Minor Gloat

[Mike Hutchison]

Found this Plow Plane at a yard Sale this past Friday morning.
It is marked A. Howland, NY and No. 94
I believe it is Beech wood. I took it apart and gave the rusty metal
a Citric Acid bath. The skate had brass plates and since I did not know the effect of Citric Acid on brass, these parts and another knob did not go in the tubby. Iron looks like it could be a converted file.
I paid $8 for it. I have no room in the plane till I built for it.
But I don't think it is going anywhere until I go.

194869

[Jim Koepke]

Nice plow plane.

Mine is not as nice. I was able to buy a few blades on ebay.

Augustus Howland was a bank president who formed a company to use the prison labor at Auburn Prison from 1869 - 1874.

Auburn tool company held the contract at other times.

jtk

[Mike Hutchison]

Jim, Thanks for input.
What reading I've had time to do on the Net seemed to indicate there were 2 A. Howlands
One in Moravia, New York and the one you refer to using prison labor in Auburn
which was William Seward's home base. Could it be there was just one Howland who moved
from the one location to the other? That sounds plausible.

[Jim Koepke]

Could it be there was just one Howland who moved
from the one location to the other? That sounds plausible.

Could be, my information came from a book on wooden plow planes.

jtk

[Mark Wyatt]

That plane has a great tote. A less common feature. Is it as undamaged as it looks?

[Mike Hutchison]

Mark: The tote is in pretty good shape. Have noticed that it's a tight fit for my hand and I've got a kinda small paw. Even idly speculated as to whether anybody would have made a children's plow plane. Naaah. Overall, the plane has some minor cracking to the body and about four threads at one end of one stem have chipped off for about 1/4 of the circumference of the stem. This doesn't affect setting the fence or tightening adjustment at all. Stems look reasonably straight. Now I need to get the iron honed well enough to take a cut. After all, I'm a user not a collector. The a priori evidence with regard to planes is starting to mount up to the contrary.
By the way, probably should have mentioned that the pic in first post was as received.