Originally Posted by
Steve Voigt
Thanks for the pics!
So, remember when you said (I'm paraphrasing here) the mouth of this plane was cut a little differently, that it was a more difficult way to make a plane? You retracted that later, but I think you were right the first time. It's how the hard lines where the abutments begin to taper match up perfectly with the hard line that is the top of the wear. Three lines meeting perfectly, like a big left-handed bracket. That's a much cleaner look than most other oldies I've seen, and it seems like it would be a very functional thing as well.
I admit, most of the old planes I've seen, particularly double iron planes, are late 19th/early 20th c. degenerate examples. So maybe this kind of thing was common earlier, but it's new to me.