I needed to run a shallow flute along a length of oak the other day. It was rather late - too late to run the router 'cos it's rather noisy and I prefer to to aggravate the neighbours. So I used Dad's old Record 405 multiplane. I'd not used it for some years and had forgotten just how pleasant it is to waft a sharp blade along a nice bit of timber and leave silky-smooth work behind.
For those who've not met a multiplane, it's one of these...
life locked out of reach.
(and more environmentally friendly(!)) than a router.
not?
Oh yes - you needed special permission (aka grovelling) from "Basher" Bates to go anywhere near it/them.
He was a really nasty piece of work, who literally used to throw chisels and (wooden) jack planes around at people (in the early '60s when teachers could get away with things like that).
His opposite number (Mr Thompson) (who used to take the (alphabetically) lower part of the class) was a real gentleman. Also he used to encourage the use of PVA rather than Basher's scotch glue in its glue kettle.
Fortunately Basher was off work for almost a year suffering from an ulcer and we were all "taken" by Jack Thompson.
Rant over - I left school a few years ago...
"taken" ...was that something else that was allowed in them days ?
She says the same ...
It's not what she told me ;-))
Can't stand the things. This modern interchangeable-eveything business and all this gaudy heavyweight ironmongery, waving its nickel plate all over the shop.
Give me a wooden moulding plane anyday. You also get a real mouth on them, not a gap, so you don't get the tearout of those "One size fits all" jobs.
and, of course, you can make your own. Turns a horrible ten minute router job into a three week pleasant meander. Especially if you include finding some boxwood and decent beech.
R.
power? Other thing of course is you can make up your own blade shapes - try doing that with a router. ;-)
That's even easier - although more expensive. You buy a set of the Trend replaceable plate router tooling, then when you need a new shape you sketch iut and fax it to them.
One reason I use woodies for my mouldings over routers is because I can make a finer quirk that way, with a tool that travels lengthwise rather than rotating. Then there are scratch stocks and my Preston quirk router (a hand tool) for really narrow work.
"Kendo" North in our case, he generally went ape when someone pressed one of the emergency stop buttons while he was having a crafty smoke in his woodstore.
Whats the woman got to do with it?
In message , cerberus writes
That's because yours lies to you, but not to me ...
I never had any trouble with him. I think he had enough trouble with R Field (later an excellent joiner) to bother with me.
I used PVA (and Scotch glue) with Mr Bates. What's wrong with Scotch glue anyway? it has its uses.
A couple of years after me.
In message , snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net writes
Master Bates and a white sticky substance ?
Too much information
I knew we'd get there eventually. It was only a matter of who and when.
I've not had any real problem with that. Many of the old wooden moulding planes I've used have had blades of dubious metallurgy - though that's a specific problem with some planes rather than a general reason to disparage them.
I've seen them second hand, but not new.
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