My new German block plane [Archive] - Sawmill Creek Woodworking Community

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Joey Arispe

01-23-2016, 5:54 PM

Jebediah Eckert

01-23-2016, 6:44 PM

I have an idea, but there are others who will know exactly. In any event super cool "tip" for some tree trimming. Last time I helped an elderly neighbor out after a blizzard I got a beer. It was well appreciated but a plane is a winner for sure.

Jim Koepke

01-23-2016, 7:47 PM

Howdy Joey and Welcome to the Creek.

I believe what you have is the Ulma equivalent to a #3 size plane. It is more of a smoother than a block plane.

These are adjusted with a small hammer or wood mallet. Tap the blade to advance to a deeper cut. Tap the back of the plane to withdraw or loosen the blade.

Tap the side of the blade for lateral adjustment.

It sounds like a lot, but once you get the feel for it it goes pretty fast.

Some actually enjoy using a wooden body plane more than a metallic plane. It will have a different feel to the feedback than a metal bodied plane.

A very nice tip for helping with some tree trimming. A cold beer will be long forgotten when you are using this years from now.

jtk

Frederick Skelly

01-23-2016, 7:50 PM

Welcome to the Creek Joey. Glad to have you with us!

I don't have any of their stuff. But I spot checked some Ulmia prices and it looks like they are priced mid-pack, compared to other reputable tool companies ($224 for a smoothing plane on Amazon). So I'd say it's definitely not "junk". I'm sure you'll get a lot of real user feedback here, positive and negative. But personally, I'd be pleased to receive that tool as a gift and I'd sharpen it up and use it.

Fred

Warren Mickley

01-23-2016, 7:54 PM

This is an Ulmia smoothing plane. Putzhobel means smoothing plane. This plane was offered in the Woodcraft and Garrett Wade catalogs 30 to 40 years ago. The body of the plane is beech, but the sole is hornbeam, Carpinus betulus. Tools like this are still manufactured today in Germany, where these wooden planes have retained their popularity.

Joey Arispe

01-23-2016, 9:32 PM

Wow, such a warm welcome from the Creek! Thanks for the extremely helpful advice Jim, Frederick, Warren, and Jebediah. I will be sharpening it when I get my whetstone set!

Kees Heiden

01-24-2016, 3:04 AM

Ulmia is a good German brand, they still exist. Here is their English site: http://www.ulmia.de/English/Ulmia-Uebersicht.htm

Allan Speers

01-24-2016, 4:34 AM

It's a very nice smoother, similar to ECE-Primus, Nootengat, & others. The sole is terrific, as is the blade.

You just have to get used to adjusting the blade with that simple wedge design. (Not really very hard to do.)

BTW_ the funny looking front handle is made that way so you can pull the plane, as well as push it. Try it, you will like it. There are times when pulling gives more control. Also, sometimes you just get tired, so switching to a pulling stroke uses different muscles. I'm a HUGE fan of this type of handle.

Bob Glenn

01-24-2016, 7:58 AM

I just bought one at an antique shop for ten bucks, however, it's not in the shape yours is in. It is missing the front horn, which I will replace. These type planes take a little fiddling to get them tuned up.

Joey Arispe

01-24-2016, 1:59 PM

Patrick Chase

01-24-2016, 5:56 PM

Hi everyone! I was doing some tree trimming for this elderly German lady today and she gave me this old block plane. She said it was her husbands before he passed away. This is my first block plane, and I don't know anything about it other than it was supposedly made is Germany. I was just curious if anyone has ever seen one like this? Does it look like a high quality plane? :confused:

As others have said that's an Ulmia smoother. They still make it, though they have very poor distribution. See the 3rd entry on this catalog page: http://www.ulmia.de/English/Downloads/11.pdf

I recently acquired an Ulmia toothing plane of similar construction. It's a nice, solid, traditional wooden plane. You'll need to learn how to adjust it using hammer taps, but that isn't particularly hard (pro tip: make sure you're above something soft and forgiving when you try to *loosen* the blade by tapping the bump on the back)

To give an idea of value, the first ECE smoother on this page is very similar: http://www.fine-tools.com/putzh.html. The more expensive ones that others have cited in this thread are different in that they have ECE's "primus" adjustment mechanism as well as an adjustable mouth, which add quite a bit to both the cost and complexity of the tool. You can find those as well further down the fine-tools page.

Frank Drew

01-24-2016, 7:38 PM

Joey,

Welcome! I have a similar Ulmia smoother but with a fruitwood body and a lignum vitae sole. I like it a great deal. On mine, there's a metal button on the back end of the body for tapping out the blade, like the flat head bolt at the rear of some English/Scottish infill planes (the ones without adjusters).

Ulmia also made various high quality woodworking machines; I had one of their 56" crosscut sliding table saws for years. They went through difficult times and reorganized, maybe even a couple of times; I don't think that the current company is the same as when our hand planes were made, but I could be wrong about that.

Allan Speers

01-24-2016, 10:38 PM

give an idea of value, the first ECE smoother on this page is very similar: http://www.fine-tools.com/putzh.html. The more expensive ones that others have cited in this thread are different in that they have ECE's "primus" adjustment mechanism as well as an adjustable mouth, which add quite a bit to both the cost and complexity of the tool. You can find those as well further down the fine-tools page.

Patrick, I'm not 100% sure, but pretty darned sure that "Primus" doesn't designate the fancier blade mechanism. For that, they use the term "improved." This, ECE Primus makes both a standard and an improved smoother. Also, the standard models (all that I've seen, at least) have hornbeam soles, whereas the "improved" models use Lignum Vitae. (Although maybe THAT is denoted by "Primus." Again, I'm not completely certain.)

I believe most Ulmias have Lignum soles, with a few cheaper ones using Beech. I've never heard of an Ulmia with a Hormbeam sole, as someone mentioned above, but it's possible I guess. .
-----------------------

Another difference between the 2 ECE series is that the upscale models have adjustable mouths. (Similar to Steve Knight Planes.) Again, that may or may not be solely with the "Primus" designation, but I THINK it's simple part of the "improved" designation.
--------------------------

More fun facts:

* Most of the ECE plane are bedded at 50 degrees, not the standard 45. I don't know about Ulmia, though.

* ECE irons are supposedly "high tungsten" carbon steel. This is much like Japanese blue steel. They definitely take & hold an edge well.

Ulmia says there irons are made of "#1 Tool Steel," which could mean several things. My guess is that they are made at the same factory as ECE and Nootengadt, but that's definitely a guess.

Joey Arispe

01-25-2016, 12:48 AM

* ECE irons are supposedly "high tungsten" carbon steel. This is much like Japanese blue steel. They definitely take & hold an edge well.

How great! I hope this is true!

Patrick Chase

01-25-2016, 1:08 AM

Patrick, I'm not 100% sure, but pretty darned sure that "Primus" doesn't designate the fancier blade mechanism. For that, they use the term "improved." This, ECE Primus makes both a standard and an improved smoother. Also, the standard models (all that I've seen, at least) have hornbeam soles, whereas the "improved" models use Lignum Vitae. (Although maybe THAT is denoted by "Primus." Again, I'm not completely certain.)

I believe most Ulmias have Lignum soles, with a few cheaper ones using Beech. I've never heard of an Ulmia with a Hormbeam sole, as someone mentioned above, but it's possible I guess. .
-----------------------

Another difference between the 2 ECE series is that the upscale models have adjustable mouths. (Similar to Steve Knight Planes.) Again, that may or may not be solely with the "Primus" designation, but I THINK it's simple part of the "improved" designation.
--------------------------

More fun facts:

* Most of the ECE plane are bedded at 50 degrees, not the standard 45. I don't know about Ulmia, though.

* ECE irons are supposedly "high tungsten" carbon steel. This is much like Japanese blue steel. They definitely take & hold an edge well.

Ulmia says there irons are made of "#1 Tool Steel," which could mean several things. My guess is that they are made at the same factory as ECE and Nootengadt, but that's definitely a guess.

No, that's incorrect w.r.t. ECE plane naming. In ECE's line "Primus" does in fact denote planes with their fancy "backlash-proof". blade adjustment mechanisms. See page 2 of their catalog (http://www.ecemmerich.com/images/ece_catalog_12_english.pdf), specifically the paragraph that begins: "Around 1950, Friedrich-Wilhelm, with his father Karl, developed the Primus adjustment system". See also pages 5-6 which show the Primus planes with blade adjuster, and pages 9-10 show the others sans adjuster.

You're right about Ulmia's sole options, though I declined to correct that in my reply. Note that I didn't repeat it either, though :). ECE offers nearly identical planes with hornbeam and lignum vitae soles (whereas Ulmia offers white beech and lignum vitae soles as you say), so that's probably the source of the confusion.

ECE planes with mouth adjustment in addition to blade adjustment are further described as "Primus reform pattern", though I omitted that distinction in my previous message in interests of comprehensibility. For some reason those aren't in the catalog on ECE's site - maybe they were introduced after the 2012 publication date of the catalog? You can find them for sale at LV, fine-tools, etc though.

Ulmia favors slightly higher-than-common bed angles. IIRC the OP's smoother is 48 deg or so.

The only ECE blades I see listed as "high tungsten" are the HSS ones that they offer as an option on a subset of their planes. They list those as "18% Tungsten" which very likely makes them T1 HSS. Can you provide a source that states that their tool steel blades are also high-W? I work with/on some near-ubiquitous search engines for a living, and I can't find anything in that vein.

In any case "high tungsten" is relative and can therefore mean a lot of things. I wouldn't describe blue steel as particularly "high-Tungsten" at 1.5-2% W. M4 HSS is ~6% W and T1 (the classic "high-Tungsten" HSS) is 18% W. FWIW I would not expect any truly high-W non-PM steel to "take... an edge well". Tungsten carbides are tough and tend to chip out during sharpening, so edge keenness is likely to be limited unless you use PM processing to limit carbide size.

Ulmia's plane lineup is very, very, very similar to ECE's. There are nominal differences here and there (bed angles of their respective toothers nominally differ by 5 deg for example) but those could easily be simple specification errors. I would not be surprised to learn that they're all built in the same place as you say.

Patrick Chase

01-25-2016, 1:29 AM

How great! I hope this is true!

Be careful what you wish for. True high-Tungsten alloys historically go by another name: High speed steel.

Allan Speers

01-25-2016, 2:11 AM

Patrick,

Whew, too much to quote and respond to!

Good to know about the "Primus" designation. Some website have had that wrong over the years.
It's odd to me though that you didn't even mention ECE's "improved" designation. If that doesn't designate the adjustable mouths, and also not the adjustable blades, then what?

It definitely denotes SOMETHING. Online retailers used to sell both versions in several plane types. Today you can only find the "Primus" (going by your definition) versions, when they exist. Even just a few years ago you could find the NON "improved" versions of the ECE jointer and jack plane. Now they seem to have stopped production of those. They had wooden wedges. Maybe "improved" and "Primus" stood for the same thing?

As for "reform," I've not personally ever seen that used in regards to ECE. However, Ulmia does use that word to designate adjustable mouths. In fact, I own an Ulmia reform smoother. (adjustable mouth, but a wedged blade.)
----------------------------------

the rest of my info comes from about 2005, when I first got into handplanes, and you seem to be looking at current data, which is probably further complicating matters. For instance, it could be that what they now call HSS and offer as an option, USED to be standard. That would be my guess, since I never heard of any blade options back in the day.

As for the steel, Japanese blue steel is in fact typically described as "high tungsten." (also high chrome, IIRC) That doesn't make it HSS, it just makes it tougher than white steel. Also BTW. some of the best "Japanese" steel comes from Sweden. :) - And the word "Tungsten" originated in Sweden, where it was discovered.

I can't find my old data on the blades, I was just going by memory, so maybe there are two different blade formulas. I dunno.

I think if I had the choice, I would PREFER blue steel for planes, since it's less chip-prone, holds an edge longer, and yet still gets sharp enough for even tough planing duties. My own experience with both Ulmia & ECE blades mirrors this. A nice old English laminated blade gets sharper (hair popping sharp) but doesn't last as long. For a paring chisel, that would matter, for a smoothing plane, it doesn't seem to. (Then again, I'm just a part-time hobbyist, so my opinion seriously doesn't count TOO much. :o)

YMMV, naturally.

Allan Speers

01-25-2016, 2:29 AM

Kees Heiden

01-25-2016, 3:11 AM

Patrick Chase

01-25-2016, 3:39 AM

Update:

I'm pretty sure "improved" designated the adjustable mouth. (And you're definitely right about the "Primus" designation.

Look at this:

http://www.ecemmerich.com/images/ece_catalog_12_english.pdf

Yeah, you're right. I did exactly what I said others had done with the hornbeam/beech thing - I got the Ulmia and ECE designations crossed up. ECE uses "improved" to identify what appears to be exactly the same thing that Ulmia calls "reform".

Thanks for the correction!

Patrick Chase

01-25-2016, 3:47 AM

As for the steel, Japanese blue steel is in fact typically described as "high tungsten." (also high chrome, IIRC) That doesn't make it HSS, it just makes it tougher than white steel. Also BTW. some of the best "Japanese" steel comes from Sweden. :) - And the word "Tungsten" originated in Sweden, where it was discovered.

I can't find my old data on the blades, I was just going by memory, so maybe there are two different blade formulas. I dunno.

I think if I had the choice, I would PREFER blue steel for planes, since it's less chip-prone, holds an edge longer, and yet still gets sharp enough for even tough planing duties. My own experience with both Ulmia & ECE blades mirrors this. A nice old English laminated blade gets sharper (hair popping sharp) but doesn't last as long. For a paring chisel, that would matter, for a smoothing plane, it doesn't seem to. (Then again, I'm just a part-time hobbyist, so my opinion seriously doesn't count TOO much. :o)

YMMV, naturally.

As I said before, blue steel has low to moderate Tungsten content at 1.5-2% W (compare to the 18% W that ECE advertises for their "high-Tungsten HSS" blades). Blue steel's Chromium content is also fairly low at ~3% Cr (compare to 5% Cr in A2, 9% Cr in D2 and 17% Cr in 440 Stainless).

In other words, blue steel is only a high-anything alloy in comparison to white steel. By Western standards it's a low-alloy tool steel.

Patrick Chase

01-25-2016, 4:05 AM

About the Ulmia plane soles, they are either Weissbuche or they are Pockholz. Weissbuche is the german name for hornbeam, pockholz is lignum vitae. The former is a very white colored wood, the latter is dark.

The "Reform Putzhobel" is a smoothing plane with the adjustable mouth opening. The normal "Putzhhobel" doesn't have this adjustable mouth. Both are bedded at 49 degrees.

OK, so I finally did what I should have to start: I broke out my Ulmia toothing plane (advertised as having a "white beech" sole), a magnifier, my copy of "Understanding Wood", and looked up some end-grain shots of European Hornbeam and Beech.

The sole wood is very light in color and is diffuse-porous with pores in radial groups of ~4. Rays are much less pronounced than in Beech. It would appear to be Hornbeam as you say.

Tom M King

01-25-2016, 11:51 AM

330236I have the Primus Improved smoother and jointer that I bought back in the day that Warren mentioned. If I'm remembering correctly, the soles are different colors on each of them. I guess I should put them in the classified section since I haven't used them in decades, and probably won't. I also have the ECE scrub plane that I bought about the same time, and love that plane. Weathering is from sweat.

Allan Speers

01-25-2016, 2:33 PM

As I said before, blue steel has low to moderate Tungsten content at 1.5-2% W (compare to the 18% W that ECE advertises for their "high-Tungsten HSS" blades). Blue steel's Chromium content is also fairly low at ~3% Cr (compare to 5% Cr in A2, 9% Cr in D2 and 17% Cr in 440 Stainless).

In other words, blue steel is only a high-anything alloy in comparison to white steel. By Western standards it's a low-alloy tool steel.

That makes sense. Thanks !

- But then I think probably my "point" (if I had one :o ) is still valid. The STANDARD ECE blades still have more tungsten than, say a Stanley or even an old Butcher. Correct?

I wonder what the intended purpose is of those optional HSS blades? Planing sheet metal? :eek:

Chris Hachet

01-25-2016, 4:05 PM

How great! I hope this is true!

MY ECE plane has an edge that seems to go on forever, and will get excessively sharp with the right kind of love.

Patrick Chase

01-25-2016, 4:36 PM

That makes sense. Thanks !

- But then I think probably my "point" (if I had one :o ) is still valid. The STANDARD ECE blades still have more tungsten than, say a Stanley or even an old Butcher. Correct?

I have no data there - their literature doesn't say anything about the composition of those blades. I would *guess* that they're fairly standard high-carbon tool steel, or else you'd expect them to say something about it as they do for the T1 HSS blades. If so that would make them consistent with old Stanley blades (newer high-end Stanley plane blades tend to be A2).

Lots of people use PM-HSS in chisels, where they're really useful for some difficult woods. See Derek's chisel comparison (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?204043-Comparing-chisel-steels) for example. He didn't co-optimize bevel-angle with steel and that probably skews his results a bit from what you would see as a long-term user of a particular steel (i.e. somebody who's figured out how to get the best performance from it), but my experience with the same PM-HSS (Hitachi HAP-40, a.k.a. PM-M4) chisels dovetails closely with his.

HSS in general and non-PM T1 in particular is a very unconventional choice for a plane blade, though - Planes are inherently sensitive to edge keenness...

EDIT: One thing I have noticed about ECE and Ulmia is that they appear to have fairly comprehensive QA. Every blade I've ever seen on one of their planes has a hardness-test mark.

Tom M King

01-25-2016, 5:01 PM

Just by feel sharpening, the steel is harder than old Stanley plane irons, but nothing like as hard as A2. It can be sharpened really sharp.

Kristoffer Frederiksen

01-27-2016, 2:36 PM

In Denmark, where I am from, Ulmia, ECE as well as the danish JPBO are the most common planes and can be found for around 5$. The JPBO usually have EA Berg irons. When I was training as a boatbuilder these where all we used. All irons sharpened up nicely on arkansas stones.

A traditional danish setup consists of three planes: smother, jack and jointer. The smoother and jack are the same size, but the smoother is bedded at 48 degrees and often has the lignum sole and adjustable mouth whereas the jack is bedded at 45 degrees and usually of solid beech.