What is the use of this wooden hand plane?

[alex.colic]

Hi,

I picked up a couple of wooden hand planes over the wknd. I can figure out what most of them were use for except this one.

It has a built in fence so the plane runs along one end of a piece of wood. It cuts a 1/4" rabbit. The next 1/4" is left untouched followed by a 1/2" dado. Both the dado and rabbit are about 1/2" deep.

So when I tested the plane out it cut a 1/4" rabbet and a 1/2 dado spaced 1/4" apart.

Any idea what the plane was used for?

Thanks

Alex

[Wolfgang Jordan]

Hi Alex,

sounds like a tongue plane, like in 'tongue and groove'. Here's an example from a German collector's site:

[alex.colic]

Hmm could be I'll check but I'm thrown off by the fact it makes two different groove sizes, a 1/4" and a 1/2". If it was a tongue plane would it not make a 2 1/4" grooves?

Alex

[George]

It would, on 3/4 stock.

[Australopithecus scobis]

You'd use it on stock less than 1" thick. You'd let one edge of one blade hang over the stock. That way, exact stock thickness doesn't matter to the tongue-cutting process. It would matter on the floor later, of course.

[Larry Kraus]

Plane so that 1/4" side is always on the bottom, then plane the floor flat after the boards are laid?

[alex.colic]

Hi,

you were all correct. It is a tongue plane.

Not sure what I am going to do with it since I don't have he 'groove' portion of the pair.

Alex