This is not a dovetail, so what in the world do you call this?

[Joe Rogers]

Not enough mention so far of the plane Stephen Thomas built. Hand scraped sole with a super smooth adjuster. Massive in the hand and a piece of jewelry to the eye. Micro adjustable mouth. Makes a Norris or Spiers look like they were built by apprentices.
Joe

[Patrick Chase]

Not enough mention so far of the plane Stephen Thomas built. Hand scraped sole with a super smooth adjuster. Massive in the hand and a piece of jewelry to the eye. Micro adjustable mouth. Makes a Norris or Spiers look like they were built by apprentices.
Joe

Wow, I missed that the first time. That is indeed nice!

Well-executed scraping is a thing of beauty IMO, and often faster than abrasive lapping even for someone as inexperienced as me.

Out of curiosity has anybody here tried hand-scraping the sole of an old plane instead of lapping? How long did it take? :-):-):-)

P.S. Biax doesn't count.

[Bruce Haugen]

Out of curiosity has anybody here tried hand-scraping the sole of an old plane instead of lapping? How long did it take? :-):-):-)

P.S. Biax doesn't count.

I have a St James Bay Smoother whose sole I initially scraped with a converted rasp (ground the toe into a shallow arc and angled it back to about 85 degrees). It worked pretty well, but it was pretty slow. The casting was fairly rough, and I was just leveling out all the casting marks. I've never done cast iron. The smoother is bronze.

[Ted Phillips]

In my book, these are cheesy.

[Dan Carroll]

I have seen this joint many times. I also recall that the company that made the machines went out of business in the 1880's and that the last company to use the Knapp machines continued to make furniture with them up until about 1900. Most of the furniture with Knapp joints was made in the eastern US or Mid-west. It is a good date ID in that it has to be after 1867 and before 1900.

[Patrick Chase]

I have a St James Bay Smoother whose sole I initially scraped with a converted rasp (ground the toe into a shallow arc and angled it back to about 85 degrees). It worked pretty well, but it was pretty slow. The casting was fairly rough, and I was just leveling out all the casting marks. I've never done cast iron. The smoother is bronze.

I have the Bahco carbide ones, and have used them for initial flattening of lapping plates (after stripping residual diamonds with abrasive, of course). They work decently on annealed 1015 steel, and are surprisingly aggressive on iron. I'm not skilled enough to use them on something like a plane base though.