David Fleming, Cabinetmaker

As a student of James Krenov I make wooden planes and teach others how to make them. I also like old things, so I have a modest collection of metal Stanley/Bailey bench, block, and specialty planes, most about 100 years old now. I recondition these for use, and I do use the specialty planes and a few of the block planes. I rarely, though, use any of the bench planes, which I find not as friendly or versatile as my wooden planes. 

At the Handworks event in Iowa in 2017 I had the opportunity to meet Konrad Sauer and to try the infill hand planes that he has been making for a dozen years or so. If you’re not familiar, see Sauer and Steiner to see some of his work. Based on tools made by Scottish/English makers Spiers, Mathieson, and Norris, in the 1800’s, Konrad’s planes are exquisite objects, made entirely by hand, with dovetailed bodies of steel and bronze with infills of rare and exotic woods. Besides being exceedingly handsome and well made, they are very fine and satisfying to use. At that meeting in Iowa, I was taking microns-thick shavings from highly figured maple and leaving a perfect surface. 

While I would dearly love to own a piece of Konrad’s work, unfortunately it’s not a practical option for me (read: I can’t afford it). But my interest in infill planes, as a type, was whetted, and so I started looking at antique tools.

The plane pictured above is a “handled smoothing plane” made by Stewart Spiers of Ayr, Scotland, in about 1870-1880 (it’s very difficult to date these with any precision). The iron is by Robert Sorby, of Sheffield, and the chip breaker by Thomas Mathieson of Glasgow. These may or not be original to the plane, but are of the period regardless. The iron is clearly laminated (i.e., a piece of hardened steel forge welded to the softer body). The steel sole and sides of the plane are dovetailed together, and the Brazillian rosewood infill blocks are through-pinned in place. After flattening the plane sole and back of the iron, and grinding and honing the cutting edge, the plane performs well. With more fine tuning we’ll see if it can come anywhere close to Konrad’s tools.

I also picked up a similar Mathieson plane of about the same vintage and construction as the Spiers (some tool historians believe that Spiers actually made many of the Mathieson-branded plane bodies until late in the 19th century).

More to come …

Several years ago my friend Tak Yoshino, a master chairmaker in Fujikawaguchiko, introduced me to Tokio Inoue. Inoue san is the proprietor of Inoue Hamono in Sumida, Tokyo. “Hamono” roughly translates to “edge tool” – so a shop where one would find knives and/or woodworking tools. The shop was started over 100 years ago by Inoue san’s grandfather, later managed by his father and now himself. His son is involved in the business, which bodes well for the shop for at least another several decades.

I was in Tokyo again in the fall of 2018, visiting my son who has lived there for seven years. And when in Tokyo, I never miss the chance to visit Inoue Hamono. On this occasion I was joined by my friend and fellow woodworker Glenn DeSouza, who was near the tail end of a stay in Tokyo of several months. Glenn is a fine photographer, and provided these photos from our visit. Inoue san, his wife, and son are gracious hosts, extremely knowledgeable and helpful. Glenn and I indulged our passions for fine tools by purchasing a few items 🙂

In addition to teaching small classes on my own, over the past eight or nine years (see Schedule), I also teach classes in the Fundamentals of Traditional Woodworking series for the Southwest School of Woodworking here in Phoenix. Jamie Hanson, one of my students from the spring 2016 class maintains a blog, and wrote about his experience at the Southwest School. He included a few kind words about me, which I appreciate very much:

A WORD IN PRAISE OF MY TEACHER

The man who taught my class was David Fleming (he has his own site here).

David was my kind of teacher: he has a mastery of his subject, and he has the sense to know how much of that subject a novice needs to know. He was very good at communicating just the right amount of information — enough to keep me interested, but not so much that I became bewildered or discouraged.

He was also laudably patient: answer every question and never making me feel like a dumb-dumb (e..g, when I confused camber and camphor).

Thank you, Jamie — I enjoyed working with you very much, and hope to have the chance to work with you again in the future.

You can read Jamie’s entire post and review of the Southwest School here …