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If you are one of the thousands of people who have taken a chair class at Michael Dunbar’s “The Windsor Institute,” then you have certainly used one of the travishers or spoon-bottomed planes from Crown Planes.
The makers of these fine tools, Leon Robbins, passed away earlier this month. If you don’t know the interesting story of how Robbins came to make chairmaking tools, I highly recommend you link over to Dunbar’s blog, where he has posted a fitting tribute to Robbins, one of the pioneering modern planemakers.
The good news here is that Crown Planes is still in business and making high-quality tools for making furniture and chairs. Jimmy White, who now runs the business, has promised to loan us a few tools in the coming months so we can publish a review of his wares.
Here are some supplies and tools we find essential in our everyday work around the shop. We may receive a commission from sales referred by our links; however, we have carefully selected these products for their usefulness and quality.
Are those planes really sitting on drywall screws? Why does that not seem like a good idea to me?
I bought a panel raising plane from Leon in the mid 1980s out of his workshop of the back of his house. He seemed like a great guy and a very practical planemaker.
I think using the tools he made to make things for future generations is the ultimate tribute we can pay to him. I plan to raise a panel this weekend in memoriam.
–Brian