Medieval hand plane

[Jason Buresh]

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While looking at old woodworking stuff, I found this medieval hand plane that is etimated 500-600AD from a museum in Europe. What I find most interesting about these is they took the time to put a bronze sole on the bottom. I can't imagine that was a simple or small task back in the day, especially since planes as old as 200-300 years ago primarily were wooden soles. It also has a pretty comfortable looking grip, and appears it may be more comfortable than something like a coffin smoother. There is a link below, and it shows some other ancient tools as well. Interesting stuff.

https://thomasguild.blogspot.com/2014/08/early-medieval-and-egyptian-woodworking.html?m=1

[Jack Dover]

Oh, they were exceptionally good working bronze, a whole epoch was titled "The Bronze Age". They've built way more complicated and demanding mechanism, so getting a flat piece of bronze riveted to a block of wood was probably a day of work.

A more interesting question is whether a bronze sole was to prevent wear. What kind of woods were they working if wear was so great?

[Rafael Herrera]

That's an interesting example, Jason. There was a blog I read a while ago about a woodworker who made reproductions of ancient planes and tried to present them to a museum. His work was rejected, possibly because it lacked scholarly background. The planes looked very much like this.

[Jason Buresh]

Oh, they were exceptionally good working bronze, a whole epoch was titled "The Bronze Age". They've built way more complicated and demanding mechanism, so getting a flat piece of bronze riveted to a block of wood was probably a day of work.

A more interesting question is whether a bronze sole was to prevent wear. What kind of woods were they working if wear was so great?

That's an interesting point too. I wonder if the bronze was to help keep the sole flatter? Did it burnish better than a wood sole? Was it just showing off?

[Jason Buresh]

I always thought it would be cool to reproduce an old plane like this. I really like the look of the grip on this one.

[Richard Line]

Or maybe its still with us because of the bronze parts having provided some protection for the adjacent wood. Perhaps the common, all wood planes just rotted away (wish they hadn't).

[Jim Koepke]

I always thought it would be cool to reproduce an old plane like this. I really like the look of the grip on this one.

Have you perused Patrick Leach's February list? > http://www.supertool.com/forsale/feb/f2.jpg

The first tool listed (FT1) is a Challenge smoothing plane with a similar grip, patent 1883 & 1884.

For $2,885 it can be yours if it is still available.

jtk

[Joe A Faulkner]

https://www.history.com/news/bronze-age-collapse-causes An interesting read on the collapse of the Bronze Age.

[Scott Brodersen]

And here I thought my antique Baileys were cool! That is really neat. I've been bingeing on Time Team lately and I can imagine their excitement if they dug up one of those haha