kstagg@e... (Ken Stagg) writes:
>OK, it is once again time to demonstrate my ignorance. I saw the
>reports of the 'Tidey plane' (wasn't it a plow?) selling for 25+K but
>have no idea why it would sell for that much. Could some kind galoot
>please provide a bit of history of this (in)famous plane? What makes it
>special? Is there only one?
The plane is a double beveling plane, which bevels two edges of a
board simultaneously, which is obviously not something that every
woodworker is pumped to do, and if he is, he can do a better job of
it with a chamfer plane or a bench plane. With Tidey's contraption,
because it carries two irons, where each is dedicated to one side of
the wood, one of the irons is going to be cutting against the grain.
The plane looks like a screw arm toted plough plane that collided
with two conventional molding plane stocks, each of which flank the
main body and are capable of being pivoted about their bottoms.
I know of at least three of these monstrosities. One is pictured in
Roger Smith's books and is made of beech and boxwood. Another surfaced
at Crane's a few years ago (it wasn't signed, but it had all the
bizzare tell-tale signs). The other one is the 5 figure selling one
that sold in PA November past. It's this one that was made of ebony
and had ivory tips on the arms. I thought it was rather ugly looking
do to its mass and darkness.
The brass securing mechanism was engraved with Tidey's name and
patent date. Many thought that this was his own personal plane, but
I didn't think so. Tools of that era were decorated as much as the
purchaser wanted and Tidey probably found some fellow who went nuts
with the decoration. And, with the letters as proof, Tidey didn't
even have a plane he could send to PTCo. for their examination.
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Patrick Leach
Just say There's a lot of speculation in the tool collecting world.
etc.
Check IT out at http://www.intool.com
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