What is an infill plane?

[Mac Cambra]

What distinguishes an infill plane from an ordinary plane? Is it just quality? Or is there some specific blade configuration i.e. low angle, bevel up, etc.?

I can't seem to find an answer to this basic question.

[Don Naples]

The infill planes have a core of wood. Many of the early infills used rosewood as the infill wood while some of the later planes used beech. Early infill planes had dovetailed soles and sides while some later ones incorporated single piece castings. There are still a number of planemakers making infill planes today. They do tend to be expensive as the labor content is high. The beauty in using these planes is they have mass, thick plane irons, are bedded solidly against the infill wood, so have little vibration of the iron. This enables one to plane highly figured wood without getting chipout. The Mathieson planes I have have a tighter throat than the Spiers or Norris planes that I have or have seen. One trick to tighten the throat is to lay a piece of copper sheet behind the plane iron, moving the iron forward. If you get one to use, they are worth it as you will see with the results you achieve (IMO) There are metal planes that incorporate many of the best features of the infills and cost less as they are easier to mass produce.

[David Howden]

There were a number of firms offering kits for making your own infill plane, the cost relating to the amount of work already carried out for you.

[Bryan Lord]

Don pretty well answered the question. The biggest advantages are the weight, the blade mount and wood reducing vibration, and the extremely narrow mouth. The blade and chipbreaker are MASSIVE compared to a metal plane. The infill is designed to remove very thin shavings for final flattening. It does not have the flexibility to hog off wood like a Stanley type plane. When the blade clears the sole, the mouth is virtually closed.

I have both a Mathison and Speirs infill and they are phenomenal to use. A real pleasure because of the weight when doing final flattening.

But, I have never had a peice of wood that I couldn't do just as well with a tuned LN or Stanley bedrock style plane. By moving the frog forward you can close the mouth to the same degree as the infills. People typically don't do this because it then limits the plane to only making very very fine shavings (like the infills). To use it as a jack of all trade plane you have to move the frog back again. With the bedrock plane in this configuration the only difference would be the vibration, but I've never had a peice of wood that caused chatter with a sharp blade. On a standard plane yes, on a bedrock design no.

[John Goodridge]

Under the picture is worth a thousand words theory, here are a couple of sites for current infill plane makers:

http://www.andersonplanes.com/

http://www.sauerandsteiner.com/

I cannot justify the cost of buying one, but they are nice to look at...

[Doug Shepard]

Does anyone know of a website along the lines of
Patricks Blood & Gore (http://www.supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan0a.html) for Stanleys but for infill planes instead? I often look over the infills listed on eBay but don't really know how to determine if what I'm looking at is a deal, a POS, or overpriced.

[Don Naples]

Doug: Tony Murland publishes a auction catalog that is a work of art and provides a real education through photographs and articles written about tool makers of antique tools including infills. He also posts the prices for which the tools sold. See: http://www.antiquetools.co.uk/auction.html for the prices.

You can also get some pricing information at http://www.thebestthings.com/infill.htm
Don

[Doug Shepard]

Don - Thanks for the links. The Tool Article page on the UK site looks worth reading through as well.