Bill Marlowe - Planemaker

This weekend (8/23/98) I attended the M-WTCA meet at Darley's Barn in South Whitley, Indiana.  After bagging a nice user Sweetheart 607 for $85 and a copy of "Boxwood & Ivory: Stanley Traditional Rules", by Philip E. Stanley from Martin Donnelly.  I found that I still had a half hour before lunch was to be served.  I had noticed an assortment of tools on one of the guys tailgates, and finally it seemed that the guy was there so I wandered over.  There I met Bill Marlowe - planemaker extraordinaire.  Bill told me that when his wife retired he needed something to do to keep out of her way, so he started making planes and other tools.  (I found out later, after seeing some pictures of his collection, that he seems to already own one of every manufactured woodworking tool.)  He has a friend who supplies him with offcuts of mahagony, paduak, rosewood, etc. from a furniture factory, and he turns these scraps into some beautiful tools.  

		Click the plane in the image at the right to see a larger print of Albrecht Dürer's Melancholia
Along with a stairsaw, bowsaw, brass infill rabbet plane, and a variety of coachmaker's planes (why are small planes like these always called coachmakers planes?) is Bill's first project, a copy of the plane seen in the bottom of the sixteenth century woodcut by Albrecht Dürer above.  To make his plane, Bill measured the width of the woman's hand in his photocopy, then compared it to his wife's hand to gain a sense of proportion.

The trio of planes made here were also patterned after a plane seen in a Dürer woodcut.  After making the left-most plane, Bill thought it was too large, so he made a smaller version.  Finding that one also too large, he made his final version on the right.

Bill's craftwork is not limited to planes.  The scraper, spokeshave, and brace at the left were made from drawings Bill made by measuring originals in his own and other's collections.  The only parts that Bill doesn't make himself are the bits and blades.  Bill frequents garage sales and flea markets, always on the lookout for something useful.  Bill told me :  "I don't ever throw anything away."

Here is an image of Bill with his pride and joy - a close copy of the plane seen on the cover of "The Wooden Plane: Its History, Form and Function," by John M. Whelan. Bill also took measurements from several of the 20+ examples's that he owns.  The skate was ground down from a carpenter's square and the brass parts were all made by Bill.  Every time I'd ask where he got a part such as the threaded fence rod or the brass depth stop, Bill would reply: "I made it."  This plane took Bill about six days to make.

Meeting Bill was definitely the highlight of my day.  He even thanked me for being interested, and took my picture holding his favorite plane for his scrapbook.  What a cool guy!

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