English wooden moulding planes - anyone still use them ?

[Andy Dingley]

It seems to be the "What plane shall I buy?" season again. As I've just spent an afternoon mucking out a crate of old moulders and getting them running again (and debugged !) I was wondering if I was the only one still left using them ?

Anyone else prefer an old moulder for making mouldings, rather than that noisy router ? Anyone else prefer the _finish_ of a planed moulding, rather than one from a small circular cutter ?

Anyone still bothering to use wooden plain rebate planes, or do you just stick with the funy shapes ?

[Ken Muldrew]

I intend to try building a couple some day to see how I like them, but the steel work is still kind of intimidating. So for now I'll stick to the routah. How tough is it to do cross-grain moulding with a plane?

Ken Muldrew [e-mail] (remove all letters after y in the alphabet)

[Andy Dingley]

I've never understood that - maybe I'm just over-supplied for the things. They're practically firewood around here, certainly the rough ones - I've known toolshops pyrograph the sides and use them as gift vouchers !

Works OK, but you have to be careful. A good round will have a tight mouth, but some of the complex mouldings are pretty loose - this can be a problem. Some (mainly rebates and fillisters) have cross grain nickers but most don't. I just score beforehand with my marking knife. If I'm moulding free-hand, I tend to scribe a guide line first anyway.

[Australopithecus scobis]

Looking through Tolpin's toolchest book: One of the student chests has a curved molding (flat stock, molding around an arc). Trivial with a power router, but I've never seen a hand tool that would do it. Cross between a compass plane and a molding plane? Have to whittle a new plane body for each curve... Or would one just use a gouge?

[Juergen Hannappel]

[bridger]

for shallow cuts, a scratch stock.

[Ken Muldrew]

Now there's a gloat and a half! In all my searching I've only come across one. It was in an antique shop, the body was split in half, and the iron was a bent piece of rust. If I remember correctly, it was selling for $150. This thing wasn't even good enough for firewood.

If you ever come over here bring a suitcase full of them and sell them as antiques. You'll pay for your trip.

Ken Muldrew [e-mail] (remove all letters after y in the alphabet)

[Charlie Self]

Ken Muldrew notes:

You need to check out ebay. Try "moulding planes" and "molding planes", no quotes.

In the first, there are some decent looking Brit planes, while there's a really nice US set (Rhode Island) in the second. That one is the highest of the bunch right now, at $45. Most are around or under ten bucks (and some aren't worth anything at all).

I don't know what the tax and shipping and whatnot would translate to in Calgary, but it should be less than 150 bucks per.

Charlie Self "America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own." John Quincy Adams

[Lobby Dosser]

[e-mail] (Ken Muldrew) wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Lots of them on e-bay. Bought a couple myself and have been very pleased with them. Note that you can also buy them new. I think Lee Valley have a few.

[AAvK]

Not using them myself but I want to learn to, I have this idea as a part box / jewelry box making with molding planes, to do both edges in design as well as the top paneling as one uncut board, then do the cutting, miter cutting and any dovetail work after, then assemble. My problem is learning just "what" to buy and know about in these complex planes, including what hollows and rounds are about. There isn't a website I can find that is all about it. Any ideas? Books? unknown websites?

Alex

[Andy Dingley]

Don't have it to hand, I'm afraid.

There are a few that can do it.

A moulding spokeshave - this is how it was typically done. Like this

?ViewItem&rd=1&item=6119559556&ssPageName=STRK:MEDW:ITA variant on a cooper's croze - a cross between compass plane and moulder. These were mainly a cooper's or wheelwright's tool, because they're limited to a single radius.

A scratch stock. Short, but not very good cross-grain though.

There are also short moulding planes with "tailed" handles. These can often be persuaded to work short runs of shallow external curves, or even an internal curve if the sole has a little "belly" to it.

[Andy Dingley]

Bristol, UK

So you can guess the shop 8-)

[Frank McVey]

Hi, Ken,

Andy wasn't exaggerating - they are as cheap as chips over here. Go to any local auction or boot sale and you can pick up a boxful for a tenner. Or have a look at ebay (That's Ebay.co.uk, as opposed to Ebay.com. Look under collectables>tools and do a search on "moulding". At the moment there's a bunch from the mid 1700s, for less than 20 bucks each.

I have perhaps 10-12, but seldom use them. Using them isn't _that_hard if you're working long-grain in fairly mild wood, but some of the more complex shapes are tricky to sharpen. The really big ones took two men to work them. They had a hole bored in the fore-end with a rope through it - the master held the plane at the correct angle, and the apprentice towed it through the wood with the rope.

Cheers

Frank

[Lobby Dosser]

"AAvK" wrote in news:xBl6d.35$mS1.1@fed1read05:

See:

How to Make Wooden Planes by David G. Perch

Making Traditional Wooden Planes by John M. Whelan

Making and Mastering Wood Planes by David Finck

(I have a copy of the last one and would buy it again.)

Plus a number of books on American and British wooden plane makers.

Also:

[bugbear]

Hmm. May I should link this back to the "Europe is a rip-off" post.

BugBear

[Ken Muldrew]

Wow, there are a lot of them on ebay. I still want to make one but perhaps it would be wise to have a model to work from.

Many ebayers ship UPS, and sadly, a UPS cross-border shipment can easily be damn near $150. The worst part is the 40% they charge for filling out the customs form. I don't want to ever give UPS any more business for the rest of my days.

Ken Muldrew [e-mail] (remove all letters after y in the alphabet)

[Ken Muldrew]

Nope. They have a book that describes how to make them (which I have), but the closest that they sell is the Japanese wooden roundover plane.

Ken Muldrew [e-mail] (remove all letters after y in the alphabet)

[Luigi Zanasi]

On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 20:46:45 GMT, [e-mail] (Ken Muldrew) scribbled:

I'm surprised you haven't found any in Calgary. I've got about half a dozen in working order, found here in the Yukon in antique shops, the Dawson City Trading Post, etc. And I've only bought the good ones that were usable.

My brother has promised to send me my grandfather Luigi's set from Montreal. According to my mother, they were used to do all the chestnut mouldings in the apartment I grew up in. One of the first things my parents did when they got married was to strip off all the RBS and varnish the mouldings and doors. Larry prolly got his ideas about stain from my father who was disgusted with the North Americans practise of hiding the beauty of wood. An opinion which I share. But I'm not telling you when he's sending them, in case you're tempted to intercept the shipment.

Luigi Replace "nonet" with "yukonomics" for real email address

[AAvK]

Luigi let me ask, what is a "good" and useable molding plane? What do I need to look for in the qualities one should be in?

Alex

[AAvK]

and the designs seem very simplistic from the past, a starting point. As it is now, I am fascinated, but am at a complete novice stage in learning "neander" woodwork so it is a future project. But definitely.

Alex