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MWTCA October 2019 'What's It' Project (175-2)


John Morris

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"What's It" Basic Rules Reminder

 

For a full run down on this project and rules please go to: "The Patriot Woodworker and MWTCA "What's It" project"

  • Only Patriot Woodworker Members are eligible to participate and receive the award.
  • The MWTCA only accepts a verified source to support your answer, so one should be submitted with your answer, such as a patent, catalog entry, tool book reference, or a respectable website on the subject. Do not let these requirements prevent you from having fun and submitting educated answers on the subject without verification, we can worry about references later. All answers are welcome, as well as healthy debates regarding "What's It".
  • If a verified and referenced answer is not arrived at by the end of each month's "What's It" project, a random draw will be performed for a "One Year MWTCA Club Membership".
  • Only Patriot Woodworker's who participate in this "What's It" topic will be included in the random draw.

 

Additional What's It Rules

  • Unless you are completely sure what this item is, please avoid "definitive statements" that appear that you are without a doubt claiming that you know what the item is. For example stating, "this item is called a "widget xx" used for "insert purpose here". If you are making a definitive statement you must accompany your statement with evidence or proof from a secondary source.
  • An example of acceptable statements within the realm of having fun and educated guesses would be something like this, "I believe it could be", or "It appears it's made for this or that", etc etc etc...

 

Ok ladies and gentlemen, we now have our "What's it" live and ready!

The image(s) below is a MWTCA "What's It" image for you to research, and tell us all here in this topic post, just what the heck is it!

 

Project Details

The information provided hereon is all the information that is provided, no further information on this item will be added.

 

175-2.jpg

 

175-2a.jpg

 

175-2b.jpg

 

175-2c.jpg

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6 minutes ago, Ron Dudelston said:

Sure looks like a rasp to me.

It sure does Ron, some type of rasp or texturing tool? Looks like it would work with a push and a pull. But at the same time, would sure be prone to digging in at the height it's set out now, I bet you could back it off so it stands just proud of the surface and wedge it in place?

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50 minutes ago, John Morris said:

It sure does Ron, some type of rasp or texturing tool? Looks like it would work with a push and a pull. But at the same time, would sure be prone to digging in at the height it's set out now, I bet you could back it off so it stands just proud of the surface and wedge it in place?

My thoughts exactly.  You could raise or lower the blades to adapt to either the species or the amount you want to remove.

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I have never seen one of these before but my initial guess would be some form of panel shaper.  If you wanted a large board to look like a group of smaller boards, you could put this along side a guide and drag or push to make shallow grooves in the boards for decorative purposes.  

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I am with Steve it is to make a narrow beaded band . The teeth (blade) would have to be set to barely clear the base and as John said back and forth motion used to make the cuts. Noting the small size the beads may be less than 3/8 inch. Of note the blade looks to be one piece making that a very interesting sharpening process.

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For doing PLASTER moldings.   Wood body would ride along "rails" the plasterers  would tack in place fill with plaster, and the tool would form the molding.  About like doing Plaster Crown Molding. 

 

Push and/or pull,  excess plaster would be pushed along ahead of the "plane", filling in any gaps...

 

Like around doorways, and such...short runs. 

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19 minutes ago, steven newman said:

For doing PLASTER moldings.   Wood body would ride along "rails" the plasterers  would tack in place fill with plaster, and the tool would form the molding.  About like doing Plaster Crown Molding. 

 

Push and/or pull,  excess plaster would be pushed along ahead of the "plane", filling in any gaps...

 

Like around doorways, and such...short runs. 

Do you know this for a fact Steve, if so, reference please! Sounds interesting.

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Dear folks, please read additional rules above, in red, thanks!

Remember our goal here is to sleuth what the item is, making positive statements that you know exactly what it is, without reference, can be a challenge for us to prove and depending on how convincing you may sound you may convince others to see it your way and follow you into the dark abyss of a false positive :lol:, we don't want to positively guess these items, we want to positively solve the item mysteries.

Remember, your "What's It" credibility is on the line here. There have been many "positive ID's" on our What's It items just to find out they were wrong, dead wrong.

Thanks guys! :)

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There was a story in Finehomebuilding back in 2009....on how to make plaster crown molding...except he used a specially shaped plaster knife...think wide drywall knife ground to a specific shape...

 

How watch as plasterers on This Old House do plaster walls and moldings....

 

The one you are asking about is a small "Detail" plane...it does have 2 knives, but really only needs one to do the work...depending on going up, or down...

 

Will dig around some more...got all month...

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33 minutes ago, steven newman said:

There was a story in Finehomebuilding back in 2009....on how to make plaster crown molding...except he used a specially shaped plaster knife...think wide drywall knife ground to a specific shape...

How watch as plasterers on This Old House do plaster walls and moldings....

The one you are asking about is a small "Detail" plane...it does have 2 knives, but really only needs one to do the work...depending on going up, or down...

Will dig around some more...got all month...

The biggest thing I see wrong about this information is that the wood body would not stand very long to the constant wet environment that plastering is. Plastering tools are metal for the most part, but possibly for the handle as in wood trowel handles, but to have a wood body slide along plaster and pick up all the moisture, the wood could not last long at all. Also if you look at the wood body, there is no sign of plaster in the grain, surely that wood body would be discolored from all the plaster jobs it encountered, unless it was never used at all, but still, I don't believe any sane manufacturer of plastering tools would make the main surface contact from wood.

Also, why the hefty robust cutting toothed iron? You wouldn't need that much heft in the cutter to push plaster around for grooves or whatever.

Devils advocate here. :)

 

Did a little poking around here and found that even oldest plastering tools are metal.

 

TROWELCOLLECTOR.BLOGSPOT.COM

This is the only known site devoted to collecting trowels and other masonry, plastering, and molder's hand tools. Tools for...

 

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9 hours ago, John Morris said:

Another type of de-fleshing tool?

 

That is probably to aggressive for a fleshing tool running the risk for tearing the hide.  The teeth on the cutters are chipped and beat up and don't seem uniform enough to make any wood molding or plaster shapes.  Seems odd to me that the block is in pristine condition.  No nicks, dents, scratches or wear marks.  I'm thinking someone made a prototype tool for a specific purpose and it didn't work out.  Definitely can't use it to scrape the ice of your car windows this winter.     

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