Henley Optical Company Infill Plane Construction

[Jon van der Linden]

I was looking at some pictures of infill planes made by the Henley Optical Company a few days ago and was struck by the fact that they don't appear to use either dovetails or pins to hold their parts together. My thought is that they might be soldered. The Henley Optical Co. started in 1976 and closed in the 80's. The planes have been described as "the Holtey of their day." I don't have one, so the best I can do is link to some:
http://www.handplane.com/28/henley-optical-company-best-english-mitre-plane/
http://www.infill-planes.com/39/infill-thumb-plane-by-the-henley-optical-company/

I'm curious if anyone knows anything about their construction.

[David Keller NC]

There's a clue in the last couple of paragraphs of the second article you provided a link to. It notes that many of the Henley planes incorporated a sweated-on steel sole. That would strongly suggest that the plane is a bronze or brass casting with a silver-soldered steel sole.

[David Weaver]

Judging from the commentary about them, they're gunmetal (no clue if they're a machined casting, maybe i missed that looking through) with a steel plate sweated to the casting on the bottom. Pretty interesting way of going about it - looks like a nice plane, if not quite as refined (knurling, etc) as some of the primo stuff being made by current planemakers, still close to it and a nice looking plane for someone jumping back in when the market had tanked.

The devil is in the details when it comes to how well a bevel up plane works - primarily if the mouth is tight and if the iron is properly bedded - especially with respect to support being given to it right at the edge of the mouth. I doubt they would've gone to the trouble of making such a nice plane without spending some effort on that.

Just my thoughts.

[David Weaver]

Wow...no response for five hours, and literally two of us at once :D

[Frank Drew]

I might be mistaken, but I think Alan Beardmore, the founder of Henley Optical Plane Co., had worked at Norris before that fine, earlier British planemaker went out of business.

There was at least one article in FWW, way back when, by a fellow who owned a Henley miter plane; I'd never heard of infill planes before and thought it was about the coolest tool I'd ever seen.

As Jon notes, they didn't last very long in business. Shame, really; if they could have held on a few more years they might have been able to take advantage of the renewed interest in woodworking and high quality tools.

[Johnny Kleso]

Who cares about the plane I love the Navigation Graphic at the bottom right :)

The pic in the second link you can see the hefty steel and if you look close you can see pin hole to hold infill in place, it might also hold the brass sides too..