Union making a run on the X planes?

[William Fretwell]

Strange their web site shows an historic picture and not the plane you would buy. The prominence given to rejected castings is bizarre. They claim there are few, so why promote them at the start of a new venture? Second row up 4th from the left is one reject they missed.
I would like to see the chip breaker design and junction with the blade. At this point buying one is a huge leap of faith, more based on having a number 1 to 100! Any historical increase in value for the collectors run won’t happen in my life time!
A hands on review from somewhere would be most useful.

[Rafael Herrera]

There are no pictures because it has not been built yet, they're taking pre-orders.

They're are more active on the Facebook plane forums about what's going on.

They just released their X0A plane, it looks like a no. 2 or no.1 equivalent.

I think that at this stage these planes are popular with collectors and early adopters.

You'll need to wait until they post proper reviews and other marketing information.

[Jake Hillestad]

I want to want one...things I dont need are another 4 size smoother or a 1/2 size gimmick. Give me a 3, 5, & 7 equivalent and I'll open the wallet pronto.

[Pete Taran]

Indeed they did, and I even have a few. The adjustments are rough and the castings are often found broken. I think the main motivation for the adjustable mouth on the Metallic Planes is they used a tapered iron like wooden bench planes. In the pics attached you can see the smoother I have. It's missing the lever cap which I thought someday I would try to recreate. The bed is two pieces, the lower half inch is part of the bed, but the upper part is let in by milling slots in the side. The iron is adjusted by the prehistoric looking wheel that moves a dog in the frog bed which grips the cap iron screw. It's pretty jenky in my opinion, and like I said, is often found busted as the cheeks are pretty thin where the frog is let in. The Union is in another class. Still excited for what these guys are doing.

MP1.jpgMP2.jpgMP3.jpg

I believe the Metallic Plane Co. were making fixed frog, adjustable mouth planes in the 1860s. Their patent was granted in 1871 (http://www.datamp.org/patents/displa...121406&id=8614). I tried to do a quick Union plane history search, but couldn't find info on the mouth adjustment, only about their vertical post (http://www.datamp.org/patents/displa...721&typeCode=0), the patent was granted in 1904.

Does anybody have a Metallic Plane Co. plane?

Do you use it?

Do you get superior performance when setting it with a tight mouth?