Old wood n metal side rebates planes and very intriguing saw query

[Jim Koepke]

It's a side rebate plane. So it needs to fit between the walls of a narrow channel so you can widen it. If the blades were full width they would interfere with that action. How the metal planes got around this was to use a lever cap instead of wedges. Make them with extremely low angles and bed the blades cross over each other.

Side rebate/rabbet planes were not made to remove a lot of material.

It seems some workers in the past knew enough to hone the edge without major metal removal. Then there are others who felt it possible to sharpen a blade on a grinding wheel who could go through a blade in less than a year.

jtk

[Patrick Bernardo]

I wonder how long before Britain gets tapped out? Over the summer, I was in Sweden visiting family and nosed about in some antique stores, hoping to come across some half-forgotten set of old Bergs or something for a decent price. Nothing doing. From what I could gather, it seems to be that the demand for old Swedish blades is so high that virtually all the old iron in the hands of dealers has already fled the country. I did find some old woodies sans irons, but I wasn't interested in trying to track down replacement irons, so didn't look too closely. One of the dealers in Goteborg practically laughed at me and told me that he hadn't seen an old Swedish woodworking tool himself in years. (Apparently outside the cities one can still find people selling them though.)

[David Weaver]

Most of the eskilstuna stuff was sold to continental europe and australia, I don't think they kept much of it.