Plough copies?

[Steve Branam]

The pictures below show a Mathieson 5B swing arm plough that I picked up at an antique store on Cape Cod last summer on the left, with an unmarked swing arm plough that I got on ebay last week on the right.

Surprise! The right one is virtually identical to the Mathieson, just some slight differences in the molding profiles. The only real differences are the shapes of the skate and depth stop. The metalwork is also a bit cruder. I'll need to make new arm and iron wedges, and I picked up a nice set of irons from another seller that fit.

Is this a common thing to find such close copies? Or are they both simply following a pattern that is so well-established? The workmanship is good, particularly the critical bed cutting, so this appears to have been made by an experienced planemaker, not user-made. But it looks like someone brought in a plane and said "Make me one just like this".

[Jim Koepke]

I don't have as many images of mine, but it does look similar.

The only mark I can find on mine is INVICTA. Not sure if this was a makers mark or a model name.

Picture 5.jpg

I think it was a fairly standard style of plane. The blades are pretty much the same for this type of plane.

The higher priced models had arms with screw threads instead of using wedges.

I have a book with a lot of information about the screw arm style. Haven't seen much about the wedge arm style.

jim

[David Keller NC]

Steve - Not sure what a "swing arm plough (plow)" is, but what you have is referred to as a wedge-arm plow (at least in the US). And to answer your question, this design is very old and is to some extent, standardized.

But - your Mathieson and the unmarked one aren't really similar from the standpoint of different plane maker's designs. Much closer siblings are around from two major competitors in the late 19th century - Ohio Tool and Auburn tool company. Their screw-arm plows are almost identical except for the knurling and decoration on the screw arm nuts. This was before Auburn and Ohio merged, after which planes are around with different maker's marks (Auburn Tool Co. and Ohio Tool Co.), but are completely interchangeable.

In the case of your plows, the hardware was supplied to hundreds of wooden plane makers by only a very few brass foundrys in Britain. Since the hardware to some extent specifies the form and dimensions of what it's fitting into, many British planes of this period are very similar except for the molding profile on the fence, the skate profile, and the wedge profile.

[Steve Branam]

Oops, yes, that's the term I was trying to remember!

So now that I know that, I notice in eBay photos other wedge-arm models that look pretty much the same as these two. It's the similarity in the molding details that surprised me the most. Function dictates the general design, but I would expect the decorative elements to be more varied.

[Jim Koepke]

Function dictates the general design, but I would expect the decorative elements to be more varied.

The moldings are all different, simple designs, but different. These were likely a low cost alternative to the threaded arm versions. Lower cost would dictate less attention to fancy details.

jim