What are these? Any ideas?

[FatherWes]

A couple items from a friend’s ‘collection’. He passed away and his widow is sorting through a large collection of stuff. Tractors, farm implements, tools, collectibles.

These two are interesting. The hand plane is metal, but has a wooden plate about 1/4” thick on the bottom. No manufacturer marks I can see. The wood plate is held on by metal clips covered over by dowels on the base, and held in place by metal clips that extend through the metal base and fold over. I can’t tell if the wooden but is original or added on. Whoever did it did a very nice job, and the connectors (see first picture) could be factory.

The second item is a right-angle drive, complete with a wooden drive shaft. The wooden shaft is 3+ inches in diameter.

Very likely an old farm tractor/implement piece.

Has anybody seen anything like either of these before?

Thanks for looking. I appreciate it.

 

[van123d]

The plane I will take a guess. It looks like a standard number 5 plane that someone has attached a wood base. There are a series of planes that are known as “Transitionals” that are cast body with modern (for the time) adjustments but wood soles. My understanding is these were built as some people preferred the feel better of wood on wood. This could be someone’s attempt to achieve the same thing or perhaps the mouth of the plane is damaged and this was a way to keep it usable?

What is interesting to me is that the checkered lever cap on there I think I have only seen on transitional planes. So likely not the original lever cap but kind of the correct cap for what this plane ended up as.

 

[FatherWes]

@van123d
Thanks!

When I first saw the plane, my thoughts were that someone had rescued a plane whose base had been damaged. The more I looked at it, the more it looked like it might have been manufactured like this. The way the wooden base is connected just isn’t what I’d expect from a DIY’er. But you never know what pieces the repairer had in hand.

I wasn’t familiar with the transition planes. I’ll have to check those out. Funny, it wasn’t until you mentioned it, but the serration on the lever cap was what made me think it could actually be quite old..
Thanks again!

 

[trlvn]

The plane I will take a guess. It looks like a standard number 5 plane that someone has attached a wood base.

Agreed.

There were a number of manufacturers that have made better and poorer copies of Stanley planes. The example shown seems to have been "modified" a fair bit. Just ahead of the rear tote, there should be a nut that drives a yoke that advances/retracts the blade. Only the threaded stud remains.

Likely the plane originally also had a lateral adjustment lever. Little trace of that remains. The black tar-like finish on the tote and knob would not be original, either.

If you want to see proper transitional planes (wood sole, metal above), check out 'Patrick's Blood and Gore':

The Superior Works - Patrick's Blood & Gore: Planes #21 - #37

Great rabbit hole to learn about all the planes and related wood-cutting devices that Stanley made over their long history!

Craig
(A friend of mine really likes the wood on wood feeling of transitionals. Typically, you give the base a quick rub with a candle so it is really wood on wax on wood!)