Side or Sole ?

[Keith Christopher]

You know I have been aquiring more hand planes. NO I'm not on a slippery slope, as I said before I can quit anytime. :p I remember my grandfaher who taught me this trade so long ago used to keep his handplanes on their side. He would always say that you never want to keep them on their soles in case you still have the blade lowered in your planes. Thoughts comments ? I still find myself storing them on their sides. :)


On a sad note, most of my cousins got to his tools before I could ask for them and they're scattered to the winds now. (no one else in the family took up the trade :( )

[Tom LaRussa]

You know I have been aquiring more hand planes. NO I'm not on a slippery slope, as I said before I can quit anytime. I remember my grandfaher who taught me this trade so long ago used to keep his handplanes on their side. He would always say that you never want to keep it like that in case you still have the blade lowered in your planes. Thoughts comments ? I still find myself storing them on their sides. :)
I store them either on their sides or with something under their front ends to keep the blade elevated.

[Dan Moening]

As I've received no training or apprenticeship to be "told" otherwise ;)
I set them soles down...usually.

My bench tends to have several tools laying about during work.
I feel that the wooden benchtop is safer for the blade than the risk of dinging it with another tool; and its not likely to be bumped off the bench either. I'm not convinced this has any dulling factor to the blade, though I can't prove it (and don't want to).

I do on occasion set them on the side. When I do it seems an unnatural motion when I go to pick them up.

[Pam Niedermayer]

I store my Japanese wooden planes on their sides, western planes on their soles. However, I've also installed a strip of wood across the shelves so that the western planes sit on it, keep the blades up off the plywood.

Pam

[Bill White]

stores 'em on their sides for the same reason you do. My mentor told me to, and would give me h%^l if I didn't. So there. That's my reason.http://www.sawmillcreek.org/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Alan Turner]

I store my planes on their sides, but that is mostly a function of my toolchest design. When in use, I just put a handful of shavings on the bench, and set them down so the blade potion of the sole is on the shavings. They are faster to grab that way.
Alan

[Bob Hovde]

Alan has a good solution, but my dad would have probably killed me before I explained to him that the blade wasn't on the bench. "Bad habit to get into!" would have been his retort, as he picked me up.:(

Bob

[Roger Bell]

Mr. Nick Oprisu, my sixth grade shop teach (and first WW mentor....eventually, I learned to square a board) felt so strongly about the need to place our planes on their sides that he instituted the following:

Any student seeing another student's plane left iron-down on the bench was to report it to the teacher. Upon verification of the offense by the teacher, the reporting student was given the priviledge of kicking the offender in the seat of the pants. The remainder of the class was delighted by the entertainment. (Perhaps they still do this these days in Singapore).

So what do I do? I leave my planes iron-down on the bench and give a wry smile to the heavens.