Reviewed By: I.Ball
Category: Old Wooden Planes
Extra Info: What is a Jointer Plane?
Manufacturer: Various
Tool Type: Wooden Planes
Plane Type: Jointer / Trying
The wooden jointer plane / wooden trying plane is the longest of all
the wooden planes.
This long length allows the plane to carry out its function of flattening
out long lengths of board.
Please see the
wooden smoothing plane review
for the core details of the old British wooden jointer plane as the core
details are the same.
Wooden jointer planes were in the region of 18 inch to 28+ inch long fitted with
plane iron's
ranging from 2 1/4 inch to 2 5/8 inch wide depending on the width of the plane.
The wooden jointer planes nearly always have a closed rear handle opposed to
an open rear handle which is generally seen on the
wooden jack planes.
These planes due to their size are very weighty.
The wooden jointer plane was the forerunner to the infill jointer planes such as the
Norris A1 plane
and the iron jointer planes such as the
Stanley plane number 8
and the
Record plane number 07.
All three of these types of jointer planes (wooden jointer, infill jointer and iron jointer)
were manufactured and sold by tool shops in competition with each other for a very
lengthy period of about 70 years or so during the latter 1800's - 1950's.
History shows us the overall winner of the battle of the jointer planes was the iron
jointer plane. Wooden jointer planes and infill jointer planes were more than capable
jointer planes but ultimately they lost the prolonged battle for a foothold in the
jointer plane market and
as such production fell away to the point they were stopped being made by manufacturers.
Spin on to today and you will find wooden trying planes / jointer planes are seeing a bit
of a niche resurgence, if you watch the video at the bottom you can see why.
There have been many, many manufacturers of old wooden jointer planes, the following
is a list of some of these makers:
Griffiths
Greenslade
Marples
Mathieson
Moseley
Nurse
Preston (Edward)
Steadman
..many others
The manufacturer's mark (if present) can virtually always be found on the front nose
of the plane. If the plane is quite mucky or you hadn't realised, this is the place
to look to identify who made it.
When looking for the maker mark it should be noted most old wooden planes have previous
owners marks, these previous owner stamps can also be found stamped into the front
nose including overstamping the maker mark.
The previous owner marks can cause confusion to the untrained eye resulting sometimes
in incorrect cataloguing.
Previous owner names quite ofter are stamped more than once on a plane (but not always)
whereas a manufacturer mark is nearly always stamped just once.
If you wish to delve deeper there are a few books out there to help identify the
age of the plane(s).
The authority of these books (at the time of writing this) has to be Jane Rees 'British Planemakers - 4th Edition'.
The 'British Planemakers fom 1700 - Third Edition' is also good if you come across
a secondhand copy.
This Denmark made plane is an initially slightly confusing Jack Jointer Plane?...
...Basically 'Jack' is the name of the manufacturer / brand and it is a jointer plane
due to its length/size.
<1700 - 1970>
YouTube video by 'Mortise & Tenon Magazine' with presenter talking about the Trying / Jointer Plane with the main focus being on the wooden Trying / Jointer Plane...
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