Fijian Mahogany for tote and knob

[D.W.]

imperfect comparison in the US, but nonetheless:
* 1916 wards catalog stanley bailey 4 - $1.61
* same catalog, same size, but bedrock - $1.78

1911 Sargent 409 (VBM) suggested net price - same sized plane - $2.25


wards probably sold at some discount, but their alternate offering was lakeside (lower cost, not much of a prize in my experience). I don't see a retail price listing for mail order sargent planes.

And it's possible that prices dropped for manufactured planes 1911-1916

I have a physical 1969 reprint of the 1895 wards catalog - there's an enormous difference between what's offered in 1895 in the US and what's offered 21 years later after industrialization and factory focus on making things had 20 years to take hold. Much of the nice stuff in the earlier catalog is imported and the listings for horse related goods seem endless. Turns out not to have much for woodworking in it. Pocket watches, poop elixirs (unbelievable number of snake oil aimed at making you poop more or poop less), pocket knives, coats, stoves, horse stuff.......not so much for carpenter or bench tools. Once the site tools became more common, the later catalogue actually has far more listed than the earlier for hand tools, but it's all (or mostly) moved toward the short socket chisels and gaggles of block planes, etc.

[raffo]

Hi R. That grain reminds me of my handles. Have you had much of a chance to play with the Sargent? We don't get to see many of them but they are supposed to be pretty good.

David, this is the first VBM plane I got my hands on. I think the plane I brought to your shop was a Vaughan & Bushnell (V&B) #703 smoother plane. The V&B planes are another unusual type, the plane body is drop forged steel, instead of cast iron. I got it out of curiosity.

Regarding the Sargent plane, I did a quick refurbish and set it up for coarse work. The sole does not have an obvious convexity or concavity, so I left it alone. I suppose it could be setup for finer work, but I'm not going to do that at this time.

20220822_170829.jpg20220822_171540.jpg20220822_172951.jpg

Here's how the plane arrived. Lot's of surface rust. Of not is the chipbreaker, it was not prepared at all. The iron is thin.

20220827_104740.jpg

One thing that is noticeable is the ramp for the cutter milled on the plane body. It's about three times a long as that of a similar Bailey plane. We could debate whether it's a good thing or a bad thing.

20220822_233714.jpg20220822_234921.jpg20220826_002150.jpg

The plane after clean up and another picture of the bottom of the handle.

For jack plane work I can't see anything that suggests it won't perform well. I think it's when one is dealing with smoothers that more could be said.

Rafael

[IanW]

.....One thing that is noticeable is the ramp for the cutter milled on the plane body. It's about three times a long as that of a similar Bailey plane. We could debate whether it's a good thing or a bad thing.....

Well, maybe it's less likely to crack at the edges of the mouth as some Stanleys are wont to do!

'Tis a wide web of metal compared with your typical Stanley (I've measured several old Stanleys at something around 3mm thick across the machines step). The only drawback of having a thicker sole under the toe of the frog that I can think of is that it means you would need to have the frog neatly aligned with the bed bevel for a thin old-style blade, or it would foul on the sole before it was extended enough to cut. Not likely to be an issue with original hardware, but it could matter if fitting a thicker modern blade & you needed to set the frog back significantly to open the mouth up.....

The wood looks like it is heavily stained & could be just about anything! Is that a fine ray-fleck I can see? If so, I've not seen that pattern on any of the six or so different Dalbergias I've come across. Whatever it is, it's nicely shaped, & that front knob is very elegant, imo. I much prefer the "low" knob style myself, I cannot figure why they went to the "high" style, but p'raps that's what customer feedback demanded...
Cheers,
Ian

[Mountain Ash]

Lovely resto R.

[raffo]

The wood looks like it is heavily stained & could be just about anything! Is that a fine ray-fleck I can see? If so, I've not seen that pattern on any of the six or so different Dalbergias I've come across.

According to the catalog description for these VBM planes, it's supposed to be East India Mahogany, not a rosewood.

I don't really want to sand it to bare wood to uncover the grain, the best look is in the picture of the bottom of the handle. It looks like mahogany, I'm satisfied with that.

[IanW]

According to the catalog description for these VBM planes, it's supposed to be East India Mahogany, not a rosewood....

Aha, that nails it pretty close, I think. There are a couple of woods attached to that common name, but I think the most likely is Chukrasia tabularis, which goes by a variety of other names & has a very wide distribution across southern Asia. I couldn't find any useful pictures of the wood, but here's a description:
"....The heartwood is pale reddish-brown, yellowish-red to red, darkening to dark yellowish-brown, reddish-brown to medium dark brown on exposure, sharply differentiated from the yellowish-white, pale yellowish-brown, pinkish-brown or greyish-brown sapwood; dark streaks may be rather prominent. The density is 625-800 kg/cubic m at 15% mc. The grain is interlocked and sometimes wavy, producing a rose figure; texture moderately fine but uneven. Freshly cut wood has a fragrant odour, but dried wood has no characteristic odour or taste... "

.....I don't really want to sand it to bare wood to uncover the grain, the best look is in the picture of the bottom of the handle. It looks like mahogany, I'm satisfied with that.

Yes, going by the description, what you have shown us fits....

Yet another wood I have not previously heard of. According to a Queensland govt site, a close relative (C. velutina), which is also given the common name of "East Indian mahogany" was planted as a potential timber tree in the 1960s on the Atherton Tableland, where I grew up. It has taken to the place so well, apparently, that it has become an invasive weed. I must look for some next time I go up north - maybe I can help do a bit of 'weeding'.

Interestingly, it's also in the Meliaceae, so yet another cousin of "true" mahogany.....

Cheers,

[D.W.]

David, this is the first VBM plane I got my hands on. I think the plane I brought to your shop was a Vaughan & Bushnell (V&B) #703 smoother plane. The V&B planes are another unusual type, the plane body is drop forged steel, instead of cast iron. I got it out of curiosity.

Regarding the Sargent plane, I did a quick refurbish and set it up for coarse work. The sole does not have an obvious convexity or concavity, so I left it alone. I suppose it could be setup for finer work, but I'm not going to do that at this time.

20220822_170829.jpg20220822_171540.jpg20220822_172951.jpg

Here's how the plane arrived. Lot's of surface rust. Of not is the chipbreaker, it was not prepared at all. The iron is thin.

20220827_104740.jpg

One thing that is noticeable is the ramp for the cutter milled on the plane body. It's about three times a long as that of a similar Bailey plane. We could debate whether it's a good thing or a bad thing.

20220822_233714.jpg20220822_234921.jpg20220826_002150.jpg

The plane after clean up and another picture of the bottom of the handle.

For jack plane work I can't see anything that suggests it won't perform well. I think it's when one is dealing with smoothers that more could be said.

Rafael

That's' the one I remember - the VBM with the ramp. If my comments about it not being any better than a stanley in function - it does look more substantial - imply that it wouldn't work as well as a stanley bailey, my apologies. I think it is in the same class, just that the improvements probably don't translate to better function for any extra cost in making.

They've always looked like pretty good planes, but I think stanley nailed the effort level and I haven't come across a VBM in good shape at a fair price.

I remember todd hughes on wood central often mentioning that some parts of the millers falls planes made it "feel cheap" or seem cheap. There are some parts of the millers falls that are lower cost, but I get what he was saying - they were still good planes. He liked the sargent planes as a blacksmith and maker if someone didn't want to buy stanley.

[raffo]

That's' the one I remember - the VBM with the ramp. If my comments about it not being any better than a stanley in function - it does look more substantial - imply that it wouldn't work as well as a stanley bailey, my apologies. I think it is in the same class, just that the improvements probably don't translate to better function for any extra cost in making.

They've always looked like pretty good planes, but I think stanley nailed the effort level and I haven't come across a VBM in good shape at a fair price.

I remember todd hughes on wood central often mentioning that some parts of the millers falls planes made it "feel cheap" or seem cheap. There are some parts of the millers falls that are lower cost, but I get what he was saying - they were still good planes. He liked the sargent planes as a blacksmith and maker if someone didn't want to buy stanley.

You have better memory than me. The plane you're referring too is the Winchester #7 I have, that one is Sargent made, it does have the long ramp.

[raffo]

That's' the one I remember - the VBM with the ramp. If my comments about it not being any better than a stanley in function - it does look more substantial - imply that it wouldn't work as well as a stanley bailey, my apologies. I think it is in the same class, just that the improvements probably don't translate to better function for any extra cost in making.

They've always looked like pretty good planes, but I think stanley nailed the effort level and I haven't come across a VBM in good shape at a fair price.

I remember todd hughes on wood central often mentioning that some parts of the millers falls planes made it "feel cheap" or seem cheap. There are some parts of the millers falls that are lower cost, but I get what he was saying - they were still good planes. He liked the sargent planes as a blacksmith and maker if someone didn't want to buy stanley.

You have better memory than me. The plane you're referring too is the Winchester #7 I have, that one is Sargent made, it does have the long ramp.

The Millers Falls do have less refined parts and the planes were finished is just well enough for them to work. They did use attractive woods for their handles, they didn't skimp on that.

[D.W.]

I think you brought a #5 VBM in a big box of planes and not sure if you also brought the V&B, which is a somewhat attractive all steel plane? I remember the jointer from early on. The ramp is what I remember in this case, though, because it's an intentional bias to try to ensure good bedding of the iron at the bottom of the plane - at least as I recall. I thought it was interesting because instead of just going with flat surfaces everywhere, you have a manufactured plane with the kind of bias a hand maker would leave in a plane so as not to need to be a human machine grinder/mill and shoot for perfection.

I recall the iron being thicker than stanley - I think we may have sharpened it. I have a feel thought that sargent irons generally have been a bit softer than stanley's sweetheart era irons, but they probably did that on purpose as no iron that I've used in earlier planes has felt like a 1060/1070 type steel. When steel has no surplus carbides, it feels fatty on sharpening stones. The issue in this case being that 1070 could end up 58/59 hardness pretty easily but the stanley irons I rehardened are much better than those. For reasons that I don't know, at same hardness, surplus carbon seems to lead to slightly better fine edge holding.

I had a bunch of different MF planes. The early ones with the name around the front ring or knob (type 1) had rosewood if I recall, and the later types did, too, but there was beech or something cheaper painted over on the middle planes. Some may have been stained clear - I don't recall exactly - but I remember todd's issues:
1) stamped yoke on most
2) stamped lateral adjuster? I no longer have any of them
3) painted castings instead of japanning, and the paint would flake off and bubble badly with rust

However, I liked them - cheap or not. They have slightly softer castings or at least usually do and they're very easy to flatten. I've had a few really hard castings on infill and for some reason, a marples 4 1/2 sized plane, and they are much more physically demanding to flatten and require blasting away with a file as abrasive paper will cut the soft MF castings for a while, but the harder planes it stops cutting pretty quickly. It can be something like a 4-1 difference in effort to remove the same amount of material, and it's not like any of us will wear out a softer cast iron casting.

MF planes also usually have a big adjuster and if you just strip the paint and shellac the castings, they're good to go.

Their irons also come up a little short of stanley, and so do record's laminated, which they advertised as being really fine grained (they appear to be), but a few steps softer. Which reminds me of a discussion that I read from knifesteelnerds that focusing on grain size at the expense of other things can sometimes lead to problems.

[D.W.]

Raffo stopped by with his planes and apparently didn't even own the VBM last time he was here.

So, it's official....I've lost my mind. No clue where I saw the ramp more recently on a plane, but he did bring it by today and it does have the taller steeper ramp to bias bedding of the iron.

[raffo]

I showed you my no.7-sized Sargent-made Winchester plane some time ago. If you're remembering another plane, then yeah, you're probably losing your mind, lol.

The frog of the jointer is marked 418 on the inside. I don't know when it was made, but it looks similar to the VBM plane. Here are pictures of the frogs and frog seats. I may have monkeyed with the ramp on the Winchester plane, it looks like I filed it. The ramp on the jack is untouched. The ramps are less than 45 degrees.

I'm not sure what the advantage of the ramp is, since the frog and the ramp don't form a single plane, you have to adjust the frog just right so that the iron is supported by the ramp, but not bent. If the frog is placed forward so that the cutter does not touch the ramp, it's quite a bit of length without support. Will it chatter? I don't know, I haven't tried. Is the sole going to crack if the cutter rests on the ramp? I don't know that either, time will tell.

The design works, I can take very good shavings with the jointer, the sole has been tuned flat to better than 1.5 thousands of an inch using the method suggested by David using a calibrated straight edge, sandpaper block and file.

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[D.W.]

Flatness doesn't get the credit that it should, or the importance of it. I'm convinced that a fine worker eons ago with wooden planes would be pretty careful about flatness of planes used for jointing or finishing work because it's a labor loss if they're not common flatness to each other.

I would be really surprised if the sargent chatters. When I was looking at listings to see what they bring, there were several 418's listed, and I'm sure there still are. 409s and the one plane that I had too long ago to remember was a 408 - I just don't remember anything about it other than it had been junked and I wouldn't have been able to doctor it back then and replace parts.

The ramp if the angle is just slightly shallower will give some range of frog setting (not like 1/16th of an inch, but some leeway/bias) to get the two contact points where they're wanted. When building an infill, it's not uncommon to put a more subtle bias on the metal ramp below the infill in the bed. Same idea - especially with an infill - the wood will move on an infill and if you can bed the iron on something that at least at the bottom half doesn't move, you have a bias for good performance with minor movement.

It's more like a degree or something, though, as there's no frog to move.

I think Larry Williams mentioned some bias for the bottom of moulding planes, too. Which is why even though I have crap memory of which plane for the ramp, the concept stuck in my head as if not really improving performance quality, it definitely has the whole "perceived quality" thing like the carved top on a gibson guitar.

[D.W.]

FWIW - raffo and I both stared straight at the handle on the plane and couldn't tell anything about it. It doesn't have big honduran-like pores and it doesn't look exactly like a rosewood. I still think it's andaman padauk, but it didn't have any exposed wood.

[IanW]

...... When building an infill, it's not uncommon to put a more subtle bias on the metal ramp below the infill in the bed. Same idea - especially with an infill - the wood will move on an infill and if you can bed the iron on something that at least at the bottom half doesn't move, you have a bias for good performance with minor movement.....

D.W., the 'bias' can as often as not be unintentional!

Wood being the material it is, it's very difficult to be sure some movement won't occur in the infill. The Norris I had used beech for the main part of its infill, & the wood of the blade bed sat an appreciable amount behind the blade block (or "chatter block" if you prefer that term). It was only a tiny amount, but easily detectable with a fingernail. Whether it left the factory like that or happened later I could not say. Generally, we can ignore wood movement along the grain, but there is some, and in very critical situations it can matter, so I would not be at all surprised if Norris deliberately set the woodwork slightly back like that.

On my very first infill, I managed to get the infill a hair too far forward and it over-hung the blade block by a whisker. Filing down the wood without damaging the sides was a monumental chore! So I have been ultra-careful not to repeat that blunder again. I was aiming for a perfect straight line between infill & blade block on the first few planes, but started reasoning along the same lines as yourself, & now I aim for a very slight dip just behind the last couple of mm of blade contact. Just a couple of thou is enough, which I can apply either by scraping the blade block or using a very thin, flexible file on a small plane. It's a tedious bit of the fettling, but I've convinced myself that a very slightly concave blade bed, with full contact at the very bottom & under the point where the lever-cap screw bears on the cap-iron is the secret to best performance....


Cheers,