I picked up a Winchester plane the other day at an antique store. Worst thing about it was that some one tried to flatten the frog with a bench grinder..... ARGH! One feature it has on it, that I think should be on all hand planes, is a line on the sole of the plane in the middle of the throat/blade opening. One problem I have had with learning to use these tools is figuring out when my blade is square to the sole. That line doesn't make it perfect, but it gets it a lot closer to where it needs to be. Just siting down the sole of the plane to see the blade and fix it just doesn't work well for me. Maybe I have to raise the blade up higher. One other strange thing about this plane is that the advance/retract knob turns in the opposite direction of all my other planes...
robo hippy