Wooden Panel Plane - Uses?

[Andrew Ahern]

I recently acquired what I assumed was an older wooden jack plane, in good shape minus the blade. It's ~15" long and takes a wide iron. It has a slip screwed into one side of the body, toe to heal that I originally thought might have been an old repair.

In any case I picked up a Veritas 3/16" replacement iron and set it up.

Today I stumbled across a reference to this type of plane in "Modern Practical Joinery" (see attached). The only mention in the text is "has a removable slip to enable the plane to clean up of sunk surfaces". And that its not a badger plane, which I'm more familiar with.

Does anyone know how this plane might have been used? How would one have generally used the removable slip? There is no nicker, fence or skewed iron which I have seen on other panel/badger planes.

Also, the sole/mouth appear to be in good shape (i.e. not worn or expanded) and the 3/16" single iron leaves a wide mouth. Would the plane have had a significantly thicker blade originally? The wear marks on the wedge seem to indicate that it spent most of its life further out of the plane body.

Any insights would be appreciated!

Thanks

Andrew

[Chuck Nickerson]

Additional slips could be taller (providing an integral fence), or even angled to make a fielded panel.

You could also make L-shaped slips wrapping under the sole giving you a fenced rabbet, if the blade seats all the way to the right.
I've done this with an old thrashed jack tabbet plane.