Light Talk - Weights of Different Planes

[David Weaver]

I was fiddling through some of my woody planes tonight, and I have a try plane that I always thought felt really heavy. It's about 20" long, so I weighed it. It's somewhere around 8 1/2 pounds (!!) and it's go no metal on it. So I figured I'd just weigh a whole bunch of planes. It's interesting to me how some planes feel vs. what they are. Wood planes always give the impression that they're lighter, but in the larger planes, I think you'll be surprised. That try plane and my spiers panel infill kit both weigh about the same. So, in no particular order, and hopefully the weights will show on the scale.

Mathiesen Jack, really nice plane to use. Surprised at the weight. It's more than a pound heavier than the bedrock jack below. Never would've guessed.

283056

Stanley 29 transitional, I think. I'm not into transitionals. Using this a little alongside a good beech plane like the above jack makes me sure about liking a good beech plane a lot better. Or an all metal plane. Surprisingly heavy, yet surprisingly weak and flimsy feeling in a heavy cut. I should've taken a picture of a metal 6, but I didn't. (EDIT, I did dig out a record 5 1/2 and a stanley 6, they're similar in size. The record was 6 lb 2 ounces, and the bailey 6 was 6 lbs 13 oz. It a heavy 6, though, I think. I'd be curious if other folks' 6s are that heavy).

283057

(that's the offending try plane - it got caught in the dykem disaster of 200? when I had a container of dykem fall and it literally burst and splashed straight up onto my shelf of planes)
283058

My favorite jointer, a single iron by a maker called JT Brown. I only wish it was double iron. It's fairly heavy and works like it.
283059

Some sort of craftsman made plane. Got this off of ebay on a whim thinking it might be better made than it is. It only has a 2" iron (and an undescribed broken tote). It's the only plane in this pile that I haven't actually used.

283060

[David Weaver]

A spiers panel kit from shepherd. 18" long, heavy for its size and it hits like it. It's a good plane to use if you remember to push it and not lean on it. If you lean on it, it's a world of friction. If you remember to make thick shavings, you can still get enough done to offset throwing around the weight.

283062

Shop made coffin smoother. I want to like coffin smoothers, but I just don't find them as productive when working hand dimensioned woods as I find continental smoothers and stanley bailey planes. They're just too light and rough. You have to bump start them in hard wood if you don't want a skip. The weight shows why.

283063

A millers falls 22 (stanley 7 size). I used to use a LN jointer if I was going to use a metal jointer. I like using this plane better. It's enough lighter that you notice it.
283064

A shop made infill smoother with some brese plane innards. Heavy. Same as the spiers plane, except the mouth is limited to 4 thousandths. I don't use it anymore. I used it a lot when i first made it because it really won't tear anything out. It is nice to use in figured wood - it's like air ride, but it's a plane for someone who planes chatter marks off of wood. It won't do anything that the stanley 4 can't, and I can work wood twice as fast with the stanley. Basically a #4 sized plane with a 2" iron.

It's getting kind of dirty and grungy from sitting around. I put considerable effort into making this plane, not into the cosmetics, but into bedding the iron and being precise with the mouth, etc, to try to make the "perfect tearout proof smoother". I didn't know how to use the cap iron properly when i made it, and unfortunately for a very rare large vintage piece of bois de rose that deserved to be in a nicer looking plane, I built it before talking to george, and it's got a little ugly stick in terms of design.

283065

[David Weaver]

Standard bedrock 605. Kind of a nice plane to use, not too heavy, I have it set up as a jack. I'm pretty sure Mike Brady sold me this plane all done up nice like it is. Thanks mike!
283066

muji continental smoother #1. These are fantastic planes to use, but I think most people won't love them. They are everything that a primus plane should've been. No wacky adjuster and rube goldberg iron holding device, a much better iron, an ebony body and a third or a quarter of the price. For some reason, these weigh about the same as a coffin smoother but you can remove GOBS of wood with one, I guess because you can really get full effort from two hands. I love them. After using them with great effect, I'm surprised how light they are.

283067

LN 7 - everyone knows what this is. It's the odd duck in my pile of junk, but it's the only truly square plane that I have now. If I run into a truly square cheap bailey plane, that'll be the end of it. Has wood show weight compared to the stanley planes. Makes it feel great when you compare it to something and take five strokes. When you flatten five panels instead, it's not as fun. Gotta keep the shaving thick to make the weight work for you, and keep it waxed. Stanley probably would've made their 7s this heavy if professional users actually wanted that.

283068

MF #9, similar to stanley 4. Love it. The most perfect smoother design I have encountered in metal planes. Maybe in general. It will do very fine shavings and leave a great finish, or fairly easily take a very coarse shaving and threaten no tearout when properly set. In practical use, it blows my infill off the bench.

283069

A vintage continental plane - love the mujis, but I'm moving away from anything that doesn't sharpen on a washita stone. This is just like the mujis but with a buck bros iron. Same lighter weight and same ability to remove coarse shavings without putting the user in pain.

283070

Another jointer. In search of a double iron jointer to use instead of the JT. This is a $20 ebay special, it's a nice working plane. Surprised again at the weight of these bigger planes. They glide so well. Not a fan of the missing horn, though, really does create a painful problem.

283071

[David Weaver]

Stanley 4 - little more modern than most of the preferred types. I like this one the best of all of the 4s. Someone here on SMC cleaned it up and offered it in the classifieds. It's my favorite smoother of all of them, and resides at my bench with one of the mujis and a cheap japanese smoothing plane converted to a jack.

283072

A marples coffin smoother. Bought it to see if I was wrong about my impressions with a shop made coffin smoother. Nope, it's the same. Too bad. Not even 2 pounds. It really punishes your hands and shoulders in a heavy cut if the wood isn't perfect.

283073

Bedrock 604 1/2. Too heavy in use! Wood show weight, just shy of 5 pounds.

283074

Muji 2 - same as the other, different wood. I thought I'd set one up as a jack, but didn't. This one resides at my bench. Man can these things remove wood fast and comfortably for their very light weight.

283075

Mosaku smoother. The weight just doesn't really matter because of the way the plane operates, but I'm showing it for comparison. All of my japanese planes are about the same.

283076

[Steve Voigt]

I love data!!! Thanks for posting, really interesting.
Couple thoughts on the extreme ends. I have really been turned around on the whole concept of weight. When I was a beginner with planes, I thought the heavier the better, and I had no use for light planes. How wrong I was. In anything larger than a smoother (so jack, fore, try, jointer), a beech (or comparable weight wood, like maple) plane is perfect. I think that the attractiveness of heavy planes, when I was a newbie, had a lot to do with not being very good at sharpening, and not knowing how to push a plane with good technique. If your iron is not really sharp, the extra weight helps you keep going, but once you get to sharp, the weight is just baggage.
(I know that none of this is news to you, but it was a revelation for me, and might be interesting to some folks)
But with a coffin smoother, you are absolutely right, the lack of weight is a problem. Interestingly, I think you are misreading your own data with the muji smoother. It is only 8 or so oz heavier than the beech smoothers, but that is 25%- 30% heavier. It's the proportion, not the absolute weight, that matters.
So where I am going with this is that in a coffin smoother, I think a heavy tropical wood is the answer. I used to think it was the answer for all wood planes and I was wrong, but I think it is true for a small plane.
If you look at old catalogs from ca. 1830 - 1900, the coffin smoothers were always offered in boxwood or rosewood, but the larger planes never were. Part of the reason was surely economics, but I suspect it was also that the extra weight was only needed in the smaller planes.
It's on my mind because I just made someone a mini smoother out of jatoba. The plane is 5 3/4" long and probably weighs less than 2 pounds, but it feels really hefty, relative to its size, and that's what matters.
If you could find, or make, a coffin smoother out of something heavy, I'm willing to wager you would dig it.

[David Weaver]

I love data!!! Thanks for posting, really interesting.
Couple thoughts on the extreme ends. I have really been turned around on the whole concept of weight. When I was a beginner with planes, I thought the heavier the better, and I had no use for light planes. How wrong I was. In anything larger than a smoother (so jack, fore, try, jointer), a beech (or comparable weight wood, like maple) plane is perfect. I think that the attractiveness of heavy planes, when I was a newbie, had a lot to do with not being very good at sharpening, and not knowing how to push a plane with good technique. If your iron is not really sharp, the extra weight helps you keep going, but once you get to sharp, the weight is just baggage.
(I know that none of this is news to you, but it was a revelation for me, and might be interesting to some folks)
But with a coffin smoother, you are absolutely right, the lack of weight is a problem. Interestingly, I think you are misreading your own data with the muji smoother. It is only 8 or so oz heavier than the beech smoothers, but that is 25%- 30% heavier. It's the proportion, not the absolute weight, that matters.
So where I am going with this is that in a coffin smoother, I think a heavy tropical wood is the answer. I used to think it was the answer for all wood planes and I was wrong, but I think it is true for a small plane.
If you look at old catalogs from ca. 1830 - 1900, the coffin smoothers were always offered in boxwood or rosewood, but the larger planes never were. Part of the reason was surely economics, but I suspect it was also that the extra weight was only needed in the smaller planes.
It's on my mind because I just made someone a mini smoother out of jatoba. The plane is 5 3/4" long and probably weighs less than 2 pounds, but it feels really hefty, relative to its size, and that's what matters.
If you could find, or make, a coffin smoother out of something heavy, I'm willing to wager you would dig it.


I have some cocobolo blanks, and some other 2000 hardness type oddball fruitwoods, etc, maybe sometime I will do it. I think that in a light plane, a narrow iron is a virtue.

There is something entirely different with those continental smoothers, and I'm sure it boils down to something trivial. You can comfortably take off more wood than you can with a stanley 4.

I don't want to endorse them such that folks feel a need to buy them due to it, locating the iron in the middle of the plane makes them feel entirely different and I've read dozens of accounts of people saying they just didn't dig it at all (and look how many primus planes are sold with little use).

i had a jones for a lignum jack or fore plane, too, same thought as you had. but I know now that I wouldn't like to have one so much. Some of the bigger tropical planes can have a bit of a jarring feel....but maybe i'm imagining that.

[David Weaver]

I'd be curious if other folks have stanley planes or big woody planes that are different than the measures above. I know I have a 6 that's heavier than other 6s are. And the castings on the 604 1/2 vs. the 605 are like two different lines of planes. The 604 1/2 is like a cast iron pan, and the 605 is fairly nimble feeling with not too heavy of a casting (as was another one that I had in the past, and a 607 jointer for that matter).

[Adam Cruea]

*shrug*

I think it all comes down to the person using the plane, too.

Can I use a light plane? Sure. My 604 Bedrock smoother is even better in my eyes than the Bailey #4 I had (and accidentally cracked by dropping on the basement floor. RIP you wonderful little smoother/hogger. *sniff*). Do I prefer a heavy plane, though? Most definitely. It's just the type of person I am. I like using my type 9 #8 as a smoother.

I've tried wood planes and I end up about throwing the things across the room on accident. I also prefer using a hand sledge to a normal hammer (as long as I don't need the claw part). I prefer using heavy lead in a pencil as opposed to those itty-bitty little clicky disposable pencils. If you've seen Men In Black, reference the scene where Will Smith gets a "Noisy Cricket" and says "I feel like Imma break this damned thing!" I've said that more than once to my wife with light, small items.

After all, there's a reason I made a bench out of a wood that's renowned for it's durability, shock tolerance, and strength. "Hulk smash!" is an operable, frequent go-to phrase in my vocabulary. I mean, come on. . .look at my avatar. I'm a large, angry, bald motorcycle man. Subtlety is not something I'm familiar with.

[David Weaver]

OK, adam, you're going to need a nickname.

* Thor
* HD (heavy duty)
* John Henry
* Paul Bunyan
* Richard Kiel
* D11 (like the bulldozer)

Or any other one you could think of :)

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I don't feel bad about still having two jointers anymore. I'll probably sell one of them sooner or later, I just can't figure it out yet.

I get that same thing - sometimes it's seems like it's nice to have the modern jointer plane with the precision finished sides and sole (it probably has no bearing in most use, but it gives you the warm fuzzies to know it's there, at least) but damn, as soon you start throwing that thing around for any length of time, screw it. In the back of my head I keep thinking I'll pick up a better example of a vintage no 7. and have Tablesaw Tom grind it, and then send the two I have now packing.

I'll have to weight my Millers Falls 22C; the weight feels about perfect - for a while I was using it for *everything*. I'll weigh my Clifton too, just because it's hilariously heavy, and I wish I had a number. It might actually be too much for our little postal scale. . .

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Turns out my Clifton isn't as heavy as I thought - I guess the number I had in the back of my head must have come from press material or something. Maybe they used to be heavier - the first Google hit for "Clifton jointer plane weight" is at Traditional Woodworker (http://www.traditionalwoodworker.com/Clifton-No-7-Jointer-Plane/productinfo/625-7000/) who lists it at 11.7 pounds. Of course, they also list 20 inches, which isn't quite right. Other sites list 10+ pounds.

My scale shows *my* Clifton no 7 weighing in at 8lbs, 15 1/2 oz, so just shy of 9 pounds, and not that much more than the Lie Nielsen.

My Millers Falls 22C shows up at 7lbs 5 5/8 oz. It's got a Veritas blade and chipbreaker, and cherry handles (low knob) from Bill Ritner, and the steel of the fittings have been replaced with the brass+steel from a Stanley replacement set (I was missing the front screw) I don't if those things effect things much or not.

My Stanley no. 4 with a Veritas blade comes in at 3 lbs 8 5/8 oz.

[Matthew N. Masail]

Fantastic post ! I've been experimenting with this very issue lately and started to add metal
dowels 1.25 inch diameter to prototype plane builds, it does make a huge difference, but I also notice the balance of the plane and force can
make just as big of a difference, I'm sure that is the deal with the continental smoothers.


here is a plane I just finished, it's 9.5 inches long and less than 2inches high. it has 2 metal dowel which bring it up to 2.5lbs, which is good considering it's size.
If I could get some 2.5inch thick stock I could add 1.5inch Diameter dowels and bring the wight up to closer to 4lbs.
if only the tote was balanced like an HNT Gordon plane (got to try one once) it would be great, the mouth needs to be about 1\2 inch more forward too. Still working to get a good tote design... it's not easy


283104 283106

[Steve Rozmiarek]

David, wrap it up for me, do you think heavier or lighter is better, probably depends on the plane? Like Adam brought up, I'd think the mass of the driver matters too?

[Kees Heiden]

Some of my planes. Units are metric of course, but it's about the relative values.

Smoothers:
Stanley #4 1600 g
Ulmia reform 1200 g
Coffin plane 800 g
Infill 2250 g

Jacks:
Record #5 2100 g
18" fore, wood 1900 g

Jointers:
Stanley #7 3200 g
30" wood 3200 g
26" wood 3100 g

So, overall the wooden planes are considerable lighter. And you get more length for less weight. Only the wooden jointers are very heavy, there is indeed a lot of wood involved. But they are longer again then my 24" Stanley #7.

Personally I like my wooden coffin plane a LOT. With capitals. Yes it needs a bumpstart, but I plane vigourously anyway. I am not a heavy build guy, so I like light planes. The infill is nice but very heavy for what it is.

The Record #5 is nice, but when I made my dining table I did the bulk of the work with the wooden fore plane. On large boards I like a longer jackplane, and with a wooden plane that doesn't come with a weight penalty.

Wooden jointers I like on an edge but not yet on a flat surface. They are a bit unwieldy.

[Chris Griggs]

Just getting caught up after along working weekend. This is interesting. To address Steves question (even though it wasn't directed at me) I think weight should go down proportionally as planes get larger. 4 lbs is nice in 9-10" smoother but doubling that to 8lbs in an 18" or larger plane isn't so so nice to me. I like the weight of both new and vintage planes in the no 3 to no 4 size. When it comes to jack planes and larger I definitely prefer the lighter weight of vintage. I'm only speaking about metal planes btw, I don't many woodies to speak of. I do have a 15" transitional I use a lot for roughing..I like the lighter weight and slickness of the wood in a jack that takes rapid heavy cuts.

[David Weaver]

David, wrap it up for me, do you think heavier or lighter is better, probably depends on the plane? Like Adam brought up, I'd think the mass of the driver matters too?

In good wood, I like a light plane more, but there seems to be a lower limit for me with smoothers, except of the continental design. That's all just my opinion.

I'd call good wood something like clean straight soft maple, cherry, walnut, or - if one is lucky enough, mahogany. Beech sort of fits in there, too, especially the face of quartered boards.

I work cherry more than anything else, just because of where I am, i can get it any time FAS rough for 5 bucks a board foot and sometimes half or third of that. For working from rough, I like either the stanley or a woody jointer (I seem to be more accurate with a metal jointer if I'm trying to hit a tight mark, but you have to remember to wax it while you're working because it's easy to get tired and start to lean on it).

this answer's going nowhere fast. I guess it depends. If I could only have three planes, I'd have a japanese jack, a stanley 7 sized metal vintage plane and a stanley 4. But I'd rather at least have the option of having a wooden jointer or try plane at least 22" long and a vintage wooden jack - double iron both of them. Something in the 7 pound range for a long plane seems to be ideal for medium hardwoods, smoothers in the range of 3 1/2 to 4, and something around 5 for a jack.

I have noticed in the past that when I'm getting tired, the jtbrown plane will start to seem heavy when I pick it up off of an edge, but part of that's probably because it's long. It can remove wood fast.

If the wood is not so great, which is what I'd consider hard maple or stuff with lots of runout that comes right back into you on the opposite end of the board, it's nice to have heavier metal planes for everything but the coarsest work (the modern planes do have a little more accurate cap irons, too - a stanley 7 and 4 are definitely easier to set dead on where you want them). The infill kit/panel plane is like magic on really hard wood, but my experience is dampened with it a little because shepherd did a crap job with a capital C on making the cap iron and the iron - they are inaccurately made AND the iron is poor quality, delivering unexpected chipout at the edge often.

I tend to think after using all of them that the stanley 4 sold gobs for a reason, that the stanley 7 sold gobs for a reason, and the woody jointers were carefully made to the weights they are (They wouldn't have needed to keep all of that weight in front of and behind the iron in the non-razee planes if they didn't want to).

If you have a sore shoulder or back, a plane that doesn't get jarred in the cut seems all the more important. Sometimes I have mild arthritis, and the more ideal the plane, the less I notice it. I don't really like the idea of stopping physical work when woodworking is about all the physical work I get these days.

[Tony Shea]

I was just in the shop smoothing up some boards that I finished fitting in a desk I'm making and was thinking about this post as I was planing. I was using my LN #4 bronze for the purpose and decided to switch over to my well tuned Stanley #4 to see again how I liked the feel. And again the LN won out hands down 90% of the reason being the weight. Something about smoothing and some jointing tasks I just prefer the extra weight. I certainly agree that the lighter weight jack plane is a blessing in pretty much all instances I just can't get around the fact that I like my smoothers to be heavy, hence the reason I chose the bronze over iron. By the time I am at the jointing and smoothing stage I am taking really light cuts, somewhere between .002" to .005" so the weight is a non issue as far as fatigue and jarring are concerned. Most of my work is not done in batches and are one piece fit to the next so again fatigue is a non issue when the jointing and smoothing stages are reached.

But this is all just a preference to the way I work wood with the tools I have at my disposal. I think this is a great thread and can get really involved if others argue their preferences. I do appreciate you taking the time to weigh up all your examples and posting this data for us to think about.

[Chris Griggs]

I was just down in the shop planing away on some walnut trying to figure out which of my 6s I want to keep and which I want to sell. My WR is 8lbs, and the the LV 6 I just won on ebay is 6 3/4. It was interesting to see what I liked as I started to fatigue (I was trying to tire myself out). I had assumed I would like the lighter LV more and more over the 8lb WR as ai fatigued but what I realized was that it depended on the cut I was taking. For the most part I did like the lighter weight of the LV better, but when I was a) starting to get tired and b) taking about as heavy of a cut as I would with a trying plane..I did appreciate the weight of the WR in powering through the stroke.

So I'm realizing that while I do usually prefer something lighter than the modern bedrock reproductions (at least in 6s or 7s), there are situations where that weight would be advantageous. For how I work and what wood I work,I think I will probably end keeping the lighter LV (which is superbly balanced btw), but for the first time I do see why someone might want a really heavy plane.

Smoothers, for me its a toss up. I still lean towards lighter weight because like feedback. I CAN feel tearout with a lighter plane and even when comparing the LN iron to the LN bronze I liked that I could better feel what was happening with the iron plane (bronze absorbs all the virbration...which is really really good, but can also be a downfall depending on what you like). There is also something nice about just blowing throw the cut effortlessly with something like a bronze LN, but again, I tend to plump down for something nimble feeling that gives me a physical sense of what is happening with the wood. The vintage No.4 are too me the perfect balance of this. They have enough weight that you don't need to force them through the cut, but they are they are light enough and made of a stiff enough material that I can feel what the wood is doing. For this reason if one of these day I decide I want an LN 4, I'll probably go with iron (err...probably...maybe..both are nice)

This is a really interesting thread...but its a very difficult thing to judge...really REALLY depends on the situation.

[Adam Cruea]

OK, adam, you're going to need a nickname.

* Thor
* HD (heavy duty)
* John Henry
* Paul Bunyan
* Richard Kiel
* D11 (like the bulldozer)

Or any other one you could think of :)

My friends usually refer to me either as Mountain Man or Hoss/Haus. I'm about 5'8" and 250lbs. The sleeves of my XXL shirts tend to be fairly snug around my arms and shoulders.

I put my drill press together on my own and moved it on my own down to my basement. Delta 18-900L. It wasn't until I read the directions a second time to make sure I put the head on it correctly that I saw it was supposed to be a 2 person effort. :confused:

One of these days I'm hoping to get up to Hearne Hardwoods for the LN event and maybe seeing you and Mr. Griggs there.

[Chris Griggs]

One of these days I'm hoping to get up to Hearne Hardwoods for the LN event and maybe seeing you and Mr. Griggs there.

Yeah buddy. I plan to be there again next fall. Hop on your hog and ride out there. Always fun to play with the full line of LN tools.

[David Weaver]

My friends usually refer to me either as Mountain Man or Hoss/Haus. I'm about 5'8" and 250lbs. The sleeves of my XXL shirts tend to be fairly snug around my arms and shoulders.

I put my drill press together on my own and moved it on my own down to my basement. Delta 18-900L. It wasn't until I read the directions a second time to make sure I put the head on it correctly that I saw it was supposed to be a 2 person effort. :confused:

One of these days I'm hoping to get up to Hearne Hardwoods for the LN event and maybe seeing you and Mr. Griggs there.

Mountain man transfers to Grizzly Adam quite well. That's a good name for 5'8" 250 :)

(some of the younger guys on here might not remember the Grizzly Adams tv show that was named for a real guy from the 1800s. I have to admit that I only know who he is because of a hair club for men commercial or some other such thing where he complained that he couldn't be grizzly adams and be losing hair.)

[David Weaver]

I noticed something today, re the weights of tropical planes. I've never seen a lignum or rosewood full size jointer. They're always a little thinner and shorter, and usually razeed, too. I'd bet at their size, they're probably about 8 pounds.

[george wilson]

David,you are one of the most abject plane hogs I have met!!!!!

I suppose larger planes were not offered in boxwood due to it being so scarce in big sizes.

[Kees Heiden]

An old trick to increase the weight of a beech plane was bathing in linseed oil. That easilly added a pound or two.

[george wilson]

I have posted before that I have filled the wood of planes by removing the iron and wedge,clamping the plane tightly to a board,and filling the bottom of the mouth with sticky window putty. Then I pour the escapement clear full of RAW linseed oil. It can take 3 or 4 throats full of raw oil,which,especially on old,dried out planes,will bleed all the way through jointer planes to both ends.

Window putty has been about as good a guard against leaking as I have found(haven't experimented much,though). It will still leak a little.

[David Weaver]

David,you are one of the most abject plane hogs I have met!!!!!

I suppose larger planes were not offered in boxwood due to it being so scarce in big sizes.

Hey, I sold off a lot of my stuff to get to this point!! I have a bad curiosity problem, and it wasn't really satisfied until I mostly scrapped working with power tools. I guess this isn't going to help my cause when I'm trying to mooch that huge maple jointer off of you, huh?

[David Weaver]

An old trick to increase the weight of a beech plane was bathing in linseed oil. That easilly added a pound or two.

That's what I suspect was done with the try plane with the dykem all over the front. It gives the false impression that there's a steel bar in it. It's got a wide open mouth and can do damage quickly if it's not set properly.

[Kees Heiden]

It used to be very common. I read an account where new planes were brought to the oil man, who would hang the new plane for a few days with a string in a barrel of linseed oil, and then charge for the difference in weight. But somewhere early 20th century this habbit was rejected. No idea why. Some people think that too much linseed oil atracts worms.

[David Weaver]

Sounds like a good reason to not place a linseed oiled plane onto a pile of worms!

I'd imagine if someone was making a new plane, a little bit of boric acid mixed with the oil (not much, just a little) would keep just about anything out of the wood forever.

[Warren Mickley]

An old trick to increase the weight of a beech plane was bathing in linseed oil. That easilly added a pound or two.
I would be interested if you have read a text from before 1850 that suggests this.

In 2009 I won a beech mallet that had been soaked in linseed oil for "at least 30 days" It stank so much that I could not keep it in the shop for a whole year. Even today I can smell it if near my nose, and on damp days I can smell it from across the room. Little beads of gelled oil have collected in spots on the end grain.

[Adam Cruea]

I would be interested if you have read a text from before 1850 that suggests this.

In 2009 I won a beech mallet that had been soaked in linseed oil for "at least 30 days" It stank so much that I could not keep it in the shop for a whole year. Even today I can smell it if near my nose, and on damp days I can smell it from across the room. Little beads of gelled oil have collected in spots on the end grain.

30 days seems a little much. I soaked my hickory mallet head for 7 days after I glued it up and put the mortise for the handle in it so that the oil would soak in both sides.

I can't quite understand why someone would put anything in linseed oil for that long. It's only going to penetrate to a certain point, and honestly, the oil will keep migrating in if I have read correctly until all wood reaches saturation (which is well before 30 days). If I remember correctly from a finishing book I read, through a small 1x1" piece of white oak that was 4 or 6 inches long sitting in like 1/2" of linseed oil, some finishing guy (Flexnor I think?) had oil coming out the top because it had soaked up through the grain in the middle in something like a day or a week.

[george wilson]

No issues with oil filled planes stinking,and I've done it many times over the years. Probably because the oil is mostly INSIDE the wood,not ON it.

Oil would penetrate clear through long planes in 3 or 4 days when filling the mouth up repeatedly.

You might could have just given the mallet a coat of shellac to mask off the smell. Old furniture sometimes has a musky smell inside of it. This can be stopped by shellacking the insides everywhere.

[Derek Cohen]

I have light planes that work well and I have heavy planes that do so similarly. So that does not answer the question.

In a recent comparison of the LN #51 and LV Shooter, my preference was the heavier LN to power through end grain, however the lighter LV made up for this with a lower cutting angle.

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolReviews/LVShootingPlane_html_m709a5a04.jpg

I like the light SBUS for its nimbleness, and yet I light the heavier LN #3 for its power in the same size. Nimble versus power. Lighter does offer more feedback, but heavy can reduce effort.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Planes/LV%20planes/Small%20BU%20Smoother/BUand3-1.jpg

I have this Brese infill I built from a kit. 60 degree bed, so it is more effort to push. It is small, just 6 1/2" long. It feels very powerful as it concentrates the mass in a small area.

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolReviews/TheBreseSmallSmootherKit_html_m2ddcce6b.jpg

It does not work any better then than a half-pitch HNT Gordon smoother, which is considerably lighter and a similar size.

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolReviews/The%20HNT%20Gordon%20Smoother%20and%20Trying%20Pla ne_html_1124cd1f.jpg

However, if you want an argument for mass, then the Marcou smoother at 7 3/4lbs is the best performer I have yet come across. It fear no wood!

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Planes/Marcou%20S15/Marcou_zps37fd1965.jpg

I could keep offering heavy and light example, and all work well. The question is whether mass is a design element that contributes to performance, and how this is different to a design where mass is a lesser element? Is mass a compensatory factor? Or does it meet a special need? Does mass better suit a higher cutting angle?

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Kees Heiden]

I think that weight helps when the resistance is too much to push the plane through the wood. In other words, without help the plane would decelerate until it stalls. A heavier plane will help to push a bit, so the plane stalls a little further. With enough luck that moment is beyond the board we are planing.

Let's look at a single planing stroke. A heavy and a light plane. Say, we can both accelerate to a given speed V in the short distance before the edge enters the wood. So the planes have build up a kinetic energy of 0.5 x mass x speed2. The heavier plane will have more energy because it has more mass. So there is more speed stored in the movement of the plane. More energy means more oomph to push through harder wood or through knots, or whatever wants to stall our plane.

Of course the speed doesn't need to be the same for the two planes at the moment the edge meets the board. A lighter plane could be accelerated more, and because the kinetic energy is relative to the power of the speed, this works extra good. So who knows what that means in real practice? When you are planing hard wood with a rank cut, you counteract this resistance by more vigorous planing when you use a lighter plane.

All this energy must be provided by the user. Moving a heavier weight back and forth takes more energy. But how about the difference in using the plane. Slow and steady or quick and nimble? I really have no idea which one would exhaust me more.

[Kim Malmberg]

David, I will gladly relieve you of that MF no 9 if it makes you feel any better.

[David Weaver]

David, I will gladly relieve you of that MF no 9 if it makes you feel any better.

I'm looking to get more of those Type 1s on the sly if I can. That's the one that I posted about finding around Christmas for $12. :)
They are one of those things that I can't find cheap in decent shape if I look on purpose. I recall you saying they're very difficult to find over there.

That's a better picture of it than the one I put up before - the first picture made it look horrible, but my phone does that to every plane I snap a picture of with it.

Some day, I'll dump all but about 6 planes, probably toward the end of this year. I won't dump any MF T1s.

[Kees Heiden]

I would be interested if you have read a text from before 1850 that suggests this.

In 2009 I won a beech mallet that had been soaked in linseed oil for "at least 30 days" It stank so much that I could not keep it in the shop for a whole year. Even today I can smell it if near my nose, and on damp days I can smell it from across the room. Little beads of gelled oil have collected in spots on the end grain.

Well, that ain't no easy request! It certainly has been a common habit at some time, but I can't put a before and after date on it.
I didn't get further back then 1908. A quote from Hasluck: http://toolemerablog.typepad.com/toolemera/2009/08/yet-again-wooden-plane-finishes-hasluck-vs-hayward.html


PS, just been browsing google books a bit. This one is from 1885. I can't read the quote very well on the webpage, but it sais this in the google search page:
"The wooden parts of tools, such as the stocks of planes and handles of chisels, are often made to have a nice appearance by French polishing; but this adds nothing to their durability. A much better plan is to let them soak inlinseed oil for a ..."
Link: http://books.google.nl/books?id=3lkiAQAAMAAJ&q=wood+plane+linseed+oil+soak&dq=wood+plane+linseed+oil+soak&hl=nl&sa=X&ei=tqUNU7PHAuXOygP6p4CwDA&redir_esc=y

And another link to an article about treating wooden axle parts for farming equipement, soaking them in boiling linseed oil. 1836:
http://books.google.nl/books?id=fAoAAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA310&dq=wood+plane+linseed+oil+soak&hl=nl&sa=X&ei=t6YNU5mRCqngyAPckIFQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=wood%20plane%20linseed%20oil%20soak&f=false

[bill howes]

I have one that is 25x 2 3/4 x3 inches that weighs 10 pounds. I think it came from one of the boatyards in Lunenburg ,Nova Scotia where lignum vitae was readily available.