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 …
#120 Model Shop Prototype Block Plane; From Evolution to Production Read More »
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 …
Justus Traut’s Early Adjustable #110 Block Planes Read More »
On July 6, 1852, Birdsill Holly was granted Patent No. 9,094 for a cast iron bench plane. In addition to his cast iron bench planes he produced and sold two models of a cast iron block plane. There are no individual patents for these block planes and they were manufactured for only about 8 years …
Aluminum Block Planes from the Stanley Model Shop In the first couple of decades of the 20th century, aluminum became available to manufacturers at a reasonable cost. Although aluminum comprises 8.2% of the earth’s crust, making it the most abundant metal in nature, it never occurs in its free form. In 1825, Hans Christian Oersted, …
The Stanley Rule & Level Company was always interested in providing its customers with the tools they wanted. They were very adept at bringing to market variations of their tools to satisfy the demands of as many workmen as possible. They listened to their customers and often incorporated their suggestions into the tools they produced. …
Stanley Model Shop #278 Rabbet and Fillester Plane Read More »
In my last blog post I talked about two Stanley block planes with rosewood buttons on their knuckle joint lever caps. In this post I’m going to discuss two more block planes from the Stanley Model Shop that are variations on that theme. And these two planes appear to have been made at least a …
By the 1890’s, Stanley Rule & Level Company had become an industrial juggernaut. They proudly boasted in their pocket catalogs that they had sold 1.2million Bailey planes. Their 1895 pocket catalog boasted sales of 2.2 million Bailey planes. “The Rule & Level became by 1900 the largest maker of planes and related tools in the …
Stanley introduced the #144 corner rounding plane in 1925. They advertised these planes as “designed for rounding corners on wall board battens, casings, shelving, etc.”¹ The design patent, #68,402 for this plane was granted to Edmund Schade on October 6, 1925. When doing tool research and looking at patents we’re usually looking at what are …
Variations on Stanley’s Corner Rounding Planes from The Model Shop Read More »
Shortly after the Civil War and well into the first three decades of the 20th century beadboard was a popular finish in many homes. It was used as a full or partial wall covering in back hallways, pantries, kitchens, bathrooms, and many of us can remember it in our old classrooms at school. It also …
Since my last post was on the topic of bull nose planes from the Stanley model shop, I thought we would take a look at this smallest version of the bull nose rabbet plane manufactured by Stanley, the #75. Stanley started making these planes in 1879 and made them until 1983 in the United States. …
Stanley’s #75 Bull Nose Rabbet Planes from the Model Shop Read More »