sutton083

This subject has probably been "Debated' since the advent of the first powered tool... It often centered on speed & efficiency (power) versus reliability & Slow speed (by hands). To me it always been a mute point, since I uses both in my work and way of thinking.  As much as I love my handplanes, my idea of fun is not to flatten a wide thick board by hand, unless I have to, because it won't fit in the planer :-) Similarly, I will never relinquish my table saw and Bandsaw, these two, do a lot of the rough dimensioning (no jigs required :-) But are hand tools really inefficient vis a vis their modern powered counterparts? Only a side by side comparison will tell...  Part of my landscaping projects is to erect a trellis structure for the vines growing up a tree right now... Can you see it?  Look way up for the light green patch Need something fast, so we went scavenging around our properties to see what we got (resulting in a few more projects for later) and came up ...

After some googling, I think that this plane is a Henry Slater casting , being finished by a workman, circa end of 19th century. Henry Slater made cast steel plane body for sale to other would be plane makers. Henry and then his son Benjamin made them from 1869 to 1907. And of course they never identified (no markings nor names) these generic castings they were selling to others. This article from Jim Hendricks shows the evolution of this form of coffin smoother. Called coffin, because the sides and/or the back are rounded. It is a very comfortable form to push while planing. The evolution from L-R Pic from above article That would explain this unmarked cast body and the construction details found on this plane, more on this in a minute. The blade could had been any from a number of makers, I don't think that Spear & Jackson made plane per se. Please correct me if I'm wrong... The vendor identified it as a Spear & Jackson  Rosewood infill plane Ca 1890 Sheffield As is, ...