Leonard Bailey appears to have begun experimenting with  and manufacturing vertical post planes sometime in 1860. These planes are called “vertical post” planes because of the two vertically positioned threaded rods located behind the rocking frog. The rocking frog is held in place by a pin that is inserted through the sidewalls of the plane […]

This is the first of what is intended to be an occasional series describing some of the Stanley Model Shop tools in my collection and sometimes giving opinions and historical tidbits relating to them.  Many of the Model Shop tools are prototypes and, thus, are either one-offs or very limited production models.  Although information about […]

Branded Wooden Planes in India – American Analog….150 Years Later During my professional career I’ve spent much of my time overseas including a 3-year period running an engineering and construction company in India, many of the projects of which were in the south. Due to the 1100 mile commute back to my family in New […]

Part I of this post introduced you to Justus Traut’s patent No. 316,079 granted on April 21, 1885.  This patent very clearly illustrated and described what became the Stanley #72 Chamfer Plane (See Figure 1). The patent also included a drawing of the “spokeshave” style chamfer plane discussed in Part I (http://eaiainfo.org/2018/01/06/trauts-model-shop-chamfer-planes-part-1/).  For consistency, the […]

Justus A. Traut, worked for the Stanley Rule & Level Company for over 50 years, and churned out patent after patent from the time his first patent was issued on June 20th, 1865, until November 3, 1908, when his last patent was issued posthumously, almost eight months after his death.[1] Traut was just one of […]

Brown’s 51st International Antique Tool Auction was held on October 28th, 2017, at the Radisson Hotel in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.  There was active bidding in the room as well as from absentee bidders.  The prices realized that are listed in this post include a 13% buyer’s premium. Prices shown below enclosed in square brackets are […]

From its inception the Stanley Rule & Level Company was very attentive to its customers needs and desires.  Their salesmen were instructed to listen carefully to comments and suggestions from their customers about the tools they manufactured and bring that information back to the foremen in the shop.  Because of the nature of the “inside […]

This post is a bit longer than those I’ve written in the past, but I hope you’ll enjoy the story that’s in here about another interesting plane from the Stanley Model Shop. 1873 to 1879 were tough years for the Stanley Rule & Level Company as well as the rest of the U.S. economy.  The […]

It’s late in the year 1875, and Justus Traut and the men in his shop at Stanley Rule & Level Company are still diligently working on a cutter adjustment mechanism for the Stanley #110 block plane. Traut and Henry Richards, one of the “mechanics” working in Traut’s  shop, produced the block plane prototype shown in […]

As I told you in my last post, Stanley Rule & Level Company introduced the #110 non-adjustable block plane sometime in 1874.  The plane was derived from Justus Traut’s patent No. 159,865 granted on February 16, 1875.  Traut had sent in his patent application on November 13, 1874 at about the time Stanley started advertising […]