And George,

Don't forget about corrugated wood soles, and why don't we
have them?   :-)

Jim Cook (ducking back under the porch)

> -----Original Message----->
>
> 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/