Coffin Questions

[C. in Indy]

While not every vintage coffin plane strikes me as great, I have fallen hard for some of them. Some questions that come to my mind are:

- Any idea on what the original production tooling looked like for making the excavation in the body, leaving the crisp cheeks / abutments?

- Once in a while I'll see an old wooden plane with a low-angle (37 degree) iron bedding (bevel-down iron). What was the original intent there? Many of these still have the coffin-swept bow-shaped sides, so they weren't shooting planes in the usual sense.

Thanks in advance,

[Scoony]

Not sure about production but scrapers leave nice crisp surfaces behind. Chopping out the waste does not take long and is even quicker if some of the waste is drilled out.

[stmfitr636]

These usually require plane floats... unless you use a 3 piece construction. One can get a great cut with a well sharpened float and a soft touch.

They are relatively easy to make, albeit quite repetitive and time consuming.