Hallo big mouthed Galoots !

Or is it loose-lipped ?  Certainly not tight-mouthed ...

Ahem.  It's been stated that steel expands more than wood.

At first glance, such a claim might be challenged on the
basis of a comparison of their thermal expansion coefficients.

But waytaminnit.  Steel conducts heat a whole lot better
than wood; it's got a bigger heat capacity (mostly 'cuz of
its greater density); and there's more friction between the
bottom of an iron plane and the workpiece (which is wood,
but not the wood whereof we speak) than for a woodie working
on the same hunk of wood.  That would suggest (more exact
calculations or a simple 'spurrimint being in order here)
that the iron plane would distort more than the woodie,
because most of the iron plane's sole would heat up but
be constrained by the cooler cheeks; for the woodie, on
the other hand, just a small fraction of the sole would
get warm, and the remaining portion of the woodie's body
would stay (sounds like the old, "how much wood could a
woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood," dittie)
cool, so the woodie might not go quite as much convex as
the iron plane.

It'd be whole lot easier just to try it than it would to spend
a week with the calculus book & the Handbook of Chemistry &
Physics open to "thermodynamic properties of condensed matter ..."

The List & Todd have got me gettin' practical a bit, I fear.

Best regards,
George Langford, in the arid SE of PA.
amenex@a...
http://www.amenex.com/georgesbasement/