On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 12:59 AM, John Manners wrote:

>
> I am now left to puzzle as to whether a German manufacturer made some of
> its tools solely for markets in or influenced in its preferences by the
> U.K. or whether coffin-smoothers had gained some sort of acceptance amongst
> European workers.  I remember other examples of Ahrem's "Goodline" tools
> being available here but they were, as far as I can recall, setting-out
> tools of somewhat universal pattern and without distinctive, regional
> peculiarities.
>

John

A quick google search of Ahrem's Goodline showed a variety of tools, but
most seemed to be in Aus and NZ, with some in South Africa.  Maybe these
were made for the export market, and decided they needed to match the local
style.

I saw sockets, hand drills, planes as you described, horse combs, knives,
saw sets etc.

Kirk in HMB
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Last Saturday saw me making a short tour of one of my favourite 
flea-markets, the first in quite a while.

Nothing much on offer, but catching up with some of my favourite 
fleasters made it all worth while.  Breath-taking tales from the 
honey-man, describing his moonlit flights from officialdom through many 
miles over the ridges and gullies of the trackless sclerophyll forests 
with hundreds of hives in tow, the enforcers of the "Apiaries Act 1982", 
intent that he should be "brought up to date" and made to pay  the 
Government for the keeping  of his bees, in uncomfortable and futile 
pursuit.  His stories made the epic drives of the brothers Kennif and 
other leading cattle thieves of our not-so-early days look like 
Sunday-school picnics.

However, from the man who has cornered the market in second-hand 
irrigation pumps I acquired for $8.00 without demur on my part that 
which seemed to be a very common representative of the coffin-smoother 
clan, the only "unusual" thing immediately obvious about it being that 
it seemed in really good, clean, barely-used condition with a bit of 
superficial rust on the irons and a bit of dust on the woodwork but with 
a sole showing little signs of use.  I'll not offer to play at the 
question of whether I needed another coffin-smoother and it may go 
through to the wicket-keeper.

The plane was 8" long and got out of a piece of 3" x 3" beech, all very 
standard for a coffin-smoother made in the U.K.  However,  disassembly 
and a little rust removal showed that the little-used iron was 
inscribed, in three lines, "AHREM'S", "Goodline" and "Germany" and the 
only readily discernable marking on the plane's body was " 2" " on its 
heel.  Being ever ready to jump to unsupported conclusions, I opined 
that I was dealing with a plane body manufactured in the U.K. and 
bearing a replacement iron from Germany.  Use of a hand-lens disclosed 
no maker's mark or name on the toe of the plane and, simply as  bit of 
an after-thought,  I inspected the plane's heel through the lens. There, 
under the  " 2" " mark, I discerned the name "AHREM'S".

This surprised me as I had already divided the world of wooden smoothing 
planes into those of European pattern made in one or other of the 
nations of Europe as they evolve or dissolve and those of U.K. pattern, 
the coffin-smoothers, made in the U.K., with the colonies tasking their 
leads in plane fashions from, necessarily, the most recently successful 
of their colonisers.

A small design feature of the double-irons set-up is new to me.  Instead 
of the traditional "lump" on the back of the cap-iron into which the 
holding screw threads and which necessitates an accommodating  groove in 
the underside of the wedge, there is spot-welded to the underside of the 
cap-iron, a flat piece with parallel, straight sides and semi-circular 
ends (geometric name?) and with a threaded hole. This piece makes a 
fairly precise fit with the slot in the cutting iron and extends a 
poofteenth beyond the thickness of the tapered cutting iron to be 
accommodated, in any event, in the slot cut in the bed for the holding 
screw's head. This piece assists, to some extent, with the squaring of 
the cap-iron to the cutter.

The cutter is tapered in its thickness throughout its length although it 
seems to be made of modern, high-carbon steel.

My absolutely unsupported hypothesis as to why the cutting iron on a 
double-ironed plane is tapered is that the firming into place of the 
cap-iron tends to distort the cutting iron and that this distortion is 
minimised  towards the cutting edge where the iron is thicker and 
therefore more resistant to the distorting forces of the screw. Not much 
of an hypothesis, I admit,  in circumstances where the distortion 
problem could more reliably be solved by making the whole cutting iron 
thicker to start with.

I am now left to puzzle as to whether a German manufacturer made some of 
its tools solely for markets in or influenced in its preferences by the 
U.K. or whether coffin-smoothers had gained some sort of acceptance 
amongst European workers.  I remember other examples of Ahrem's 
"Goodline" tools being available here but they were, as far as I can 
recall, setting-out tools of somewhat universal pattern and without 
distinctive, regional peculiarities.

Regards from Brisbane,

John Manners

 

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Kirk Eppler writes:

> A quick google search of Ahrem's Goodline showed a variety of tools, 
> but
> most seemed to be in Aus and NZ, with some in South Africa.  Maybe 
> these
> were made for the export market, and decided they needed to match the 
> local
> style.
>
> I saw sockets, hand drills, planes as you described, horse combs, 
> knives,
> saw sets etc.

Thanks, Kirk.

I should have undertaken such a Google search myself but, by way of a 
further example of my inclination to jump to unsupported conclusions, 
had come to believe that this brand of tools must have been discontinued 
some time ago in favour of  imports from the Orient.  It is good to know 
that some old style stuff of reasonable quality may still be purchased 
new.

Regards from Brisbane,

John Manners 

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