Plow plane inquiry

[Cody Cantrell]

This weekend I found plow plane at an antique mall that was in pretty rough shape. The screw arm s were toast the wedge was missing and there were no irons. With that said the stock, skate, fence, and depth stop were in good shape. The guy was asking $25 for it, seemed a little high considering the shape. Now the question is has anybody rehabbed a severely beat up plow? I was thinking of using Dereks build on the bridal plow and turning it from a screw arm to a bridal. Will any vintage plow irons fit or do I have to try individual irons? Thoughts? Thanks for any help.

Cody

[Jim Koepke]

This weekend I found plow plane at an antique mall that was in pretty rough shape. The screw arm s were toast the wedge was missing and there were no irons. With that said the stock, skate, fence, and depth stop were in good shape. The guy was asking $25 for it, seemed a little high considering the shape. Now the question is has anybody rehabbed a severely beat up plow? I was thinking of using Dereks build on the bridal plow and turning it from a screw arm to a bridal. Will any vintage plow irons fit or do I have to try individual irons? Thoughts? Thanks for any help.

Cody

For such poor condition the price does seem a bit high. Most likely the pricing is geared more toward someone who wants to have some "piece of art" to decorate a corner table or mantle.

Like many things in life, some plow planes and blades were made to be interchangeable. Some were made to give fits if you didn't buy the proprietary blades from the plane maker. The sore spot can be in the wedge angle. A set of blades with different tapers could be a royal pain.

My old wooden plow sits mostly unused. It was bought long ago for some reason. Though it can do decent work, it is easier for me to set up and use one of the metal plow planes in my shop.

It sounds more like you would be buying a few parts for a plane building project instead of something that could be put to work.

My advice would be to either buy something in better condition or to make the complete project on your own.

jtk

[David Weaver]

Let it go if the threaded arms have a bunch of gobbled threads, it'll never be worth anything and it won't be worth the effort, either, even if you don't feel you'll sell it.

Also, you are much better off buying a plow plane that comes with its original set of irons. You don't have any way of telling that it does if they're new, but the plane is made for the irons, not the other way around.

Plenty of wedge arm plow planes around, and it's probably good policy to buy a good one rather than turn a screw arm plane into a wedge-arm plane.

[David Turner]

Cody:

There are a lot of us that look for just the plane you are thinking about buying. We want it for the parts so as to be able to build a screw arm plow plane usually handled. If you are not into building a new plane then a wedge arm with 8 blades in good to excellent condition will cost about $130-160. A similar condition screw arm will be higher and more it the $175-200 range. Yes, the blades must be all alike and made to fit the mortise and wedge of the plow plane. I regularly see plow planes in antique stores with either no blades or one blade priced around $110. Problem is a set of blades will cost $70-100.

David Turner
Plymouth, MI.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I can't remember the price off-hand, (I do remember it was less than $200) but I bought a set of 8 matched irons from Lee at The Best Things. As others have said, and Lee told me, unless you're looking at a fancy center wheel plow or something, the irons are worth more than the plane - Lee basically sold me the set of irons and threw in a useable if imperfect plow for free.

I would concentrate on finding a matched set of irons (or close enough to fettle to match) over a plow body - plow planes with one iron or no iron are really a dime a dozen once you start looking, and it's easier to match a decent condition plane to a set of irons than try and cobble together a set to the plane you have. If the taper isn't similar to the plane you may end up having to make a variety of wedges.

If you're not into searching around for these things or watching eBay auctions go for either pennies or crazy money, I'd recommend contacting Lee at the Best Things, he's done good by me a couple of times, and I'm glad I listened to Zach's recommendation.

[Hilton Ralphs]

I recently bought a set of plough plane irons for $25.

These seem to be a standard of sorts.

274858


I only needed a No.5 and No.7 but figured I could grind down the rest to make them into metric equivalents (1/4" to 6mm, 1/2" to 12mm etc).

[Cody Cantrell]

Thanks for the info guys. What would plow plane hardware be worth, say for a build?