Issue No. 30 - Published October 12, 1889

Welcome back. Work No. 30 hides between its musty pages a cache of designs for homemade planes. I'm excited. First of all, it's a sign from the universe that I should get around to making myself a spill plane so I can light my briar pipe in style. Secondly, the majority of this batch falls squarely into the wooden-bodied plane category.

Not that a homemade gun-metal bullnose plane (included) wouldn't be the coolest ever, but because planemaking is something most of us will attempt on a lark, it's refreshing to skip the foundry once in a while. The "Rough Plane for Temporary Use" takes this concept to the extreme. Imagine finding that you need to cut a peculiar contour that defies your current tooling and then just banging out something that will finish the job.

I'll admit that I don't often think of solving woodworking problems by making a plane from scratch. The fact is, I should. Often the fastest way to cross a swamp is to go around it. The article says improvised planes such as these are often made from scrap deal within the space of a few minutes. –TIM




Disclaimer: Articles in Work: The Illustrated Weekly Journal for Mechanics describe materials and methods that would not be considered safe or advisable today. We are not responsible for the content of these magazines, and cannot take any responsibility for anyone attempting projects or procedures described therein.

The first issue of Work was published on March 23rd, 1889. The goal of this project is to release digital copies of the individual issues starting on the same date in 2012, effectively republishing the materials 123 years to the day from their original release.

The original printing was on thin, inexpensive paper. There are many cases of uneven inking and bleed-through from the page behind. Our copies of Work come from bound library volumes of these issues and are subject to unfavorable trimming, missing covers, etc. To minimize harm to these fragile volumes, we've undertaken the task of scanning the books ourselves. We do considerable post processing of the scans to make them clear but please bear with us if a margin is clipped too close, or a few words are unreadable. We would like to thank James Vasile and Karl Fogel for their help in supplying us with a book scanner and generally enabling this project to get off the ground.

You are welcome to download, print, and pretty much do what you want with the scan for your own personal purposes. Feel free to post a link or a copy on your blog or website. All we ask is a link back to the original project and this blog. We are not answering requests for commercial downloads or reprinting at this time.

• Click to Download Vol.1 - No. 30 •