Interview with plane maker Steve Knight Fine Woodworking

 
Smoothing plane. Before he sent them out, Steve tuned his planes to take the fluffiest shavings.
Photo: Steve Knight
It has been at least five years since I first saw one of Steve Knights wooden handplanes. Ive always found them attractive and the word on the forums was that they worked great--and thats the real test of a plane. I always had it in the back of my mind to buy a plane from him, just to support him. But then I started making my own and I never got around to it. So, I felt a bit guilty when I went to his website recently and discovered that Steve no longer sells wooden handplanes, at least not completed ones. He does sell kits for wooden planes: a smoother, a pocket plane (bevel down), a jack, a jointer, and a scrub. I gave Steve a call and asked him to send me one of the kits--a smoother with a 55 degree frog--for review. Ill write a separate blog about it. (I am really excited about the prospect of making and using the plane. My job doesnt suck!)
When I was on the phone with Steve, he and I got to talking about his experience as a plane maker and the story was interesting. Ive always wondered how hard it would be to make a living as a "boutique" tool maker. There are a lot of guys out there now who are making saws, infills, or chisels for sale. I think thats cool. Ive also noticed that many of those guys owed a lot of their success to internet forums. It was on an internet forum that I first heard of Steve, and Mike Wenzloff, and Chester Toolworks, and Blue Spruce, and Ron Breese, and many others. So, I decided to interview Steve and share his story with you. Heres what I learned. Enjoy.

Panel raising plane in curly maple. Steve Knight achieved a high level of craftsmanship in his planes. He used the Krenov method of plane making, even on traditional ones like this panel plane.
FWW: What was the first tool you made? Why did you make it?
SK: I think it was a smoother. My hands were really suffering from all of the sanding I did making furniture. I had heard about hand planes, so I bought a No. 4 smoother from Patrick Leach. Mind you, I couldnt even use a plane at that time, and I dont know if I ever got that No. 4 working. But I did want more planes. Unfortunately, I couldnt afford them, so I had the idea to begin making them. It was a struggle and for a while none of the planes I made worked. I had a boxful of non-working planes. I made those early planes out of red oak, I think, and glued on an ebony sole to combat wear. I then gave up on woodworking for about a year. I didnt get back into it until a friend asked to use my shop. I let him, in exchange for cleaning it. My shop, which is small, was so stuffed that it took him about two weeks to clean it! With the shop clean, I started making planes again. This time something clicked and I was off. Those first curly shavings really hooked me. Still, it was a struggle. I was not an accurate woodworker and my planes werent square. It took a lot of effort to get the bugs out and to get the planes working. I was learning to build planes, tune them, and sharpen the blades all at once.
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A Tribute To Our Military

As a thank you to the men and women of our military, we are offering a special 40% discount on Guild memberships today (Sunday) and tomorrow. This applies to new memberships and renewals. So if you are active military, contact me and tell me your story. I’ll then set you up with a coupon code for 40% off your membership or renewal! Its our way of saying thank you for your service!

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Finally I have a motorized plane

This is a hand plane? Not exactly. Its a Super Surfacer, which surfaces wood with a fixed blade, but on a much larger scale. And a motor drives a belt to feed wood through the blade rather than you feeding the blade over the wood.
Photo: Matt Kenney
When it comes to preparing a surface for finishing, nothing beats a hand plane. Its way faster than sanding and can leave a perfect, glass smooth surface. (And dont forget that hand planing is far more pleasant that sanding--no dust, no noise.) Thats why Ive heard over and over that theres no power tool thats the equal of a plane for surface prep. In a way thats true. There is no commonly available power tool thats up to the job, at least not here in the States. But in Japan, there is one. Its an odd machine thats looks to be the offspring of a drum sander and giant hand plane. Theyre commonly called super surfacers. How do they work? Well, there is a gigantic and extremely sharp fixed blade. A belt feeds a piece of wood past the blade and the blade takes a whispy full-width and full-length shaving. Thats right a full-width and full-length shaving off any board that fits into the machine! And like a plane it leaves a great surface.
Id seen one on video before, but had never seen one in person until last week. One of the editors at Fine Homebuilding is retiring and moving back to California. He was lightening his tool load and offered up a Hitachi FA-700 Super Surfacer to whoever would get it out of his garage. I jumped at the chance and now its in my garage. As you can see from the photos, it needs some cleaning and tuning, but it runs and I cant wait to see the first shaving come flying out the top. The blade is about 10 in. wide! Once I get it working properly, Ill shoot some video and post it. (Ill be the guy jumping around excited as a 5 year old.)
In the meantime, check out this YouTube video of a Super Surfacer at work.

On a side note, this machine and another one made by Makita were tested and reviewed in Fine Woodworking #38 by one of our former editors, Paul Bertorelli.

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Seldon Bailey No 5 Patent Plane

If youve been following along, you know I managed to pick up an unusual metal hand-plane at a local yard sale. I posted about this in my last blog post, however for convenience here are a few images:

Group of Items found 2012.10.06

Plane as found

I only had a few facts to go on:

1. The plane body is unmarked
2. Tote and knob are both rosewood
3. The blade adjuster has an unusual raising feature.
4. Theres an extra cap which is secured via a cam-lock lever
5. The blade is marked "Bailey Tool Co" in an arch across the cutter, with a medieval looking axe and Patent 1871 beneath.

Knob view

In any case, I posted the images above to the old tool group to see if I could fine out any more info. I suspected from my own searches that this plane was an early Leonard Bailey plane. I received a couple of replies identifying the plane but the best answer I received was from tool collector Josh Clark who wrote:

John-

 

Yup, its a Bailey Tool Co. jack plane all correct and proper and actually in not too bad condition. This plane was made in Woodsocket, RI by Seldon Bailey & Co., not Leonard, though Leonard did get involved at some point ca. 1878 and the whole thing gets confusing. You can see the various patents for the plane here: http://datamp.org/patents/search/xrefCompany.php?id=534  If you have an interest in mechanical stuff, the blade adjusting mechanism is really cool- its a work drive that has a very very fine adjustment tolerance, much finer than a standard Stanley plane. Cool stuff. Nice find.

 

Josh

So this blog post is basically about taking some detailed photos and getting them online (I found one photo of a similar plane, a number 4, that was shown on a For Sale page but marked as sold).

I very carefully dissembled the plane to give it a good cleaning, using only mineral spirits:

Here are some details shots of the blade adjusting mechanism:

And heres a short video of the way it works:

The other unusual feature of the plane is the cam-lock mechanism:

And heres another short video showing how it works:

Additional photos of the cleaned plane:

I received a suggestion from Josh that I might want to repair the tote (it had been badly glued together at the crack at some point and the rod would hardly pass the off-set). I undertook to use something that was reversible, in case at some point someone wanted to do a different repair, so I used a black super glue I found online, reasoning that a bit of acetone would break the repair if necessary.

I did just a little light sanding then added some shellac to approximate the sheen on the knob. Here are photos of the completed plane with just a little more cleaning an a light coat of paste wax:

Thats about it. I hope Ive managed to add to the knowledge-pool regarding the Seldon Bailey plane.

Heres a site that shows images of other Seldon Bailey planes (sold):
http://www.quietcornerantiques.com/id71.html

And heres some additional info from the Old Tools Archive:
http://swingleydev.com/archive/get.php?message_id=226226&submit_thread=1

Thanks! John

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