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Collector's Corner
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Big, Ugly Wooden Jointer
It sat in the corner of the shop--big,
ugly and unwanted. An old Kellogg jointer, it had seen better days.
The tip had been knocked off the tote; it was dirty, it had been
battered in front of the escapement and a few worm holes dotted its
surface. Corrosive rust had long ago obliterated the maker's
mark on the blade, but the business end, though rusty, had retained
its edge.
It had come into my possession as an
unwanted part of an auction lot. "Well," I thought, "maybe
somebody will buy it. I paid way too much for that bunch of junk
anyway." I hauled it back and forth to tool meets for a year and a
half. I'd put a price of ten dollars on it and would have sold
it for half that if anyone had made an offer. But no one bothered.
Tired of schlepping it around, I put it back in the corner, where it
sat for another year.
This fall, I began the much-delayed
project of building a new workbench. My raw material was the only
thick stock available locally--a load of white oak planks running
anywhere from 8/4 to 10/4 thick. I sharpened up my Stanley No.
8 and went at them with an eye to truing reference edges for the
tailed apprentice. Let me tell you, those planks talked back.
It was slow going. Set the plane rank to move some stock, and
it was all chatter. Set it thinner, and truing an edge took
forever. Even worse, the stock wasn't as straight-grained as
I'd hoped and the life span of a sharp blade was on the order of 30
minutes. (Some of that rising grain was like iron.)
The second night, when it was time to
sharpen yet again, I remembered that the beat up Kellogg had a sharp
blade in it. Thinking that I might as well get a few passes out of
it, I dug it out and set the iron.
"Sk-i-i-i-i-i-sh." A beautiful
long, thick shaving. Then another, and another. I couldn't
believe it. Not only that, but either the blade didn't dull as fast
or the plane's performance wasn't affected by a less-than-sharp
iron. I made wonderful shavings until it was time to go to bed.
The next night I used the No. 8 to true
the sole of the 30-inch wonder that fate had sent my way. I
did a pathetically quick touch up on the cutter and spent the rest
of the evening making short work of the white oak--reserving the No.
8 for the last few passes.
A beat up Kellogg jointer that wouldn't
bring five dollars at a tool meet out- performed a finely tuned
metallic plane. Not only out-performed, but left it in
the ash heap. Simply put, the Stanley was not the right tool
for the job. I've come to understand why so many carpenters
were slow to abandon their inexpensive and highly effective wooden
planes. Your typical metal plane is not designed for efficient
work on tough, thick stock.
The Kellogg jointer has been cleaned
and oiled and now sits on a shelf in the shop rather than in the
corner. It's still battered and I doubt that anyone will ever
want to buy it, but you know, I'll never think of it as a piece of
junk again.
Randy
Roeder
See the site for Millers Falls collectors:
http://oldtoolheaven.com/
December 28, 2005 |
