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267862 Thomas Conroy 2019‑02‑15 FOOYBIPO (was Re: OldTools] Test)
Chuck Taylor wrote: "My theory is that the BCTO (Bridge City Tool Owners) clan
are cousins of the YBIFPO clan."

I object to that, having just joined the FOOYBIPO with two planes. But I'm not
jackass enough to fall for Bridge City's line of goods.
Two good infills in first-rate condition, for about $135 all told! The "chariot
plane" (more like a honking big thumb plane) needed a shim between the blade and
the wedge, and its ready to go; its even sharp enough to use.  I cut a bit out
of a cardboard box (Trader Joe's English Breakfast Tea, for those who care about
materials) but may have to replace that with a piece of glued-in veneer for
serious work.

BRASS INFILL CHARIOT STYLE, PLANE NEEDS TLC FROM UK | eBay
The first I bought was a small coffin-assed smoother. It looks a bit grotty in
the photo, but that is just the photo. All I can find that it needs is
sharpening. The blade is a good Buck Brothers, not a parallel iron and made in
the wrong country, but it looks like it has been there a long time and seen a
fair bit of service.
ANTIQUE INFILL WOODWORKING SMOOTHING COFFIN PLANE--BUCK BROTHERS | eBay

I've wanted infill planes since I first read Jim Kingshott's Making and
Modifying Woodworking Tools around the time it came out (1992). But Kingshott
started making his own because he couldn't afford old ones, and I figured that
meant I would never be able to, since they weren't professional tools for me.
The last time I looked at prices, maybe ten years ago, bore this out: even
unsigned examples in bad condition were ceiling-high then, in the middle
hundreds if I recall, ten times the most I ever paid for a plane. But in an idle
moment last month I checked out "infill plane" and "chariot plane" on eBay, and
found quite a few unsigned planes priced or with starting bids under $100. Most
unsigned infills seem to be resting under $200, including a lot of unassembled
kits (could this be old Shepheard stock finally coming to market?).  Mathiesons,
by all accounts fully as good as Spiers and Norris, were down there with the
unsigned. Only Norris seemed to have held their old value, with prices ranging
from five hundred up to around three or four thousand dollars. I told the seller
of the smoother that I didn't understand why it went so cheap, and they said
that they didn't either. Maybe it was just last month; prices today look like
they may have recovered a smidgen.

My strongest reaction to them so far is wonderment at their weight, despite the
fact that neither has a sole much over 7" long. They are too heavy for my letter
scale and too light for the bathroom scale, but well north of two pounds each.
At least twice the weight of a broadsword, for those of you for whom that is a
natural unit of comparison. Neither, I must confess, sings in my hands as yet. I
usually lift the plane at the end of each stroke and carry it back wards out of
contact with the wood. I've used wooden planes more and more over the years, and
there is no problem with using a coffin woodie in this way. But after a few
trial passes with my new infill I understood why most infills have totes; it
wants to slip from my hands as I lift it, and I think I will have to alter my
planing technique to scrubbing back and forth with the sole in constant contact
with the workpiece. The other plane is an even bigger shock. I expected an
infill version of a block plane, a one-hand plane, and it is indeed very similar
in size and even shape to the #65 sitting right next to it on my desk. However,
its so heavy I can't control or use it with one hand; its definitely a two-
handed plane, at least for me. The sole is 6-1/4" x 2-1/16", with a blade 1-3/4"
wide.Looking at Kingshott's book, the very similar "thumb plane" I have lusted
after all these years turns out to be probably 5-1/4" long with a 1-3/8" blade
(from creative measuring of photos and drawings). The St. James Bay casting in
my decades-old printed catalogue is likewise only 5" long. I think these
seemingly not-much-smaller sizes would be small enough to be under control with
one hand. One good thing about mine: the combination of heavy weight with low
angle and fine mouth does indeed seem to give the infill aan authority and
smoothness on endgrain that is well beyond what I have previously experienced.

All for now, I think. I should be out shopping for tennis shirts and a BMW. Not
buying, shopping.

Tom Conroy
North Berkeley, ancestral land of the yuppie, where Alice Kahn first described
the species many decades ago, and I live surrounded by many no-longer-young
specimens. I've been here longer, though. They moved in on me, and I couldn't
control it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.




Links in the message (2)

|  |  | 
BRASS INFILL CHARIOT STYLE, PLANE NEEDS...
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|  |  | 
ANTIQUE INFILL WOODWORKING SMOOTHING CO...
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267864 Thomas Conroy 2019‑02‑15 Re: FOOYBIPO (was Re: OldTools] Test)
This is the "chariot" plane, lets see if it gets through. Properly speaking a
chariot plane is a bullnose infill, but in eBay speak the term includes what
Kingshott (and the Norris price lists) refers to as a "thumb plane" Lots of
inco0nsistancies on terminology for small infills, it seems.


www.ebay.com/itm/192788945349?ul_noapp=true

    On Friday, February 15, 2019, 3:37:30 AM PST, Ed Minch 
wrote:
 
 Tom
Thanks for the write-up, you old Y.  Could you try again on the links as we are
all salivating over the prospect of a 2 pound chariot plane

Ed Minch
267865 Thomas Conroy 2019‑02‑15 Re: FOOYBIPO (was Re: OldTools] Test)
OK, that seems to have worked for the chariot plane, so lets see about the
smoother:





https://www.ebay.com/itm/ANTIQUE-INFILL-WOODWORKING-SMOOTHING-COFFIN-
PLANE-BUCK-BROTHERS-/123572634790?nma=true&si=Qj8PEywX3xOgKa9ybziUJuRJmlE%253D&o
rig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557">https://www.ebay.com/itm
/ANTIQUE-INFILL-WOODWORKING-SMOOTHING-COFFIN-PLANE-BUCK-BROTHERS-/123572634790?n
ma=true&si=Qj8PEywX3xOgKa9ybziUJuRJmlE%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trk
sid=p2047675.l2557
  
Tom
Thanks for the write-up, you old Y.  Could you try again on the links as we are
all salivating over the prospect of a 2 pound chariot plane

Ed Minch
267866 Thomas Conroy 2019‑02‑15 Re: FOOYBIPO (was Re: OldTools] Test)
O Galoots: I'm sorry my attempt to send better links dragged out over three
messages, but I wasn't sure it would work (I'm still not sure, in fact). Yahoo
no longer allows me to just paste in a link; instead, it creates a little
thumbnail of the site I am linking to. It used to do this, but with an option to
get rid of the thumbnail. This option has been removed. God preserve me from the
"new, improved" versisoon of anything at all.
The great writer A.J. Liebling, who had a fine hand with an analogy, somewhere
speaks about bookleggers during Prohibition who would filter denatured alcohol
through an old felt hat, in the belief that this would remove the poisonous
contaminants from it. In a similar manner I pasted the link into a Word
document, then copied from Word and pasted that into my email. The link seems to
have made it through to the Bagga;ppts list and back to me, so I hope that it
suffices.
Neither plane would satisfy a c*ll*ct*r, especially since those gentry seem to
favor highly polished braass and shiny wood for infills. The smoother has had a
light restoration to working condition, showing in screw heads that have ebeen
filed flush to the body and what looks to me like a light polyurethane topcoat
to the wood---unfortunate if so, but its not too bad.  The tapered (not
parallel)Buck Brotherts Cast Steel blade may have been put in at the
restoration, or it might date back to the day, but it fits well and it gives a
nice tight mouth, and I will never use it enough to sharpen it back enough for
the mouth to widen significantly. It has a nick or two in the edge, but I don't
want to ush things so I haven't sharpened it yet.
The "chariot" plane has the infill under the blade loose, with visible hot glue
residues on it. I don't see any reason why it should be glued, since it is
surrounded by brass on five faces, so I am leaving that as is for the moment.
The blade is parallel, with half a mar at the top end; the first line has beeen
lost, but "cast steel" remains. As received the wedge puts no pressure at all on
the blade, and the blade simply slips forward and back undeer it. A piece of
cardboard box about 1-3/4" x 4", slipped into place (as I said in an earlier
posting) between the wedge and the blade, gives enough pressure to use the plane
for a few test curlss; I'll have to play with it for a while to see if anything
else is needed.Neither is my dream infill (that remains a little Sauer & Steiner
I played with for a few minutes, a number of years ago, at a Lie-Nielson "tool
event" at The Crucible in Oakland just south of here) but they are enough to
fuel a raging hunger for more, more, more infills. Well, maybe not that bad, but
I foresee a genuine bullnose chariot, a shoulder plane or two, and a 5" thumb
plane in my long-term plans.God willin' and the creek don't rise.
Tom Conroystill doing a gloat dance, but quietly, by shuffling my feet under the
table. No blazing sporrans to see here, no sirree bob.
267869 Chuck Taylor 2019‑02‑15 Re: FOOYBIPO (was Re: OldTools] Test)
Hi Tom,

No offense intended; I was just trying to stir up some discussion. I was
expecting our British cousins to rise to the bait and tell us how much better
the high-end British infills are than a bog-standard coffin plane. Basically
looking for someone to tell me why it's okay to spend extra money on an infill
but not on a Bridge City tool.

I made a trip to England a few years ago and brought back two infill planes. One
was a heavy shoulder plane, gunmetal body and ebony stuffing and wedge. I love
it. The other is a smoother with a steel frame and rosewood stuffing. Unmarked,
but in the general style of a Spiers infill smoother. So far I haven't been
impressed by the way it performs. Maybe I just haven't learned how to
tune/adjust it properly.

For general use I reach for a Stanley 604 (purchased at an antique shop in
Canada for C$25). The iron is Stanley-made-in-Canada. When I need a little more
weight I reach for a Stanley 4-1/2 with a Hock iron (purchased at a PNTC meeting
back in the day from Bretton Wade). Hard for me to imagine anything working much
better than that combination. But then a bog-standard coffin plane with a
tapered cast steel iron also works a treat.

Cheers,
Chuck Taylor
north of Seattle


On Thursday, February 14, 2019, 11:48:57 PM PST, Thomas Conroy
 wrote:

Chuck Taylor wrote: "My theory is that the BCTO (Bridge City Tool Owners) clan
are cousins of the YBIFPO clan."

I object to that, having just joined the FOOYBIPO with two planes. But I'm not
jackass enough to fall for Bridge City's line of goods.
...
267872 gary may 2019‑02‑15 Re: FOOYBIPO (was Re: OldTools] Test)
Hi Chuck--

    Good old Bretton Wade. Generous guy. I'll bet he sold you the whole setup
for the price of a Hock iron.
    
    I have a swell Yankee Eggbeater he gifted me years ago, and it's the drill I
use the most. He invited me over to look at a Bee-youteefull Spiers smoother
he'd just bought on Ebay.  It was beautiful all right. When he told me how cheap
he got it, I started crying. So he said:
   "Here Gary, have this hand-drill, it'll make you feel better." His voice was
calming.  He had two infant sons, you know.

   That infill plane of his worked fine right out of the shipping box and had
probably been in daily use when it went in to retirement. We had a lot of fun
fiddling with it, eventually making  shavings so thin they were invisible. No
kidding. The shavings were there; you could hear them being cut, you could pile
them into an invisible pile and light them off in a puff of smoke like a pinch
of gunpowder, but you couldn't SEE them, not at all.  More gas than solid, I
guess.
   
   I did learn that with persevering patience one can find good deals on 'user'
infills. And that's the kind I like. I also like a 4 1/2 with a Hock iron,
which'll do most of what you want from an infill, eh Chuck?

    I'm with Tom Conroy on the Bridge City stuff. Not for me, not even for free.
I do like *Old Tools* that are over-designed, ugly and impractical---I'm not a
monster---but I don't need New and Expensive tools that are.

                 and all the best to all galoots, everywhere--gam snowed in
still in OlyWA/US

    On Friday, February 15, 2019, 9:18:04 AM PST, Chuck Taylor via OldTools
 wrote:
 
 Hi Tom,

No offense intended; I was just trying to stir up some discussion

 Thomas Conroy  wrote: 

. But I'm not jackass enough to fall for Bridge City's line of goods.
...
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