Building traditional coffin smoother

[David Weaver]

I guess everyone here builds only with pallet wood and what they can find in dumpsters at job sites.

My wallet wishes that was the case!! Personally, I am disgusted to some extent that I blew a bois de rose blank on an infill plane that I've shown here before. I wouldn't be as bothered by a replacable blank like ebony, except for the fact that one rarely runs across ebony blanks that are:
* big enough
* properly oriented
* already dry

I paid $90 for the 9+x9+x4 cocobolo blank that I used recently (half of it left), and had to wait for it to dry, but the grain orientation of it is appropriate for planes and doesn't just look like a small diameter tree blank intended for bowls with a huge c shape to the grain on the front of the plane.

Just out of curiosity, btw, I went to google and ebay to find a gabon ebony blank of a similar size, and all I can find is 3x3 at the largest, and bowl blanks as large as maybe 6x6x3. I can't find anything suitable that would actually make a plane and a wedge out of one piece.

[george wilson]

Don't knock pallet wood. I found one made out of very curly maple a while back!! And dumpster diving at the museum's long dumpster is a national sport here. My friend Jon found several ORIGINAL 18th. C. prints,in frames once. I got a brand new pair of Channellocks. Some of the ignoramuses they get to clear out offices throw out valuable stuff. One time they threw out an original 17th. C. wheel lock rifle stock. That caused quite a stink when it came to light.

I used to get free curly maple at a furniture factory near where I lived in North Carolina. They'd TOSS curly maple because it was a difficult wood to machine,and would chip,etc..

Some of my most valuable wood is curly mahogany over 100 years old,and some English walnut. The conservators didn't want it because original 18th. C. furniture did not seem to use it.(I'll bet they just hadn't SEEN an original piece like that yet.Why WOULDN'T they have used it?,plenty of curly maple used in 18th. C. New England furniture.) Anyhow,I traded them out of it. They were making vise jaws out of the English walnut!! I guess they only wanted American furniture,though the museum is full of English furniture. I never understood that one.

[Kees Heiden]

Thanks for the lesson about plane aesthetics, George. Much appreciated.

[george wilson]

What about the lesson on pallet wood aesthetics?? I gave the curly wood away. It was pretty thin,but you could make a jewelry box from it.

About 25 years ago I bought a whole BEDROOM stacked full of walnut for $300.00!! It was cut in 1941 by a farmer who had a small sawmill and sawed wood for a hobby. So,the wood is my same age.

The first thing I got to make with it was a tall(floor model) wig stand for retiring supreme court justice Wm. Rendquist(sp?) For that I got $600.00,so the wood paid for itself. I made it for a large judge's wig they were giving him as a retirement gift. The wig maker's shop in the museum made it. I made it in 3 pieces: The hexagonal base,the hexagonal column and the carved head which all easily pulled apart. I assumed he would arrive by car,and the wig stand could easily be taken apart and gotten into the car. No one gave me any specifications for it at all. I just made it up. There were no complaints,so I guess it went over well.

This walnut was stored in an empty brick house that the farmer owned. He died,and the family was clearing out the house to get it ready to sell.

The walnut is VERY hard,about as hard as I have ever seen. But,it was cut mostly from small trees. Unfortunately,it has a lot of cracks in it,so I have to carefully pick and choose pieces to use. But,at the price,I can't complain. I left a bunch at the toolmaker's shop when I retired,because I was tired of hauling stuff around. The rest is stored in my basement,along with a large pile of very choice 1 1/2"-2" white pine up to 12" wide(a few 14" wide pieces).

The white pine was at an auction I went to many years ago. This large cabinet shop was shutting down. There were several long planks of this nice pine. They were about 16 feet long. People were bidding up a storm for those long planks. I guess most of them were a foot wide. Inside a tractor trailer body that was being used as a dust collector bin,there was a large bunch of white pine planks between 3 feet and 7 feet long. I bid $35.00,and NO ONE ELSE BID!!! That was astounding. At the time,the millwork shop in the museum was using that same choice(hardly ever a knot) white pine to make all sorts of stuff from. It cost the same price as hard maple,about $2.75 per foot in the museum warehouse. I guess that was a wholesale price.

I got all that wood home and counted the board footage up. There was nearly $3,000 dollars worth of pine there at the current price. I could not help but wonder why the other bidders had bid so high on the 16' planks,but ignored this wood. I mean,what are you going to make that is 16' long? I used some of the wood to make nice shelves and book cases for our house. I made some toys for kids,too. I used to make up a bunch of wooden toys every Christmas to give to poor children in the area when I lived in North Carolina. I'd like to get back to that,but these days a kid would probably ignore the toy if it wasn't electronic. Times have gotten more complex. Can't recall what all I've made from it. The rest is stored in our basement. Still a substantial amount left.

[steven c newman]

A while back, out on a rust hunt, came across a few of themSDC15737.jpgah, no, NOT these, butSDC13903.jpgever see a body like this?SDC13904.jpgStill sitting in the display caseSDC13905.jpgand because she wants at least $50 for it, it might sit there awhile, Butcher iron. SDC13906.jpgWonder IF it was carved all in one piece.

[george wilson]

I'd pass on those even at $5.00 for the lot. Tell her to take them back to the chicken house.

[David Weaver]

I'd pass on those even at $5.00 for the lot. Tell her to take them back to the chicken house.

Me, too. Butcher irons are nice, but not when they are as far gone as that.

It looks like someone tried to make the grip similar to a continental smoother.It's a good design, but that plane's best destination is a garbage can.

[Zach Dillinger]

I have a box of planes that look like that. I use them for little bits of beech when repairing a savable plane. Mouth patches, blanks to glue in to repair tote horns, etc. I would probably pay $5.00 for 'em all but not much more.

[David Weaver]

I'd personally eyeball the butcher iron on that one plane before giving up on it, but it would have to be one of the rare cases where the iron is rusty, but the stuff under the cap iron isn't other than just at the point the cap iron contacts the iron.

But I'd give something like $5-$10 for the plane if the iron was good and more for the iron than the plane.

I have admittedly cut up long planes before when they weren't worth the cost of shipping, and have a bunch of beech around just because of that. Well, along with recently sawn beech.

[steven c newman]

Ok, ok. Those three on the ground were at a Tractor Fest @ West Liberty, OH., last Labour Day. Looked at them, turned them over, and walked away atfer the photo was in the camera. The Butcher ironed Coffin was at a local Antique Mall, run by the owner of the plane. THAT explains a lot about the high price. It was at $65, and the least she would go was $50. There were two other coffin shaped planes scattered through the store, both @ $17. One was a butcher, the other looked like a regular #4 plane iron and chipbreaker was installed. There was even a tote-less 16" long thingy that looked like a jack plane, sans any metal, for the same as the Coffin ones. All are still sitting there. Too "rich" for me.....

[george wilson]

David,you are hardly a hack,and you have quite a good eye for design.