OK, I know it's not a plane but,

Although I try to restrict myself to collecting planes, sometimes something crops up that I just can't resist. I know very little about wooden braces, but when I spotted this on the net it just struck me as very early, and unusual. Firstly it has an iron chuck, as apposed to brass, which is the norm on later braces. Secondly the style of the brace itself seemed most unusual. As it turns out it was by a very early maker by the name of Ryley, who apparently worked in Birmingham. More learn ed experts than me have put a date of approximately between 1750-1760, and have said it may turn out to be the earliest button chuck brace to have surfaced so far.

A new breakthrough in the dating of brass adjusters

I have for a long while been puzzling as to when the brass type depth stop first appeared in British plane making. My good friend Brian Jackson recently passed this plough plane by John Rogers onto me . This was quite a breakthrough for me, as it is the earliest plane to have this type of adjuster fitted that I have seen as yet. We have a definite cut off date for John Rogers of 1765. Prior to this the earliest example I had seen was by John Cogdell who finished production in 1773. I'm confident the plane has not been altered at a later date, and is in it's original state.

It's all in a name

A good while ago now I put some photos on my web site of a pair of panel raising planes that were both marked John Green. One of them had a recognised and recorded mark by John Green of York, but the other plane's mark was different, and seems to be an unrecorded mark. What i was unsure of was if the plane was from York, or if it may have been by the London based John Green. At a David Stanley auction I was discussing this plane with Don Wing, and he made a very good observation concerning the unusual owners stamp on the plane. he suggested that it may be worth doing some research into the sir name that appears on the plane to see if they came from a particular area of the country. The owners stamp was W. Stockens, so I put a google search in and discovered that this name does not appear to be found anywhere other than Suffolk, the south east, and London. I know this in no way gives a definite proof to this being a London made plane, but It makes it highly likely. It also makes me think that it may be that owners stamps bare closer scrutiny when looking at planes origins

Not all planes are made of beech!

This is a lovely early moulding plane with some unusual features that set it apart from the norm.

 The most obvious difference is that it is not made from the normal plane makers favourite timber which is of course beech.  At first I wasn't too sure what this plane was made from, but having consulted a few other knowledgeable people, the general consensus is that it's made of plumb. That's certainly the best description of it's colour, which is by the way absolutely stunning. Fruit woods seem to be a favourite for some of these early makers, as I have seen a number of examples from this type of wood. The second curious feature that stood out when i first saw this plane, was the strange nib of wood at the base of the wedge finial. this something i have never seen before. There is a neatly set out circle marked out on both ends of the stock to describe the round profile. the length is just over 10 inches. Given the choice of wood, and overall style of the plane, it would not surprise me if this was a 17th century plane. One other thing I hadn't noticed until I was photographing the plane today was the initials stamped into the heel of the plane. Guess what, they just happen to be IC !!!

The mysterious "I C" mark

For quite a while now I have noticed that a lot of early London made planes crop up with what i have previously presumed to be an owners stamp of I C. The style is not always the same, but i find it curious as to how often it occurs on these early planes.  The recently discovered Nathaniel Gamble has this mark, and an early looking smoothing plane i have just found has a similar mark . While examining the planes at the last David Stanley auction, I spotted a John Davenport, a Robert Wooding, and one other early plane that all had the "I C" mark. This all might be coincidence, but it has made me wonder if there might be a different explanation for the marks. These  planes were possibly quite expensive to produce in the early 18th century, so is it possible that they were owned not by individual craftsmen, but perhaps by a large London workshop, who marked up there tools to differentiate them from the workers personal tools . If this is the case maybe research will bring to light an early London Joinery, or cabinet making business that would fit the "I C" mark

Welcome to my blog

Hi there. This is my first attempt at setting up a blog so please bare with me.
Hopefully this blog will give people somewhere to post there comments about my web site, and also share information with everyone out there interested in early woodworking tools