Wooden plane hammer marks

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  Over a number of years,  I have acquired several wooden planes which appear to have been struck (adjusted) with a round "waffle-faced" hammer.
The planes have been purchased from a variety of different locations; both in the U.S. and from England. The one other feature shared by all these planes is they are either 18th c. or early 1800's. Has anyone else noticed this on planes?  Does anyone  have one of the hammers ( or maybe its not a hammer which made the mark-comments).
 
I use a dead blow hammer or small brass hammer. The larger steel hammers do leave dents and I try not to damage the plane any more than when I aquired it. By adjusting it with the steel hamer you have a good chance of cracking it. This is why you see so many damaged planes. Years ago they were a dime a dozen and I do not see alot of good old (18th and early 19th century)user planes the way I used to.

hope this helps, Mark
 
Thanks Mark.
What I'm curious about is why this waffle- faced hammer mark seems to show up ( at least in my 300+ wooden planes) only on 18thc and early 19thc. planes. Does anyone else have similar marks on planes and do they occur mainly on the early planes?
 
I, too, have noticed such hammer marks on wooden planes, but hadn't given it much thought prior to this question coming in. I can't really answer the specific question, but thought I'd provide a little bit of potentially relevant information which may help to start some discussion.

Smith' _Key_ (1816) shows two "hammers" which have textured faces. They are the Lathing hammer and the Brick hammer, though both have octagonal faces rather than round ones. I can envision a carpenter reaching for a lathing hammer to adjust his plane if it was closest at hand.

The 1845 R. Timmins & Sons Pattern Book also shows a wide range of hammers, and a few of them are illustrated as having textured faces. These include Glazier's Hammers (round and octagonal faces), Lath Hammers (round and octagonal faces), Brick Hammers (octagonal faces), Gardeners Hammers (squarish face), and Orange Chest Hammers (square face). None of the London or Lancashire pattern hammers are illustrated with textured faces. Based on this limited data, the most likely candidates would seem to be Glazier's hammers or Lath(ing) hammers. I'm thinking the latter may be the best bet.

If Moxon, Nicholson and Charles Hayward are to be believed, it would seem that the standard trade practice was to use a hammer to set, adjust and release the irons in wooden planes. I'd been taught to use a hammer to strike the iron and a wooden mallet to strike the wooden stock of the plane, so was somewhat surprised when I looked at these references with this question in mind. I mostly continue to use the hammer and mallet combination, but might have to rethink this if I were still working at a living history site.

Hope this has been of some interest.

Don McConnell
Eureka Springs, AR
 
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