materials it appears that it was more of a showpiece or owned by a rich craftsman in the area this plane dates back to the second to fourth century AD although other planes have been found as far back as 79 AD with a plane that was found in Pompeii a few remaining planes survived of this variety due to the nature of the materials the iron would have rusted away and all the wood would have rotted out longer the betting angle of common Roman planes was found to be between 50 and 65 degrees this is indicative of working primarily with hardwoods which were common to the area although they that betting angle started to shift downward as carpenters began to work more with softer woods as we look forward you'll notice that not really much has changed in the design of a hand plane from the second century all the way into the 18th century [Music] now let's jump forward 13 hundred years to send us key Ohio and see what has changed the same dusky numbers 13 was manufactured exactly like the one that we have here from 1869 to 1929 it's a 16 inch by 2 and 5/8 inch similar to that Roman plain made of Ohio grown beechwood the only major upgrades from the second century Roman Plains on this are a carbon steel blade and a chip raker the carbon steel would have been slightly stronger and held an edge better the chip breaker would prevent it a little bit of chip out when planing us harder woods almost 2,000 years and just two major innovations the beech handle was also new but many wood body planes of this era didn't have handles more of a personal preference thing many of the wood body planes floating around the world aren't really made by any tool makers mostly they're just jigs to hold a blade whipped up by carpenters to accomplish a particular task so the betting angle has changed on this plane it's closer to 43 degrees compared to the 65 degrees that was found on that Roman plane but hand planes of this era had betting angles all over the place depending on their use this one was likely intended for soft woods or general purpose use one of the more enjoyable things about a wood body plane is the weight with a lower weight and the well wax sole you can really just skim through the wood like nothing's even there the real problem with the wood body planes were a lack of precision and adjusting the depth of cut there was no lateral adjustment mechanism and the iron was held with the wedge and adjusted with the hammer fully not a little pink one but to each their own this meant that sending the iron square and getting it to just the right depth was a little nuanced the wood body will also potentially wear out over time although there are many hundreds of year old planes still in existence the only real challenge is planing the sole flat and gradually opening up the throat until it becomes too wide to take finishing passes the plane would then be relegated to scrub duty or again thrown in the burn pile saving the irons and just building a new body another issue with wood body planes was the constant movement just the nature of wood the soul was not going to remain flat over seasons or even day to day and the wedge would change fit based again on seasons the center is the transitional plane this is a short-lived era of hand planes actually kind of overlapped with the full steel body planes and everything but after thousands of years the dominance emergence of tool makers like Stanley rule and level company in 1843 and Leonard Leonard Bailey's many patents transitional planes were the first real plane to make a dent in the popular of wood bodied planes additional planes introduced Leonard Bailey's lateral adjustment mechanism in 1858 and the advent of the precursor of the bailey patented depth adjustment mechanism with the neuroblast nut that we're all familiar with in 1867 this is the first time these two features were introduced and present on one plane this meant you no longer needed a tool to adjust the depth and the squareness of the iron and the sole could quickly and easily be replaced when worn out although these planes were built to add the convenience of a steel adjustment mechanism and preserve the lower weight and feel of a wood bodied plane these planes did not catch on as well as the later steel planes they were a lot more expensive and also not quite as durable as either-or this did though mark the beginning of stanley and the bailey patent planes on the global hand plane market actually sent one of these to my buddy Eric at hand-tool rescue to restore as part of a giveaway earlier on in my channel like I said the transitional plane didn't really have a long lifespan due to some of the shortcomings of being sort of a middle ground between the later steel planes and the earlier wood-bodied planes kind of went on until there was eventually the advent of the full bailey patent steel plane which was shortly after the transitional plane although the transitional planes had a short lifespan compared to some of the other planes that we're talking about today it was an area of experimentation where a lot of the patents that later went into the stanley patent bailey planes in 1868 a lot of those original designs were sort of fleshed out in different forms of transitional planes after the transitional planes there was a long span of stanley bailey planes that were the common hand plane and stanley maintained this ruthlessly by buying up any competing patents or competing tool makers and sort of rolling them into the stanley rule and level coe as one big thing so you'll notice that in the united states during that early 1800s there's just a plethora of Stanley planes with very little competition as far as any well-known or well-established brands [Music] Stanley continued its dominance United States in the early 1800s but in the mid early 1800s there were other competing tool companies started to emerge to compete with up-and-coming tool makers and to continue with Stanley's scorched earth marketing strategy in the late 1800s Justus trout Edmund shade and proved on the Bailey patent design with the first Stanley bedrock plane although this was primarily a marketing exercise and steel body planes have been around for a few decades at this point the stanley bedrock plane is still widely sought after is one of the top performing Stanley planes of all time the defining feature of the Stanley bedrock plane is the Frog there's a self squaring slot on the Frog to attach the base along with self tightening pins to attach the Frog in place this better supports the blade and potentially as less chatter when going on in a hardwood the new frog design also allowed the Frog to be adjusted while the iron was in place allowing you to open and close the throat to prevent chip out and provide even further support to the iron [Music] sadly continue manufacturing the stanley bedrock plane and continue manufacturing in the united states until in 1937 stanley established their operations in england the stanley handyman series a plane were cheaper with plastic and paints components rather than rose wood totes and japan's sole they're not nearly as collectible the pre-war american stanley planes are they're still durable tools some of the components aren't as premium but plastic is usually more durable than rose wood more widely available after world war ii american manufacturing of hand planes was basically over but stay in the UK continue to produce standard bench planes until the mid 1980s the english stanley may not be as collectible but there's still great user tools with the diminishing quality of stanley tools after outsourcing to england and eventually shutting down operations at the bush factory this presented new opportunities for other tool companies to now enter into the market and use the now public domain patents to produce new tools in the bottles of old famous or collectible stanley designs chief among these was lee nielsen in a market devoid of manufacturers of high quality tools with the recipients of Stanley's British division and the now public domain patents they relied on Lee Neilson to work started in 1981 to provide high quality hand tools a manufacturing high quality iterations of mostly classic stanley patents the leading olson number five and five and a half are based on stanley bedrock planes along with high-quality materials like a to steal plane irons surgically accurate thick ductile iron castings add a little more durable and a lot of both beautiful and functional machined rather than cast brass fitting lee nielsen five-and-a-half i have here builds on a lot of features seen on premium planes over the years lee nielsen isn't really about innovating in the hand plane department with features and new gizmos and gadgets it's more of a greatest hits album of hand planes through history although these planes operate beautifully they're very expensive and a little bit precious but that makes sense the extra material in the thick steel iron thick sole thick chip breaker and just the additional material makes the lee nielsen versions of the hand planes much heavier than historical analogues this does help deliver a smooth clean operation of the tool but it does take them closer to tool jewelry than the beater craftsman tool that was thrown in a toolbox that they're derived from I mean I still bought one with the resurgence of interests and hand tools and getting back to the roots of woodworking as CNCs and power tools dominate the crafts upper echelons several companies have come out and started to innovate again in the space one of the most well known brands it's innovating the hand tool space is Veritas adding useful features to the Stanley and Norris designs with innovations like adjustable throats and reiterating the Norris adjustments of the modern age you also have companies like Bridge City Tool Works making tool collectors and machinists dream tools but beautiful design to machine pieces of collectible tool art but there are others too like the Swiss made rally 260 evolution and Pro I have here it's designed to be used and abused while innovating off a classic form factor and design this is what I imagined the hand plane would be like if you stripped it down just to its basic tasks and re-engineered it using modern manufacturing and material techniques the rally evolution end uses a laminated steel sole to maintain flatness without the weight of a castle the throat is easily adjustable with a rotating mechanism ahead of the tote without any screws to loosen or tighten all the adjustments are tool free it also has a clever adjustment mechanism that can be controlled with just one finger it locks it both positive and negative adjustments as opposed to the bailey's adjustment mechanism the blade on the rally is reversible and can only lock into the chip breaker perfectly Square to the sole eliminating the need for lateral adjustment mechanism the blades are also designed to be a consumable rather than something that can be carefully sharpened and maintained this does get some more beginners able to make good quality shavings right off the bat but I have kind of mixed feelings about adding a consumable to a hand plane operating the plane with the corrugated sole with some sort of coating on it it's as easy as using a wood body plane due to the weight of the plane without all the additional weight of casting but with all the convenience of a steel body with plastic parts from the visible screws this is no piece of tool jewelry but it's a hell of a user I'm not a Hugh fan of introducing the consumables but this has been done before some people might be turned off by the plastic totes but plastic is a perfectly fine material for tools as long as it's done well there are so many great hand planes in the past hundred years and there's awesome really great new ones that are innovating on a 2,000 year old technology but I guess their question really to ask yourself is do you want a tool do you want a collectible you want some combination of the both I mean a good hand tool is like a fine violin the Betina actually adds to the value so woodworkers please don't let your friends leave these on a shelf make sure they get a good workout every now and again they're not that precious keep an eye on wooden work life comm I'll announce whenever I put that new website live with the timeline for all the historical hand planes through history are we looking to the comments to see more suggestions of what I need to add to those to really make sure I cover all the cornerstone achievements and hand planed innovation over time I want to thank again Squarespace for sponsoring this series it's gonna be really cool being able to put more time and effort into researching all these projects I've done many hand tool shootouts in the past so check those out in the playlist down in the description and be sure you get subscribed so you'll get notified anytime I release a new hand tool shoot out or any way other would work life content thanks for watching and remember to keep your tools sharp keep your mind sharper

Channel: Wood.Work.LIFE.

Views: 7,091

Rating: 4.8449612 out of 5

Keywords: jack plane, hand tool shootout, handplane history, hand tool, shoot out, hand tools woodworking, hand tool woodworking, woodworking, rali 260, antique hand tools, wood planer, stanley handyman, stanley bedrock, hand tools, wood plane, fore plane, stanley number 5, veritas, jack plane shootout, hand tool rescue, wood work life, goodmanham plane, hand plane shootout, best wood plane, best hand plane, hand plane review, hand plane comparison, hand plane, best hand tools

Id: eucP2hN_Kwc

Length: 15min 4sec (904 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 17 2019