Why I like Vintage Tools #4: The Alien Planer

Wow – that’s a beauty. How’s it working for you?

-- You can't get a hug from Facebook.

Betsy,
I haven’t had a chance to use it yet. Two of the blades are shot so I need to replace them. I just finished painting it and re-assembling it this evening. I am anxious to get the blades and put it to work.

-- Brian, Lebanon PA, If you aren’t having fun doing it, find something else to do.

Nice piece
Hope it works as good as it looks
Great Job

-- Jim, Kentucky

Man, with stuff like this, it almost doesn’t matter at all how well it works. The coolness factor is off the scale!

I have a similar addiction to hand tools.

Thanks for posting!

-- There's no tool like an old tool...

My addiction is saddly beginning to cross over to hand tools. I keep my addiction fed, and the wife gets to keep her addiction fed also. Her addicition is yelling at me.

-- Brian, Lebanon PA, If you aren’t having fun doing it, find something else to do.

You have made a graeat job of restoring this machine.A thing I love to do myself many of my mac hines (well a few ) are oldeerr machines which I totally redid myself like you did.I cannot quite see how it works is it self feeding or what please explain to me how it’s done.kindest regards Alistair

-- excuse my typing as I have a form of parkinsons disease

Alistar,
The only feed on this planer is manual power. It is basically an inverted jointer head so as you feed the stock through the planer, it surfaces the stock to the dimension desired. The maximum width is 12 inches, but it requires two passes for that width.

-- Brian, Lebanon PA, If you aren’t having fun doing it, find something else to do.

I have a planer thicknesser ala European models all in one however I recently bought a really nice jointer with a thicknessing attachment which goes on top of the jointer and is adjusted to the thickness desired i will post pic’s next few weeks to show it yours is a beauty well done Alistair

-- excuse my typing as I have a form of parkinsons disease

Oh, WOW, I Love these things!!! This is one old machine that has actually been on my want list for a long time. I saw one for the first time (online) a year or two ago and have always wanted one. Just too cool. Seems pretty dangerous without feed rollers though. Nice job on the restoration. Keep up the posts, I’m a huge ‘old tool’ junkie too and I’m enjoying them.

-- Check out my new website! http://www.blakeweberwoodworking.com

Beautiful. You could go into the tool restoration business for sure.

-- Bill from Lithia Springs, GA I love the smell of sawdust in the morning.

Nice job, Brian. Have you added an old Parks planer to your inventory yet? I see them for sale every once in awhile. I know parts are still available, and it’s a great planer.

-- Tim -- http://tmuli.com

Thanks to all for the comments. I am not sure about tool restoration as a profession, but it is fun when a tool turned out like this one did. I completed this one to this point in two days time, but there were countless hours spent researching and planning even before I had this one in my shop. I saw one of these on another website and knew I had to get one so I knew what mine was going to look like.

As far as danger is concerned, it appears to be really stable, and it even has kickback dogs to help prevent accidents. I guess the quality of the table is really an important fact for this tool: too many pits and scars would not be a very good thing. It definitely requires a push stick. This plane is just an inverted jointer, so as you are pushing the stock through, you are actually moving your hands away from the cutting head.

A Parks planer… well maybe, but that is way down on my “want” list. I am too busy annoying my wife with my current projects. She keeps point out that winter is coming and she does not want to worry about snow on her car when she has to go to work.

-- Brian, Lebanon PA, If you aren’t having fun doing it, find something else to do.

Bee-yoo-ti-ful! That baby looks sweet. Hope you love using it.

-- Every cloud has a silver lining

Thanks Kenn. I have to find some new blades for it, I hooked it up to the motor just so I could hear it run. Can’t wait to make some chips fly.

-- Brian, Lebanon PA, If you aren’t having fun doing it, find something else to do.