I haven't done any planing of the built-in the last couple of days, but i have spent a little time in the shop. I just got a new addition to replace the Sargent 1080 combination plane I sold. I never really liked the combination plane much. It was finicky to set up, the skates were thicker than the fillets of the bead irons so it wouldn't cut beads without binding, it was heavy and really is not an optimized tool for any of the tasks it claims to be able to do. As they say, jack of all trades but master of none. Plus, these things just have way too many parts to get lost.
I know that there are folks out there who love their combination planes, but I am just not one of them. I instead decided to go with this beauty.
It's a plow plane made by Bensen & Crannell, Albany, NY. It was probably made in the early 19th century, but has some features of 18th century plows, such as the wooden depth stop, as opposed to the more typical brass depth stop, and a fence attached to the arms with wood screws rather than the more common through bolts and diamond shaped brass inlaid nuts.
I cleaned it up, lapped, ground and honed the iron and took her for a spin. WOW! This is what a plow plane should be. The only problem it has is that the wooden thumb screw that holds the depth gauge at the specified height has all but one of it's threads sheared off, making it useless. However, because this type of depth stop has no shoe like a brass depth stop would, it really won't be used very often anyway as it can't be used until the fence is set a good inch away from the skate. When plowing the more typical grooves like those to accept drawer bottoms and raised panels, the depth stop would not contact the wood anyway as it would be off the edge, so in most cases I'd be working to a scribed depth.
The fact that the depth stop is so far from the skate leads me to believe that this was likely a joiner's plane and not a cabinetmaker's plane. Joiners would need to make grooves much further from the edge of the board, such as those for entry doors and window sashes, therefore, having the depth stop further away from the iron wouldn't be a concern. In addition, this plane doesn't have all the brass customarily found on cabinetmakers' plows. Still the plane will function quite nicely in my cabinet shop. I have no worries about working to a line.
It did only come with a single 1/4" iron, however, since this is the most used size in my cabinet work, that's fine for me. Plow plane irons are easy to find and add later anyway. I think I'll just use it as is for now. Even though the wooden thumb screw is not functional, it stays in the plane. If I feel the need later, I'll try to carve a new one as suggested by Stephen Shepherd. It looks to be a 7/16" screw with about 12 tpi so this will have to be hand carved as I don't know of any thread boxes on the market that come in this size. Suppose I could make one, but I have furniture to work on!
The one thing that does puzzle me is that the screw appears to be the original length as the end is smooth and has the same patina as the rest of the plane. However, the screw in it's current length is too short to reach the depth stop block. I am not sure if there was originally a floating filler piece that would be pressed up against the block by the screw or not. There was a cut off piece of #2 pencil floating in the hole between the depth stop and screw when I took the screw out. It was apparently put there by a previous user to do just that, but this is obviously not original. If you have any thoughts on this or if you have a plane with a similar depth stop you can look at for me, I'd appreciate your comments.
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