REED Plane Adjustment Hammers: www.woodbywright.com/shop/reed-bronze-plane-adjustment-heads Support Eric Florip: gofund.me/acf2f367

I'm glad to know that someone is making them again. I've made several for people over the years, but would prefer to just point them to somewhere to purchase.

I have a ton of these small hammers and i always questioned what they are for and why there are so many but now i know the answer, they are just for planes.

James thanks for your support and encouragement to share these with everyone. I use a hammer to adjust laterally for all my planes and for the longest time a "hammer" was what ever I could quickly reach when working so I needed to fix that bad habit. Thanks to everyone for the support. If you can please support Eric Florip and his family as we dedicated the 1st of these heads to raise money for them and were rewarded by very generous bids on CIHI.

I'm a 77 YO AMETEUR woodworker. I started using Japanese planes (kannas) a few years ago and love them. Even the cheaper ones are good if you take the time to "tune" them and sharpen the iron. A lot lighter and with the small hammer, very easy and quick to adjust as you showed. Thanks for the video.

My brother used to play tabla (a traditional hand drum from the Indian subcontinent) well they use little brass mallets to tune the drum heads. That’s my plane adjustment mallet, it works perfectly!

I appreciate these tool history vids :)

The only presentation of this info that I have seen. Great job showing a fun skill that is both quaint and traditional and yet still very useful and relevant. Thanks!

I made a little mallet just the other day. It's the same as your polished steel one with two flat heads (rather than one flat and one ball-pein). Made it out of a piece of phosphor bronze round bar. Beautiful little thing. Hadn't a clue what to use it for, so I just lobbed it in my toolchest. NOW I know what I can use it for. Ah. Satisfaction.

Those look really nice. I already have some Picard Joiners' Hammers for this, but if I ever decide to upgrade to brass I will definitely keep these in mind.

Just ordered my small London Pattern mallet head!

Looks like a very hand tool. I use a tiny hammer to make lateral adjustment on my low angle metal body planes. The mechanism on new No 62 is difficult to make fine lateral adjustment, and on LN No 164, there is no lateral adjustment. Hitting corners of the blade makes very good micro adjustments. Wedge ejected. It seems your low angle wood plane still has a narrower than blade escapement.

I have a very similar hammer, steel head, japaned, standard handle. I bought it for putting in small brads (before I had any air compressor and nailers). The tapered end is perfect for starting a brad pinched between finger and thumb. A no pain solution to a problem! Mine was made, I beleive, in Italy, by a company named "Bellota".

Thank you! Great info

I have a tack hammer that I bought at the Big Box Home Improvement Store for about 10 bucks. It's a bit large, but it works.

I use a plane adjusting mallet on my Lie Nielsen low angle jack plane for lateral adjustments. Sometimes even use it for forward blade adjustment because the tiny awkwardly placed adjusting knob on the #62 is so frustrating to use.

Nailed it!

Had no idea. Amazing. Thank you!!

Pretty interesting indeed, James! Beautiful little mallets! 😃 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

So a plane mallet how to is coming soon? I'm down for that. Great walk down memory lane tight there. Making a wooden plane mallet out of an elm head and maple handle was the first hand tool only project I made, (since it was small enough to plane with a chisel) right before I finished making the first plane I ever had that I intended to use it on, ha. The plane still works like a hot damn, even if the body is slippery elm and lost a lot of its soul through the years.. Greetings again from the land of a million ponds! Well, at least a few weeks out of the year lately 😕

I absolutely loved this video! Thanks so much!

Very Cool!

I have been experimenting with lost wax casting and I think one of these will be perfect. These are small enough that I can probably poor 10 of them at a time.

I know from experience that 95% of craftsmen used a metal hammer just by looking at how mushroomed the top of the iron is!

It's interesting to see the different kinds. I passed over quite a few adjustment hammers because I was looking for the wedge to be perpendicular to the handle, and in retrospect that was silly. Now I want to try an adjustment hammer with the wedge in line. To anyone who's tried both, what do you prefer? I use mine for starting tack nails as well, which seems like functionality I'd miss.

@WoodByWrightHowTo

2 жыл бұрын

having used both I do not have much preference between them

Excellent video, James! And thanks to Reed for providing the plane adjusting heads. These hammers are great to collect, although I find they’re often just called “small hammers” in antique stores, flea markets, etc. Btw, what’s a chasing hammer? Thanks again!

@WoodByWrightHowTo

2 жыл бұрын

a chasing hammer is for chasing. LOL Chasing is surface carving in metal.

I made a nice Osage handle for my baby mallet

I recently made me a little Hammer out of brass round stock. Just filed it, shaped it and put a hole in. One side is oak endgrain and one brass. I made it for my lie Nielsen block plane wich don't have lateral adjustment. I found me using it quit a lot on my other planes too. It's really fast and accurate. You can even tap the Norris style adjusters directly. I don't know if it will ruin it over time, but if so I get a new adjuster and change my habbits again...

If you have a hand plane you need a plane hammer. Then again I am biased. 😉

Wear do I find plane's like those and adjustment hammers?

@WoodByWrightHowTo

2 жыл бұрын

If you are looking for antique planes the best place to start is HandToolFinder.com

How does Sarah feel about you hitting on your tools? What is the chasing mallet for? I have an ancient one that I'm about to re-handle (with Red-Gum).

@WoodByWrightHowTo

2 жыл бұрын

A chasing mallet is for doing chasing work. Lol. Sorry I had to. Chasing is carving in steel. Usually the decorative carving you would see on the side of a plane or some other surface is chasing.

@warkitty3426

2 жыл бұрын

@@WoodByWrightHowTo going to get a little bit pedantic on you, Mr. Wright; I apologize. Chasing doesn’t carve the metal; that’s engraving. Chasing uses various shapes of blunt “chisels” to basically dent the metal. The effect is similar to engraving, but it simply shapes and moves the metal rather than carving it away. It’s also not limited to steel, but any metal. Chasing steel is actually really difficult due to the hardness of the metal; most metalsmiths would do chasing work in brass, bronze, copper, gold, or silver.

Who taught you how to use these hammers? A mentor?

@WoodByWrightHowTo

2 жыл бұрын

Several different good friends have been my mentors and teachers over the years.

"Fancy plane hammer" sounds like an oxymoron.

Handle picks the Woodworker…

Really neat stuff. Rather than using castings (lots of filing), I just machine them from solid brass. Much cheaper too.

@WoodByWrightHowTo

2 ай бұрын

we had looked at machining but it would end up costing 3-4 times more.

@Tensquaremetreworkshop

2 ай бұрын

@@WoodByWrightHowTo 3-4 times as much, or 3-4 times more? (latter is 4-5 times as much)...-Commercially I can understand part of it- but 4 times as much would be £304 for the London pattern! I can buy 1" square brass a suitable length for $12 - retail. Machining a one off would take around an hour- less time than filing a casting. (A CNC would take a few minutes). My scotchbright wheel will give a nice finish in 10mins. In practice, I have an old marine bronze propshaft I got for scrap price. That will do nicely...

@WoodByWrightHowTo

2 ай бұрын

maybe you should talk to Jeff and see if you want to make them for him. the problem is no machine would want to mess with the small quantities we have. and if they did the price would be through the roof.

@Tensquaremetreworkshop

2 ай бұрын

@@WoodByWrightHowTo I am retired, and the last thing I want is a business… I do try to get woodworkers to broaden their interests. Instead of buying a pillar drill, pay a bit more and get a small mill. Projects like this (and many more) are then possible. Why limit yourself to dead plant material? I make my own hinges, locks, catches and other furniture for my wood projects- it is rare for commercial parts to be completely suitable.

Cool, I'm off to get hammered! LOL. Politically insensitive statement. Oops!

Always a pain to sée wood being hitten by métal. Forbiden in France 😁

Somehow it feels like a Cosman video, made for the sake of sellin us somethin. In about 4 years of watchin you, and watchin 90% of your videos, I have never seen you adjust a metal plane with a hammer...... but in this you say you do. You're one of my favourite channels, I really hope it's not changing and becomin less than "Wood by Wright" ....... I know you wanna show off the hammer head, but please don't tell us fibs that you adjust metal planes with hammers, you don't do that.... you don't even like wooden planes , this video is all about a sale.

@WoodByWrightHowTo

2 жыл бұрын

I beg to differ. You don't generally see me adjusting planes and videos. Most of the time. The lateral adjustment is on the low angle plane as the Norris adjuster on those is a bit difficult. The reason I showed adjusting it on a grooving plane is the molding planes are where I use it most often. I don't use bench size wooden planes and that's why the one I had to demonstrate on isn't a standard user. It's just there for demonstration sake. Then all honesty I make very little on REED tools. Usually between 50 and $100 a month if that. The whole purpose for offering them on my website is because Jeff doesn't want to start up the website for them so I offered to host the sales. My goal is to see him start making REED planes again. I really want to see those back on the market.

Dude you do not need to hit them that hard. If you look a a well preserved set of planes you will not see all that damage, and it’s not because they weren’t being used or adjusted. All those dents come from guys that don’t know what they are doing.

"Used" rather than "use". Please retain the services of someone who is competent in American English grammar to title your videos. Grammar errors in your video titles severely detract from the credibility of your channel. 👎

@ricos1497

2 жыл бұрын

The huge volume of interesting, educational, well researched content probably isn't going to lose much sleep over a spelling mistake.

@WoodByWrightHowTo

2 жыл бұрын

welcome to wood by wright the english language is a flexable thing around heer!

@lanecobb4150

2 жыл бұрын

@@WoodByWrightHowTo Rite arm!

@unwired1281

2 жыл бұрын

Krap wherz my dikshunary?