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272490 Christian Gagneraud <chgans@g...> 2021‑01‑09 Weird marking on Mathieson planes (and other dado plane question)
Hi again,

I have 2 dado grooving planes here, one 3/4 and one 7/8 (stamped at
the back), both by Mathieson (stamped at the front).
I'm about to clean the second one, while inspecting it I noticed a
number stamped at the top near the iron throat (is it what you call
it?).
The 7/8 (the cleaned one) has "9", while the 3/4 (the dirty one) has "29".

Does anyone know if these numbers have any significance?

https://chgansdesign.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/2021-01-09_16-43-44.jpg
https://chgansdesign.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/2021-01-09_16-42-41.jpg

As well, the 3/4 is missing the iron and the wedge, but came with a
"nicker" iron.
Let me get my Stanley no 136 caliper.... :)
Hum, as far as i can tell the nicker is 3/4" wide, but the guide
(foot?) is less than that. It is clearly worn out, but even at the
base it's quite narrower.
Is this expected?

https://chgansdesign.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/2021-01-09_16-55-25.jpg
https://chgansdesign.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/2021-01-09_16-57-40.jpg


Thanks,
Chris
272491 "yorkshireman@y..." <yorkshireman@y...> 2021‑01‑09 Re: Weird marking on Mathieson planes (and other dado plane question)
G’day, Christian, 

I have a couple of similarly marked planes.  Odd numbers in odd places.  I have
always assumed that either

1) the man making them marked them as being his work,
or
2) the school / workshop using them marked the parts - wedge and body, to ensure
that they stayed together.

I don’t think I have come across marked blades, though I confess, ashamadly,
that I haven’t picked up a wooden plane for far too many months.

In mitigation though - I needed to run some moulding for new drawer pulls at the
weekend just gone, and I used that doyen of all purpose tools, the Record 405
(stanley 45, Paddy, the maid of all mouldings work)  Whilst I could have used a
moulder, for they look down on me from their parade line high on the wall, A
fence was the better option, and I remembered a parcel of ‘additional cutters’ I
had come across in a drawer, so out came a box of 405, found the appropriate
shape in the extras, vowed to remake the cutters container, and ran some
moulding.  A delightful experience.  SWMBO is very happy with the results.  Eat
your pith out, Mr Ikea.


Richard Wilson
Where the sun is rising at any moment from the depths of the North Sea
272573 Kirk Eppler 2021‑01‑13 Re: Weird marking on Mathieson planes (and other dado plane question)
I would tend to agree with both of the Yorkshireman's suggestions.  But add
one more.

1a - the man making them was fitting them together in sets, so the wedge
fit the body well.  We see a similar numbering scheme on wooden tool
chests, where the carcass, and all the drawers are, at times, marked with
the same number.

Kirk in Half Moon Bay, CA, slaving away over a hot hard drive all day.  Not
how I imagined it.

On Sat, Jan 9, 2021 at 12:33 AM yorkshireman@y... <
yorkshireman@y...> wrote:
272576 Joshua Clark <jclark@h...> 2021‑01‑14 Re: Weird marking on Mathieson planes (and other dado plane question)
I recently had a conversation with a friend about similar marks on
Chapin plow planes. Between the two of us, every example we've found
has matching marks on the inside of the mortise and the wedge. all of
the planes have different numbers and are unrelated to the model
number of the plow stamped on the toe of the plane. We both agree
these were used during protection/assembly to keep the parts together.
I've seen similar marks on many molding planes, but nothing as
consistent as those on the Chapin planes.

Josh in CT

On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 6:22 PM Kirk Eppler via OldTools
 wrote:
272577 Christian Gagneraud <chgans@g...> 2021‑01‑14 Re: Weird marking on Mathieson planes (and other dado plane question)
Thanks everyone for all the answers.
It makes sense that they are marked to help re-assembly.
Tho i couldn't find any matching numbers on the other parts, maybe
they're not original, or the marking is gone.

Chris
272583 Kirk Eppler 2021‑01‑14 Re: Weird marking on Mathieson planes (and other dado plane question)
Since there are only 2 wooden parts, that is all I would expect to be
paired.  And not reassembly post use, but only in the initial fitting of
the wedges at the factory.  Maybe they had close enough control of the
blade thickness at that point, but since the beds and wedges were wood,
they felt they should be tracked during .  Not sure how much was hand cut
vs machine cut back then.

¢¢

Kirk in Half Moon Bay, CA

On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 11:59 PM Christian Gagneraud 
wrote:
272592 Christian Gagneraud <chgans@g...> 2021‑01‑15 Re: Weird marking on Mathieson planes (and other dado plane question)
The planes I have are dados plane and they have 2 irons, the front one acts
as a nicker, similar (in their role but not shape) to what Stanley 78 has.
So the plane has as well 2 wedges.

Chris.
Enjoying NZ summer.

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