Excerpted from The Chronicle Vol. 29 no. 2, June 1976
by Raymond M. Smith
This is a plane that I recently acquired (Figure 1). It is a beautiful iron-soled 22″ fore plane, with beechwood handle, knob and wedge. The sole is constructed with diagonally crisscrossed ribs (Figure 2). The top of the body is embossed with flowers and foliage. In the mouth in embossed letters is “Pat. Nov. 8, 1870” (Figure 3.) The iron is double and is stamped “Ohio Tool Co.” There is no doubt that this is E.H. Morris’ Patent #109037. The sketch of Patent #109037 is shown in Peter C. Welsh’s United States Patent Papers (Washington, D.C., 1975). This sketch shows what seems to be the smooth size plane.
The Ohio Tool Company iron brings up a very good question. Is the iron original? The perfect ft seems to indicate that it is. If so, this would bring up the possibility that the Ohio Tool Company could have bought the patent and produced the plane. The fact that the sketch in the patent papers shows a thumbscrew fastening device at the rear of the iron is probably not important in that a plane may never have been built with an iron as shown.
most of them that I have seen- about 3 or 4 in last few years have all had Sandusky irons- 2 1/2″
There was a beautiful one that was in Cliff Browns collection- NW Ohio that I believe is listed now on Bode’s site- he was at auction. I have the same jointer plane as yours and mine has a Sandusky iron- its a beautifully adorned plane on its face and sole!!