I’ve been watching the Chris Gochnour series of videos about making an Enfield cabinet, one of which videos describes the making of the tongue & groove back boards using a match plane. I make a lot of tongue & groove back boards. This match plane looks a handy item for one who wishes to move over from the electric router to the specialist planes.
But no one seems to make a modern version of a match plane. It looks like the tongues and grooves would need to be cut with a rabbet plane (twice, for each side of the tongue) and a plough plane (for the groove). The match plane looks a better solution.
Does anyone know of a modern version of the match plane from any of the current manufacturers of high quality planes? Those old Stanley versions seem rare.
Lataxe
Replies
Lie Nielsen makes a fantastic version of the Stanley match planes.
Depending on the thickness of the stock you are using the planes are not as rare as you might think. I put together a set of the "double-ended" types; #146, #147, and #148 over a pretty short time last year. I started trying to get the rotating fence types (#48, #49) but they were all beat to crap.
I bought a couple from Patrick Leach. His site has info on them at:
http://www.supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan13.htm
Also, get on his mailing list. He puts out an email every month with tools for sale and he stands behind his wares.
Thank you for that link, MJ. Lots of fascinating info there! It's that #148 I have a fancy for.
Lataxe
John,
I examined the Lie-Nielsen website up & down but couldn't find any match planes - not those of the Stanley #146/7/8 kind at least.
The Veritas small plough plane appears to have a tongue-making blade available, mind - as well as various width blades for ploughing grooves. I suppose that's the alternative to a #148.
Lataxe
https://www.lie-nielsen.com/products/no-49-tongue-and-groove-plane?path=joinery-planes&node=4169
John,
Thanks for that link. That's the functionality I was impressed by - one plane to cut both tongue and groove.
Perhaps the only drawback of such planes is that they're configured for a certain thickness of board and cut a certain depth of groove and height of tongue. Using a plough plane to make a tongue & groove seems to allow more variation but at the cost of more fiddling about to set up the plane with different blades.
Those LNs are tempting, though. Beautifully made things.
Lataxe
I have both LN tongue and groove planes for the 1/2" and 3/4" stock thick. Just used the 3/4" one this weekend. They work really nice.
If I was a rich man ... I would own every plane made by both LN and LV (and several others). Happily I'm not rich (a dangerous state for any human to find themselves in) so I have to compromise. Although the LN match planes are very handsome and seem to work very well indeed, I've applied the rule of not-rich fellows that one tool should do as many things as possible.
So I've ordered the LV combination plane and a few blades to make 1/8th inch and 1/4 inch T&G, as well as a couple of beads and one rebate blade. The plane gets very good reviews and will hopefully perform a number of other cuts well, as I come to want to make them with a hand tool rather than with a router.
Thanks to all for the advice and pointers.
Lataxe
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