Curt Flowers quoting me asks:

>    I had a whatis once which I identified though it's
> patent number.  It turned out to be a patented
> Machine For Making Core Boxes. 
>------------------------------------------------
> What'ud Dat be Den?

Curt,

  Working backwards, a core is a solid hunk of sand to keep molten 
metal from going where you don't want it to go.   A binder of some sort
is added to the sand and sometimes the cores are baked.  If you were 
casting a piece of pipe you'd probably want it to come out hollow.  A 
cylindrical core would keep the molten metal out of the center of the
pipe.  When the casting cooled you'd knock out the sand core and
you'd have a hollow pipe.
  A core box would be what you used to form the core.  You'd put the
core sand in the core box to get the shape core you want.  A core
box plane (Stanley 56 or 57 Jeff) would cut the cylindrical shape 
you'd need for your pipe core.  Patrick's b&g shows a 56 making one 
half of a pipe core box.  My whatis is the tailed apprentice you'd
use to make the same shape when your core box plane is in the shop
for repairs.  It only makes round or oval core boxes though a 
core could be any shape.  The hollow handles of some Stanley planes
would have been made with handle shaped cores made from handle shaped
core boxes.   I think all of these have hollow handles: 78, 180-192,
and 289 (mostly rabbet planes).
  At the bottom of my whatis page is a link to
http://home.xnet.com/~rcallen/mitre/ which shows a pyramid shaped
core and core box in action.
  For a live demo come to the casting/foundry class I'll be co-
teaching.  It's April 2-4  in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  Here's a link 
to last year's class:
http://www.wmich.edu/tillers/classes/black.html#Foundry

Russ Allen