Some new toys

[Andy McKenzie]

I've got a broken finger at the moment, which pretty means I'm out of the shop for another few weeks (and typing slowly!). In the meantime, I'm spending my time online. On Friday I found a nice-looking set of moulding planes, and decided to take a chance on them. I'm glad I did... the irons are surprisingly clean, the bodies are straight, and the wedges fit perfectly!

moulding plane 1 makers mark.jpg
moulding plane 1 profile.jpg
moulding plane 1 sole.jpg


moulding plane 2 profile.jpg
moulding plane 2 sole.jpg

Of course, I can't do anything with them until my hand heals, but oh well.

[Jim Koepke]

I have one or two planes with the 'Perth' mark. Not sure if they are hollows, rounds or profiles. I think I am starting to get too many to keep track of who made what.

jtk

[george wilson]

I note that those marking stamps were hand cut by expert craftsmen who knew their work very well. Study how evenly the long names in the first picture are made.

In the 50's,my sculpture teacher,Will Reimann,was in England. One night he was wandering some of the side streets. Might have been in Sheffield,I don't recall. There were still small shops open. In one there was a workman forging double end wrenches. Another shop said:Mark Maker. He went in. Will had designed a complicated mark of his 3 initials in script intertwined. He drew the mark for the workman. Will is an expert at drawing as well as sculpture. The workman went to work,and in several MINUTES he had made an absolutely identical stamp about 1/16" tall,which Will still had when he was teaching in college. He showed it to me. The cost? The equivalent of about 50 cents at the time. I wish I could show you that stamp.

[Andy McKenzie]

I have one or two planes with the 'Perth' mark. Not sure if they are hollows, rounds or profiles. I think I am starting to get too many to keep track of who made what.

jtk

Sounds like a good problem to have! I'm going to need to do something about storage... with these two (and the 1/2" bead I also ordered) I'll have to reorganize my Dutch tool chest.

[Andy McKenzie]

I note that those marking stamps were hand cut by expert craftsmen who knew their work very well. Study how evenly the long names in the first picture are made.

In the 50's,my sculpture teacher,Will Reimann,was in England. One night he was wandering some of the side streets. Might have been in Sheffield,I don't recall. There were still small shops open. In one there was a workman forging double end wrenches. Another shop said:Mark Maker. He went in. Will had designed a complicated mark of his 3 initials in script intertwined. He drew the mark for the workman. Will is an expert at drawing as well as sculpture. The workman went to work,and in several MINUTES he had made an absolutely identical stamp about 1/16" tall,which Will still had when he was teaching in college. He showed it to me. The cost? The equivalent of about 50 cents at the time. I wish I could show you that stamp.

I'd love to have seen it! I'm always amazed by the way the most skilled craftsmen can manage that level of precision. It speaks of a lot of hours of practice.

[Gene Davis]

One might think the logo mark stamps were made as castings, thus it was patternmakers who made the molds.

Note the letters are "innies" and not "outies" like what some planemakers do.

I've a 24-inch try-plane from the same maker, and it has the same stamped mark.

[Frederick Skelly]

I've a 24-inch try-plane from the same maker, and it has the same stamped mark.

Totally aside (sorry Andy), but this took my mind into one of the things I like best about old hand tools - their history (or maybe provenence is a better word). Think about it..... Gene and Andy live a good 1500 miles apart and they both own a wooden plane made by a man who lived 10,000 miles away in Australia, probably more than 100 years ago. And those tools are still in use today, long after their maker has gone to dust. What kind of tales could these tools tell? How did they get all the way to Boston and Boulder? ......Hope this makes sense. I just found it fascinating to think about for a moment.
Fred

[george wilson]

Stamps are not made of castings. They have the letters chiseled out of solid tool steel. Otherwise they would soon break off bits and pieces. There may be special cases of cast stamps,but none I am aware of for making impressions on wood or metal.

A good stamp is rated at being able to make something like 50,000 impressions. I usually make mine from W1 or 01. I draw them back to a medium brown color as they have to be tough enough to not shatter,but still hard enough to stand being whacked into steel.

[Andy McKenzie]

Totally aside (sorry Andy), but this took my mind into one of the things I like best about old hand tools - their history (or maybe provenence is a better word). Think about it..... Gene and Andy live a good 1500 miles apart and they both own a wooden plane made by a man who lived 10,000 miles away in Australia, probably more than 100 years ago. And those tools are still in use today, long after their maker has gone to dust. What kind of tales could these tools tell? How did they get all the way to Boston and Boulder? ......Hope this makes sense. I just found it fascinating to think about for a moment.
Fred

No problem. I just got a note from the seller that she had picked both of them up at a junk store in Scotland while on vacation. So we know how they got to the US. But how did they get to where they were? Sadly, we'll probably never know.

[Stewie Simpson]

Thomas Adam Mathieson[edit]

Edinburgh[edit]

In 1849 the firm of James & William Stewart at 65 Nicolson Street, Edinburgh was taken over and Thomas was put in charge of the business, trading under the name Thomas A. Mathieson & Co. as plane and edge-tool makers.^[7] Thomas's company acquired the Edinburgh edge-tool makers Charles & Hugh McPherson and took over their premises in Gilmore Street.^[8] In the Edinburgh directory of 1856/7 the business is recorded as being Alexander Mathieson & Son, plane and edge-tool makers at 48 Nicolson Street and at Paul's Work, Gilmore Street.^[9]
Growth of the Glasgow business[edit]

The 1851 census records that Alexander was working as a tool and plane-maker employing eight men. Later that year Alexander died and his son Thomas took over the business. Under the heading of edge-tool maker in the 1852/3 Post-Office Glasgow Annual Directory the firm is now listed as Alexander Mathieson & Son, with further lines as "turning-lathe and vice manufacturers" added. By the early 1850s the business had moved to 24 Saracen Lane.^[10] The directory for 1857/8 records that the firm had moved again only a few years later to East Campbell Street, also off the Gallowgate, and that through further diversification was also manufacturing coopers' and tinmen's tools. The ten-yearly censuses log the firm's growth: in 1861 Thomas was a tool manufacturer employing 95 men and 30 boys; in 1871 he had 200 men working for him; and in 1881 300 men. By 1899 the firm had been incorporated as Alexander Mathieson & Sons Ltd, notwithstanding the fact that only Alexander's son Thomas appears ever to have joined the firm.
Trade-mark[edit]

In September 1868 Thomas Mathieson put a notice in the Sheffield & Rotherham Independent and the Sheffield Daily Telegraph stating that his firm had used the trade-mark of a crescent and star "for some time" and that "using or imitating the Mark would be proceeded against for infringement".^[11] The firm had acquired its interest in the crescent-and-star mark from the heirs of Charles Pickslay, the Sheffield cutler who had registered it with the Cutlers' Company in 1833 and had died in 1852.^[12] The year 1868 seems also to be the one in which the name Saracen Tool Works was first adopted; not only does it figure at the foot of the notice in the Sheffield press, it also makes its first appearance in the firm's entry in the Post-Office Glasgow Annual Directory in the 1868/9 edition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexan...ons#Trade-mark

[Kees Heiden]

The Malloch brand is from Perth in Scotland, not Australia.

[Patrick Chase]

I draw them back to a medium brown color as they have to be tough enough to not shatter,but still hard enough to stand being whacked into steel.

Around Rc60? (450F)

[Jim Koepke]

they both own a wooden plane made by a man who lived 10,000 miles away in Australia

The Malloch brand is from Perth in Scotland, not Australia.

Ya beat me to it Kees.

I was wondering that myself awhile back when that mark showed up in a bunch of mostly British made planes.

jtk

[Frederick Skelly]

The Malloch brand is from Perth in Scotland, not Australia.

Man I HATE when that happens.
Sorry guys. I never heard of Perth Scotland before.

[Kees Heiden]

It was a head scratcher for me too for a while.