XX. In this quarter is first the round Smoothing Plain, whose Sole is not streight but convex.
The second is the Rabbet Plain, which hath the sides of the Iron not inclosed in the Stock as the foregoing Plains, but the Iron is full as broad as the Stock is thick, that the very Angles of the Iron edge may not be born of the Stuff it is to cut; nor doth it deliver the Shavings at a Mouth on the top of the Stock, as the other Plains do; but it hath its mouth on the sides of the Plain, and delivers them there; the Iron is about an Inch broad in the flat, but is much thinner because of its wedging in the Stock; its office is to cut a Square down into a Board or other Timber, for another like piece to fall into it; also to strike a Facia in a piece of Molding.
XXI. He beareth Gules, a Taper Bit in traverse, Argent; the Head and a Smoothing Plain, Or. Born by the name Plainhale. Of these Instruments more particularly.
The Taper Bit, is for the making of a small hole wider and larger, being in the mouth half round whose edges are sharp, and by reason of its being taper as it goeth into a hole with the small end and is turned about therein, the edges cut it wide by taking shavings or pairings from the hole side.
S. 3 such is born by the name of Tapper or Tapley.
The Smoothing Plain, is a little short Plain, which hath its Iron set very fine, and to take off very thin shavings, because its use and office is only to smooth the work from those Irregularities which the Fore-Plain and the Joynter have left behind them. There is another way of making them with a streight flat Sole, as in other Plains.
A. a Cheveron S. between 3 such proper, born by Smoother.
The several sorts of Plains.
The Strike Block, is a Plain shorter than the Joynter, having the Sole made exactly flat and streight, and is used for the shooting of a short Joint; because it is more ready for the hand than the long Joynter: It is also used for the fitting and framing of Miter and Bevil Joynts.
The Miter Plain.
The Revaile Plain.
The Scurging Plain.
The Moulding Plains, are for the working off of several sorts of Moulding works which Plains have names according to their several Operations; as
The Hallow Plain.
The Round, or Half Round Plain.
The Belection Plain.
The O-gee Plain.
The Back O-gee Plain.
The Cornish Plain.
The Phalister Plain.
— From Randle Holme’s “The Academy of Armory, or, A Storehouse of Armory and Blazon” Book III, Chapter IX. Why am I reading this?
Well, I’m reading it Chris, even though I have read it all before. I’m surprised these posts get no comments. Here we have an Englishman illustrating a standard Dutch-style plane – most of the early Dutch examples that we see are 18th-century, but this one is pre-1688. That, combined with some of the surviving planes from the Mary Rose of 1545 really drives home the notion that English planes didn’t always look English.
then, the list of types of planes. Ahh, what on Earth is a Scurging Plane? And here, the earliest reference to a filester plane. Pity that Holme gave us no more description, nor an illustration…Oh, well. Randle Holme’s work is really one of the cornerstones of material culture studies. Nice stuff.