On a Walk-about, today

[steven c newman]

To give these old knees a bit of a work-out....stopped in a couple places...I did (overspend?) $18 + Tax for a block plane, that I thought was just a Stanley 9-1/2
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But.....was not what it seemed...
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I was bummed about the broken lever...but..look at the toe?
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And the lateral ( needs bent a little, to clear the left-hand threaded post)

If these to say it is a MARSH...and the logo on the iron says
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"H.C. MARSH Co. ROCKFORD ILL. USA"
Then I guess I have bought a Marsh block plane....figure I can get by without the missing lever...last owner did.

Might have been worth the 4 block walk, each way?

[steven c newman]

Saturday morning, will be at the West Liberty, OH Tractor Fest.....walking through about a mile's worth of vendors....will see what "treasures" I can pick, this year......

Stay tuned...

[Mike Manning]

Looks pretty cool. I've never heard of Marsh. Would like to find some of their planes one of these days. I was going to ask what was known of Marsh. Googled "Marsh Tool Company" and came up with the following post to 'Old Tools Archive' on swingley.org by a user by the name of David...

""H.C.Marsh Tool Company, Rockford, Illinois 1915-24. Horace C. Marsh, Pres., E.M.Mayer, V.P.

This company was formed in 1888 by Horace Clarence marsh. The manufacturing plant was located at 220 Race Power Water Street. This area was in the original Rockford Industrial Center adjacent to the Rock River.


The primary product in the early years was the famous Marsh Picture Frame Mitre Vise. This was patent No. 408,248 granted August 6, 1889. A line of high-quality cast iron mitre boxes was also manufactured by this firm.


In 1908, the company incorporated with a capital stock of $25,000 and they employed fifteen workers. Some other products were pneumatic tools
including dental equipment and a machine for rubbing furniture. Sometime prior to 1920, they decided to venture into the plane manufacturing
business apparently because most of the Bailey and other patents on the Stanley block and bench planes had expired. Marsh manufactured a line of
block planes, bench planes, scrapers, etc. similar to Stanley's design. Bench planes of the No. 2 size through the No. 8 are known. They were
produced with both smooth and corrugated bottoms. The planes are of high quality and similar to Stanley's equivalent planes, except they have a side bearing between the bottom and the frog rather than a central ribbing.


The Marsh planes have MARSH cast into the bed and the letter M precedes the number, i.e. M2, M3, M5 1/2, etc. The irons are stamped with the Marsh name and also with the width of the cutters.


The plane section of a Marsh Tools Catalogue, dated 1926 (reproduced in the appendix) indicated that the Surpless, Dunn Hardware Co. of NYC and Chicago were its sales representatives."


Marsh Tool Company got caught in the Stanley acquisition of the Union Plane Company, the details of which still need further untangling. Stanley
supervised manufacture of Marsh and Rockford planes at the Illinios site until 1927 when those product lines were dropped. The basic premise of the
Stanley No. 400 Mitre Vise appears to have come from the Marsh design that was acquired.


I have never used a Marsh plane personally, but the ones I have seen looked to be good quality at least equivalent of it's Stanley cousin. Similar to
the Sargent or Ohio Tool Co. bench planes, they are found less frequently than Stanley's but do not seem to bring higher prices that one might
expect. Not surprisingly, the first time I saw a Marsh plane was when I lived west of Chicago.


David"

[steven c newman]

Might be worth the $18 + Tax?

[Mike Manning]

Might be worth the $18 + Tax?

Let us know/see how it cleans up and performs.

[steven c newman]

Ok, here we go...start time was 1900 hrs....end time was 2000 hrs...local time.
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base cleaned up..and..
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The rest of the parts, too....found some letters..
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Got the sole looking decent..
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Even for a block plane.
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Iron was sharpened to 2,000 grit...
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May have had it a tad too deep of a cut...
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I wonder where they stole that detail from?
One hour to get this far....for an $18 + tax block plane...

[Stew Denton]

Hey Steven,

It looks like you got it cutting well.

Stew