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257925 Charlie Driggs <cdinde@v...> 2016‑02‑07 Atkin & Sons -- when did they start making stamped steel irons?
Hello, fellow rocking chair drivers … perk up, I have an actual tool question.

My puzzle is prompted by an acquisition of this past week:  when did Atkin &
Sons (Birmingham, UK, 1847 to ~1900) transition from blacksmith made tapered &
laminated plane irons to stamped steel irons?

This popped up when I examined the iron from a virtually undamaged, but well
used, toothing plane I bought last week.  I had just after finished pulling it
out of a bath of Evaporust and cleaning it up with a stainless brush.  The
lamination became highly visible, making me think that this little workers
friend might be years older than the 1880-1900 time slot I was initially
thinking.  Maybe almost back to the initial use of the Atkin & Sons trade name,
which I have found online to be date range above.

I don’t have the British planemaker’s reference book that some of you have, but
I doubt that the answer would lie within it.   My guess is the British plane
making industry transitioned to stamped steel irons (possibly still tapered) by
roughly 1880, as the less costly production methods of their American
competitors did become known around 1870.  Your thoughts, or does a specific
answer for Atkin lie out there somewhere??

Charlie Driggs
Newark, Delaware

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