Figure 28.—About 1631: The preceding illustrations emphasize the divergent appearance of European and Anglo-American tools. This, however, was not always the case. The woodworker's shop by the Dutch engraver Jan Van Vliet suggests the similarity between English and European tool types in the 17th century. Note in particular the planes, axe, brace, and auger as compared to Moxon. (Library of Congress, Division of Prints and Photographs.)
Figure 29.—1690: The cabinetmaker's shop from Elias Pozelius, Orbus Pictus nach Zeichnugen der Susanna Maria Sandrart, Nürnberg, 1690. (Library of Congress.)
Figure 30.—1568: The woodworker's shop from Hans Sachs, Eygentliche Beschrerbung Aller Stande ... mit Kunstreichen Figuren [by Jost Amman], Frankfurt, 1568. (Library of Congress.)
The divergence from European to an Anglo-American hand-tool design and the approximate date that it occurred can be suggested by a comparison of contemporary illustrations. The change in the wooden bench plane can be followed from the early 17th century through its standardization at the end of the 18th century. Examine first the planes as drawn in the 1630's by the Dutchman Jan Van Vliet (fig. 28), an etcher of Rembrandt's school at Leiden, and also the examples illustrated by Porzelius (fig. 29) and by Jost Amman (fig. 30). Compare them to Moxon's plate (fig. 31) from the Mechanick Exercises (3rd ed., 1703) and to the splendid drawing of the bench plane from André-Jacob Roubo's L'Art du menuisier, published in 1769 (fig. 32). In all of them, the rounded handle, or tote, and the fore-horn appear, characteristics of both European and English planes of the period before 1750. The similarity ends with the mass production of hand tools from the shops of the English toolmaking centers, principally Sheffield. An illustration from a pattern and design book of the Castle Hill Works, Sheffield, dating from the last quarter of the 18th century (fig. 33), shows the achieved, familiar form of the bench planes, as well as other tools. The use of this form in America is readily documented in Lewis Miller's self-portrait while working at his trade in York, Pennsylvania, in 1810 (fig. 34) and by the shop sign carved by Isaac Fowle in 1820 for John Bradford (fig. 35). In each example, the bench plane clearly follows the English prototype.
Figure 31.—1703: Detail of the bench planes from Moxon's Mechanick Exercises.
