External Screw Knob

There are eight block planes with wooden knobs and a twenty-degree bedding angle that were started on or just after 1929. These planes would have had a screw thread cast into the body and a wooden knob threaded to screw onto this cast thread. The planes in question are the #07, #45, #66, #68, #75, #87, #97 and the #700. I am suggesting the time Millers Falls switched how a knob is secured to a block plane to be in the mid-forties based on what I have observed.

As always, a box with a date stamp would be helpful, but I will start this with the stamps on the irons. One big assumption I have is that MF switched from the Greenfield iron to the Solid Tool Steel iron around 1949. One or two examples do not confirm or discount a timeline. You need several examples for this to be conclusive.

I am going to list all the block planes I have that have an external knob screw. The first column is the plane number. Second column is the plant location on the iron stamp, or solid tool steel. Third column years that iron was produced. Fourth column would show an early conversion based in the Greenfield and Millers Falls irons. Planes with an STS iron will always have an external screw and does not offer any evidence of an early conversion before 1949.