Steve Branam
05-30-2010, 10:21 AM
The pictures below show a Mathieson 5B swing arm plough that I picked up at an antique store on Cape Cod last summer on the left, with an unmarked swing arm plough that I got on ebay last week on the right.
Surprise! The right one is virtually identical to the Mathieson, just some slight differences in the molding profiles. The only real differences are the shapes of the skate and depth stop. The metalwork is also a bit cruder. I'll need to make new arm and iron wedges, and I picked up a nice set of irons from another seller that fit.
Is this a common thing to find such close copies? Or are they both simply following a pattern that is so well-established? The workmanship is good, particularly the critical bed cutting, so this appears to have been made by an experienced planemaker, not user-made. But it looks like someone brought in a plane and said "Make me one just like this".
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_6qAGOXP58V0/TAJo-0o9n4I/AAAAAAAABrA/xvDHoPdPAa8/s400/img_0207.jpg
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_6qAGOXP58V0/TAJo_oRPTWI/AAAAAAAABrE/r_Fb9KA_iRU/s400/img_0209.jpg
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_6qAGOXP58V0/TAJpAPFp8GI/AAAAAAAABrI/AKB7zADZFEo/s400/img_0210.jpg
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_6qAGOXP58V0/TAJpAr0ZWJI/AAAAAAAABrM/zx2zMuEFhhE/s400/img_0211.jpg
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_6qAGOXP58V0/TAJpBsosvpI/AAAAAAAABrQ/F9U2bLAnChQ/s400/img_0212.jpg
Surprise! The right one is virtually identical to the Mathieson, just some slight differences in the molding profiles. The only real differences are the shapes of the skate and depth stop. The metalwork is also a bit cruder. I'll need to make new arm and iron wedges, and I picked up a nice set of irons from another seller that fit.
Is this a common thing to find such close copies? Or are they both simply following a pattern that is so well-established? The workmanship is good, particularly the critical bed cutting, so this appears to have been made by an experienced planemaker, not user-made. But it looks like someone brought in a plane and said "Make me one just like this".
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_6qAGOXP58V0/TAJo-0o9n4I/AAAAAAAABrA/xvDHoPdPAa8/s400/img_0207.jpg
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_6qAGOXP58V0/TAJo_oRPTWI/AAAAAAAABrE/r_Fb9KA_iRU/s400/img_0209.jpg
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_6qAGOXP58V0/TAJpAPFp8GI/AAAAAAAABrI/AKB7zADZFEo/s400/img_0210.jpg
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_6qAGOXP58V0/TAJpAr0ZWJI/AAAAAAAABrM/zx2zMuEFhhE/s400/img_0211.jpg
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_6qAGOXP58V0/TAJpBsosvpI/AAAAAAAABrQ/F9U2bLAnChQ/s400/img_0212.jpg