A plane I converted to the best type smoother.G.Wilson.

[george wilson]

Old Man Simms back in the 70's was the furniture conservator in Williamsburg. He loved this type of English plane with a steel toe.

I never could find one. Even in England,when I went to a huge flea market,I only found one. It was in BAD shape,and way overpriced.

I had already made myself one out of an old Butcher brand English plane. I also stopped up the throat of this plane,and filled it with raw linseed oil,3 or 4 throats full. Window putty is about the best thing to stop the throat up with. Best do it before modifying the plane. Clamp the plane down to a smooth piece of scrap,stop up the throat,set it level,pour in raw linseed. It will manage to leak some out past the putty no matter what,so clamp the plane down.

No big deal. You could make one yourself. I sawed the toe out of 1/4" steel plate. The end of these planes always had a very rounded front. Probably to help minimize damage if crashed into something. I have always made this rounded toe in my metal planes if the design permitted.

There is a 1/4" X 20 thread brass screw set into a brass plate on top. The screw goes through the plane,and threads into a hole tapped for it. You have to use a bottoming tap to tap this hole,as it is only about 3/16" deep into the 1/4" steel plate.

You could silver solder a nut on the top of the steel toe. I didn't bother.

The hole that the 1/4" screw goes through is about 3/8" in diameter,so you have room to shift the steel toe around. Not much adjustment is needed. You can make the opening as tight as you want. Then,tighten the screw. I have never had any trouble with the steel toe getting out of adjustment. I have never crashed the end of the plane into anything,either. This would,no doubt,push the steel toe against the plane iron.

The step for the toe was just cut by passing the plane over a dado head sticking up 1/4" out of the table saw's throat plate.

Mr. Simms always maintained that this was the best type of smoother. I have enjoyed using this one.

I have seen old catalogs where they sold these steel toes separately so you could convert your own plane and save a little money.

[Eric Brown]

Been reading all your posts and wanted to say thanks for sharing.
You always make me think and ponder why.

Questions about your smoother. The steel toe. Do you think its primarily to reduce wear to the plane or does the extra weight hold it down better?

Also, if you made it again today, would you use different materials or change the blade/angle/throat geometry?

Thanks again George.

Eric

[george wilson]

Eric,I'm not sure what you mean by "ponder why". I think the steel toe is so you can adjust it to get the extremely tight throat that you can see in the photo. The steel won't wear,or get rounded over like a wooden insert.

I did not make the plane body,so unless I made the whole plane I can't change the blade angle,etc..

No reason to change the materials. The plane has worked well since I adapted it.

[David Weaver]

Effectively, you've done an end-around on all of the things you fret over on an infill and created the same situation with the mouth only with a single piece of steel instead of an entire plane. Very smart idea - completely eliminates what I hate about coffin smoothers - that being that it's difficult to use them for long and keep the mouth crisp.

George - a separate subject, that will test your memory. I watched the CW video that was posted on youtube. At some point in it, marcus is using a small scraper or scraping plane to final thickness a thin piece of wood. It looked like it was about the size of an LN block plane, but worked very slick (perhaps aided by soft wood). Was that your scraper, or did it belong to marcus. Do you have any pictures of it if it's yours?

[george wilson]

That was a brass plane I made in 1970. I left it,and many other of my tools in the shop when I became tool maker. The understanding was that Marcus would replace the tools and I'd get them back. He never did. I didn't press the matter. I probably won't get them back by now. I really don't need them,but I left some nice little tools there.

[David Weaver]

Ahh - a plane, explains why nothing got ripped out at the edges. I had assumed that it was a scraper by the way he was holding it, but assumed wrong!

I've never had any luck lending things to people, either, no matter the terms. They either come back broken or never come back at all. My friends and relatives seem to think if they keep something long enough and don't say anything about it, you'll forget.

By the way, I enjoyed the video a lot. It's nice to see people working with both speed and precision. It would be nice of more of the instructional videos had the same, so that people didn't get the idea that they have to work at sloth pace with hand tools.

[george wilson]

Real old time craftsmen would starve if they didn't work fast. I knew an old time piano leg carver. He could carve a spiral piano leg in 20 minutes. Back when I was young,there were still a few old timers still floating around. I learned anything I could from them. Old guys like Mr. Simms,a great old machinist I knew-Mr.Wiseheart,and others. Mr. Wiseheart knew how to get things done with nearly nothing but a 10" South Bend lathe. I learned a lot of tricks from him.

[george wilson]

As luck would have it,I just saw a steel toed smoother on Ebay last night. From Australia. It is in pretty beat up shape. Saw it in the collectible section,tools.

[Jonathan McCullough]

Back when I was young,there were still a few old timers still floating around. I learned anything I could from them. Old guys like Mr. Simms,a great old machinist I knew-Mr.Wiseheart,and others. Mr. Wiseheart knew how to get things done with nearly nothing but a 10" South Bend lathe. I learned a lot of tricks from him.

I'll freely admit I've learned a great deal from you, and especially from your most recent posts and sincerely hope that you continue to keep the hits coming. I suspect a lot of people read these and admire your work and creativity but don't feel accomplished enough yet to post a comment that would add anything intelligent to the discussion at hand. And by "don't feel accomplished enough yet" I speak entirely for myself. We would be well advised to avail ourselves of George's experience and to learn "a lot of tricks from him."

[David Weaver]

I looked breifly but couldn't find it, but no matter. I have a $20 antique shop beech smoother that's a bit of a turd because of the huge mouth, and I think it may get this treatment the next time I'm cutting steel to make an infill. it's otherwise a very nice condition plane, I just can't get used to the huge mouth running around catching on the edge of everything. That and its inability to mitigate tearout vs. a plane with a tight mouth.

[Alice Frampton]

I have one with a steel toe - unfortunately the screw's seized up with rust and I'm reluctant to get too heavy-handed in case I manage to break it. But even if it doesn't close up the mouth (and that'd obviously entail making some room either side of the mouth for it to go anyway) it gives a heft to the plane that's very satisfactory. The previous owner clearly loved it, as the original iron was worn almost to the slot.

Cheers, Alf

[David Weaver]

Dandy-looking old plane, Alf. Tote an add-on, too? Clearly the plane of a serious user.