Tool type
Plow & Combination Plane
Fenced planes that cut grooves, dados, beads and mouldings using interchangeable cutters. The Stanley 45 and 55 are the famous ones.
- 5 models
History
The combination plane was Stanley's answer to a chest full of wooden moulding planes: one body, two fence rods, and a boxed set of cutters. The 45 does grooves, rebates, beads and dados well. The 55, marketed as 'a planing mill within itself', added moulding profiles and 55 cutters, and is the most over-promised tool Stanley ever sold - it will cut those profiles, slowly, on cooperative straight-grained stock.
How to choose one
Buy for completeness. A 45 with both rods, the correct depth stop, the slitter and a full cutter box is worth several times a body with three cutters, and the missing parts are the expensive bit.
Sources
- reference-site
Patrick Leach's Blood & Gore (Stanley plane model-by-model commentary) — Patrick Leach
Models
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Record No. 405 Multi-Plane
Record's equivalent of the Stanley 45, and the one you are more likely to find complete in its box.
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Stanley No. 45 Combination Plane
Stanley's workhorse combination plane: a skeletal body, two fence rods, a sliding section and a box of cutters that between them replace a rack of wooden plow and beading planes.
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Stanley No. 50 Light Combination Plane
The cut-down combination plane: lighter, simpler and cheaper than the 45, with no sliding section.
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Stanley No. 55 Universal Combination Plane
Marketed as 'a planing mill within itself'.
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Stanley No. 148 Tongue & Groove Plane
A match plane: cut the groove with one end, flip it end for end and cut the matching tongue with the other.