CRAFTSMANSHIP Traditional Tool
Plough plane
BY ROBIN GATES
A century ago, a boy indentured ‘to learn and exercise the art or occupation of shipwright’ used a wide variety of hand tools over the seven years of his apprenticeship, especially in the joiners’ shop. Some of these tools now appear exotic and none more so than the plough plane, designed to cut grooves in the edges of boards. Together with its eight irons in a range of widths, the plough plane was kept safely in the deepest recess of the tool-chest, among the moulding planes, until required to cut a groove for a tongue joint or to house a panel. This example, made in quarter- sawn beech by William Greenslade in Bristol, probably around 1920, is delightfully intricate and a joy (if
Top: Plough plane and set of tapered irons Above left: The iron is grooved to locate on the skate. The depth stop is partially visible Above right: The ‘church window’ of the depth gauge locking screw
also a challenge) to set up. In use, the plane is guided in the groove it cuts by a thin steel skate. The tapered iron is located on the skate by a channel in its rear face and locked in place by a wooden wedge with an opposing taper. To cut easily, the iron is adjusted to protrude only a whisker beyond the skate, requiring deft strikes of a mallet alternately on the iron, wedge and heel. The depth of cut, meanwhile, is regulated by a depth stop raised or lowered by the brass thumb screw on the top of the stock. Finally, the lateral position of the groove is set by moving the fence which bears against
the face side of the board being grooved. The elaborately moulded fence is an object of beauty in itself, supported by long stems which slide through mortises in the stock. The stems, which have to withstand being knocked into position by a mallet, are fitted with brass ferrules held tight by crossed boxwood wedges hammered into their end grain. If the jointer plane is the Thames barge of the tool-chest, the finely balanced plough must be the proa. When Greenslade stopped making planes in the 1930s, a plough of this calibre cost around 48 shillings, which would be around £120 today.
CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2012 89
ROBIN GATES
ROBIN GATES
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