Advance disclosure: This post has no political content. There’s plenty of that everywhere else, and besides, it’s Super Bowl Sunday morning. My beloved Packers almost made it. Next year..
So of course, I post another tool diary.
Lately I’ve been intrigued by the ingenious ways some of the smaller 19th century plane manufacturers worked around the patents held by the major players of the day. Nowadays, most traditional bench planes are variations of the classic Bailey or Norris patterns. But back in the latter 1800s, there were plenty of competing designs. It was kind of like the early auto industry when there were dozens of manufacturers in the U.S. alone. Most of these companies are long-forgotten, either having gone out of business or by being bought out. Here’s a little history about one of them.
These are the two main versions of Chaplin’s Patented Planes, which were produced under license by the Tower & Lyon Co. in New York City.
Top: Chaplin’s Original Patented (~1872-1900)
Bottom: Chaplin’s Improved Patented (~1900-1914)
First, we have the Original Patent design. This is a No. 1210 jointer plane (Similar to a Stanley No. 7), measuring a whopping 22 inches long by 3 inches wide, and it would have been produced between about 1880 and 1900 or so. Pre-1880 variants had metal totes. Some rare early Chaplin’s planes can sell for thousands. Not these. I paid about $200 total for them.
Anyway, jointer planes are used to flatten/straighten board edges for, well, joining them together. They’re also used for flattening larger sized board faces.
After cleanup, it’s a fine looking plane, no doubt about it. Worth a celebratory beer!
The iron depth adjustment system is indeed ingenious. It uses a worm gear that meshes with corresponding grooves in the iron support base. As the worm gear is rotated via the attached lever, the entire iron and support base assembly moves along the axis of the gear, thus extending or retracting the iron.
The depth adjustment system. When the lever is rotated to the far left as shown, the iron is retracted. Rotating counterclockwise extends the iron. Very cool.
The iron and lever cap/chip breaker, after clean-up and sharpening. Some paint is missing from the front knob, but I’m leaving it as-is.
At first glance, the whole iron/base/lever cap assembly looks pretty shaky. But it’s not. With everything locked in place, it’s rock solid. How’s that work?
I’ll try to explain. In the photo at right, the iron base (that ovoid shaped thing) is, in fact, loose/wobbly. It’s held in place by the worm gear mesh interface in back and that screw in front. The screw doesn’t bear down on the iron base, so the base can slide along the slot as the worm gear turns.
When you install the iron, you lay it flat against the iron support base with the cutting edge just above the bench surface. Then the lever cap is slid over the iron/base and the cap screw tightened. The lever cap has a little arm on either side that wraps around to hold the base/iron/cap together. The chip breaker is also integrated into the lever cap.
It took me a while to figure out that when everything is tightened up the cap, iron, and base are pulled together and held fast to the plane body. I had a force vector diagram on a napkin somewhere. Anyway, the iron is thus bridged between the gear mesh interface at the top and the plane body base behind the mouth opening. The bridge is stable because it’s supported by the whole width of the plane body at the bottom and the gear mesh at the top, like a triangle. OK, that all makes perfect sense right now. I’d better come back and re-read this after a few beers and tokes.. Heh, maybe I should just wave my arms and say trust me, it all just works.
There’s one more unique feature. The tote, or rear handle, is made from a material called Ebonite, a form of highly vulcanized rubber invented by none other than Charles Goodyear himself in the 1840s. As far as I know, this is one of the first applications of a pre-plastics era composite material for a tool handle. Both examples I have here are well over a century old, but they still look and feel almost like new. Ebonite is tough stuff. They still make Ebonite-branded bowling balls.
The Ebonite tote. The cross-hatching is a nice touch. The corrugated bed is unique, too. Looks good.
So that’s the Chaplin’s Original Patent plane. But how does it perform?
Works as advertised. Time for a beer!
This is a really nice plane. The worm drive depth adjustment system works awesomely. There’s nearly zero lash/slop, and the gear ratio makes it easy to make very fine depth adjustments. I like it. The only real “drawback” is the lack of a mechanical lateral iron adjustment, although I find tapping the the sides of the iron with a mallet to align it works just fine.
That’s where the Improved Patent planes come in. Management perceived the need for a lateral iron adjustment feature — That mallet-tapping thing was old-fashioned and they had to keep up with the times to be competitive.
So the Chaplin’s Improved Patent planes were introduced around 1900. The example here is a No. 1205 smoothing plane (Similar to a Stanley No. 4), manufactured between 1904 and 1914. Let’s take a closer look.
Again, a handsome plane. The front knob, of course, has some paint spatter..
This is a totally different setup. There is now a lateral iron adjustment feature located forward of the iron, and the lever cap has lost those little retaining arms on either side. The body’s vertical sides are no longer sculpted; they’re shaped more like a traditional bench plane. The Ebonite tote is carried over, but they also offered a wood tote as an option, even before this redesign.
A look at the guts.
The iron depth adjustment is now done with a lever located under the iron base (That oblong thingy in the photo above). You can see part of the lever to the right underneath the base. That lever pivots about the pin just to the left of the screw holding the iron base to the plane body. That pivot action slides the iron base along the slot around the screw, extending or retracting the iron.
The screw on the lever cap slides into the keyhole in the iron base. The thumbscrew snugs it all together.
Here’s a close-up of the lateral adjustment feature. It’s integrated into the lever cap - The raised circle with the number 2 in it fits into the slot running down the center of the iron, When the lever is moved left or right, the iron alignment is adjusted. It’s actually pretty slick.
Like the Original Patent planes, the whole iron support system doesn’t look all that robust, but the Improved Patent planes use the same basic principals. Once everything is locked in place, it’s really solid, too. <Waves arms..>
The photo below shows more detail of the iron depth adjustment lever. When it’s all the way to the left as shown, the iron is fully retracted. Moving the lever to the right extends the iron. They had to move away from the old worm gear system because depth adjustment and lateral adjustment had to be decoupled. Their engineers decided this was the way to do that. I have to say, working within the patent constraints they had to deal with, it’s a rather elegant solution.
The depth adjuster. Also, note the different coloring of this Ebonite tote compared to the older one. Being made from natural rubber, colors varied from batch to batch, depending on process and material variables.
The Improved Patent planes have another distinguishing feature. There is no chip breaker, which I find to be odd. I’ve checked other examples of this same plane, and they’re all that way, so mine isn’t missing something. Here, the bottom edge of the lever cap sort of acts like a chip breaker, but you can’t get it closer than about 3/16” from the iron’s cutting edge. Ideally, I would want that gap to be more like 1/32”. They could have easily made the lever cap a little longer, but they chose not to. They must have known something about what they were up to, so... OK, so how does this new and improved version work in real life?
Ha! Not bad at all. At least on this soft pine. Time for a beer!
It works pretty well once tuned up, and it gets the job done. The absence of a chip breaker may have been why it worked best for me when set for the thinnest shavings I could consistently get. It does leave a nice glassy-smooth surface, but deeper cuts tended to be a little rougher.
All that said, I prefer the Original Patent version. The main reason being the iron depth adjustment is much better controlled by the user. I’m still undecided about the lack of a chip breaker on the new one; we’ll see once I try it out on a more challenging wood than construction pine. My overall impression is that it’s a good plane, but just not quite good enough. For now, I’ll still reach for my faithful Stanley No. 4 when I need a smoothing plane.
This Chaplin’s No. 1205 Improved Patent plane would have been a direct competitor to the Stanley No. 4 behind it, both having been manufactured at around the same time. The Stanley is definitely the superior tool, IMO.
Chaplin’s went out of business in 1914 after about a 40 year run — I’m unsure of the exact circumstances of their demise, but I suspect they just couldn’t compete any more with the big dogs like Stanley, Millers Falls, etc.
Some of those few still reading may have noticed that neither of these have been given the full restoration treatment. That is intentional. Both of these were in good, relatively rust-free condition when I got them, so I opted for preservation. My Stanley No. 4 (pictured above) did get the Full Monty, but it was a basket case. Each tool is different. Speaking of such, there’s a very interesting-looking early Sargent smoothing plane up for sale right now...
Lastly, we’ve signed up with our pharmacy for vaccinations. We’ll receive text messages when our turns come up — Late March or sometime in April, I expect hope. We’ve managed to stay virus-free for a year now, just a few more months to go. Well, probably more than that, but we’ll get there.
Keep staying safe, everyone!
ER
