Just wondering which came first
#11
on the old wooden planes. Did they make the plane first or the blade first?

To some degree both ways make sense and I am sure people did them both ways but what was the many way of doing it.

Then how to they think of a new way of making the molding or whatever they are planeing? Do they see someone else's and think "It would be nicer this way" and make the plane parts and blade.

Make me go HMMM

Arlin
As of this time I am not teaching vets to turn. Also please do not send any items to me without prior notification.  Thank You Everyone.

It is always the right time, to do the right thing.
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#12
The dinosaur came first, then it turned into a chicken*.

Oh, that wasn't the question. Don't know, but what little I've read implies that you could buy irons as a separate item. Probably a lot of people bought an iron and made the plane around it. Given how much easier it would be to shave a little off the wood to make an iron fit than to heat up the iron and reshape it to make the iron fit, I suspect the irons got made first almost all the time.

*I read somewhere that biologists have concluded that chickens are the bird most closely related to dinosaurs, which explains why they behave the way they do.
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#13
This guy about 5000 BC named Stanley had a chisel and couldn't hold it at the correct angle to make gossamer shavings so he got some wood to hold it at the correct angle and called it a plane. Since Stanley had the chisel before the plane I guess that is the answer to your question. He later created a metal thingy to hold the chisel at the correct angle and old guys have been collecting them since.
Cheers ...

Lyn Disbrow: Born in America ... a long long time ago

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#14
Edge tools came first, then fudge made jigs to hold them. A plane is nothing more than a jig to hold an edge tool, it can be simple or complex.
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Non impediti ratione cogitationis
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#15
Much easier to make a blade to fit your wood plane body than the other way around. Back in the day, I suspect the craftsman would make his plane body, then measure the mouth opening and go tell the blacksmith what he wanted.
Still Learning,

Allan Hill
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#16
You're asking about the manufacturing process, right? Not about the evolution of handplanes?

When these things were mass-produced, I would assume that different people made different parts to spec, and the pieces were assembled at the end, just like in factories today. The Ohio Tool Company wasn't exactly a one-man boutique operation. The guy who ground the irons was probably not the guy who filed the beds flat.

If you look at a wooden plane stock that's in good condition, it's pretty obvious that everything is made to spec--flat bed, flat back on the wedge, etc. I haven't looked at scads of wooden handplanes, but I really have not seen evidence of irons being custom-fitted to the beds of wooden planes. And why would they be? The front of the iron does not have to be dead-flat in order to bed solidly against the wood. It just has to be mostly flat, and the wood will compress a bit here and there to compensate. Drive in the wedge snugly enough, and the iron will hold, period. Besides, custom-fitting an iron to the bed is pointless in the long term. Over time, as you grind the iron back, the iron will move down toward the mouth, messing up any custom fitting you've done. Now the wedges may very well have been custom-fitted to each plane, which would be easy enough to do--and of course the wedge would always bed against the chipbreaker, so fit it once and you're done for the life of the plane.

We do know that, especially in Europe, irons could be bought without the stock, and professional woodworkers would make their own stocks to their preferences. In the US, especially by the 19th century, it seems that most wooden plane irons were sold with factory-made stocks.

I speak from memory and inference here, not from any authoritative knowledge. I'd be as happy as anybody to learn more about the manufacturing process of old wooden planes in the USA.

FWIW, about the evolution question, the Romans and Egyptians (I think) had handplanes. It's an ancient technology, to be sure, and nobody really knows how the technology originated.
Steve S.
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Tradition cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour.
- T. S. Eliot

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#17
No not mass produced just a guy making wooden things and having to make a plane to fit what the customer wanted or King or Duke or whatever.

I was figuring Jack would know but he has not answered yet.
But I really did sit and think of it and try to go at both points of view.

Arlin
As of this time I am not teaching vets to turn. Also please do not send any items to me without prior notification.  Thank You Everyone.

It is always the right time, to do the right thing.
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#18
Arlin,

While contemplating your question for the first time, from a designer's point of view, I would say that the need for such a tool came first, then the idea of a solution that incorporated both a piece of metal sharpened at one end that was held at a certain angle. There wasn't one that came first than the other. They were designed together to work as a single item (tool)
Catchalater,
Marv


I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”
― Maya Angelou

I'm working toward my PHD.  (Projects Half Done)
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#19
I don't think any ONE person would get the credit for inventing the plane...I think it just slowly "evolved" over time...I do know that many woodworkers of the day made their own version of a plane and bought their blades from iron mongers who specialized in them. They could have purchased a "stock" blade and built their wooden plane around it...Or if they could afford it, they may have commissioned an iron monger or blacksmith to make one to their specs. We know that cutlery companies of the day made all sorts of edge tools for sale to the public. Some are still in business....
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#20
Arlin Eastman said:


No not mass produced just a guy making wooden things and having to make a plane to fit what the customer wanted or King or Duke or whatever.
Arlin



Given that the question is defined this way, I would say there is no answer.
What Bibliophile has described is a procedural method for producing a product. The raw material undergoes the various processes in a step by step fashion. Each step performed advances the items toward a known outcome. When the last step has been performed, the various elements put together, it HAS to be the item( a plane in this case). That process produces planes. Material rolled into that production line becomes a plane.
What you seem to be asking is what happens when an unplanned need arises. The Duke (to use your analogy) says, "Make me one of these." What he doesn't say is, "Here's what you've got to do it with." He doesn't really have to say that, the laws of reality speak that point loud and clear. Also, I can guarantee you, he doesn't have the good sense to speak that.
What happens is that, at his bench, our plane maker figures out how he's going to do it. The elements to construct the required plane may not be ideal, but they will have to do. Additionally, the finished plane, and it's method of manufacture, probably do not fit into an economic model such as- make these this way/sell for profit. That was never the motive. Make this to do the required task for Duke Whatshisname's new coach.
I've done it. I made a compass plane to build a handrail for a bridge. I had a #5, so I used that iron. I built the plane around it. It was a sort of nice continental style with a horn. Three hours. I also built a hollow plane once with an existing block plane iron. That one was needed for some shaped drawer fronts. It was ugly! It did not look like a plane. It looked like a block of wood with an angled cut in it. The iron was held in with a screw that you could get at by the crazy angle drilled hole. It planed the pine drawer fronts when nothing else I had would do.
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