RicodJour wrote:
wilbur wrote:
I've been doing a lot of learning about hand planes recently, and was
interested to see the differences between metal bodied and wooden
planes.

Then I read about infill planes. They look really nice, but can anyone
tell me if there is a functional advantage of having the wooden infil
vs. a regular metal bodied plane?

It's how it's made that's the major advantage. Infills start out as
flat plates and are machined prior to assembly, as opposed to starting
out as a casting. Castings shrink as they cool and it can be a fair
amount of work to get the sole dead flat.

OTOH, that work should be done at the factory making it
a non-issue for the buyer/user, unless--see below.

Infills start out that way.
The weight is another advantage. There's also more hand work involved
in making an infill, so each one is closer to a custom creation.


If the plate stock used to make the infill was properly annealed
then it will probably be more stable than a cast sole, even if
the casting was also annealed. Grey cast iron is also brittle,
a cast plane can break in half if dropped, the worse that would
likely happen to an infill would be a broken tote and chipped cutter.

Lee Valley makes their iron planes from ductile cast iron---it
is not brittle like the old grey-cast iron. One of the woowdorking
shows on PBS visitied the factory and showed the sole for a
#7 being made. They flattened the sole by running it through
a machine resembling a panel sander (linishing?) befor even
taking it out of the mold. Very cool.

Note that a #78 broken at the mouth makes a dandy bull-nosed
chisel plane.

--

FF