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Thread: Roman wood planes

  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Eastern PA
    Posts
    180

    Roman wood planes

    I've read that Romans used highly sophisticated metal bodied planes long before Stanley, Bailey and such came along. Does anyone have a picture of one? Also, why were they not used in England and the US after the fall of the Empire?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    Los Angeles County, CA
    Posts
    362
    Hi! I looked for a picture of a Roman plane, and got a lot of information, but not much in the way of pictures. My wife, a Latin teacher, says that the tool was called a runcina. I did find a picture of one (in very poor shape that even our neaders wouldn't want to try to fix) that was found on a boat. It is shown on this site ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2969638.stm ) that I am posting. As to why they were not used, maybe people were just scrambling to live and some of the tools that added refinements were not as important. Plumbing got lost for many years also.
    Old age can be better than the alternative.

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