Note: This is a classic reprint of an article from NEWS #014, December 1993.
In this article I intend to discuss the three types of Fillister Planes used by joiners in the British Isles and overseas colonies (including America).
What is a Fillister Plane?
It is a special purpose plane for cutting rebates. It differs from a rebate plane in having a fence to guide the plane. Also fillisters usually have a “knicker” or secondary cutting knife and a depth stop.
Types of Fillisters
There are two broad categories of fillisters:
- planes which are “fenced” to plane a rebate into the face and edge of the stuff
- planes which are fenced to plane rebates parallel with the face of the stuff.
Type (a) is known as a side fillister, type (b) as a back fillister. As type (b) was invariably used to stick rebates on sash stuff one variety was known as a Sash Fillister.
Side Fillisters
Side fillisters have a fence, a knicker and a depth stop. The basic concept can be enhanced by additional “extras", e.g. type of boxing, wood or brass or brass screw action stop etc., handle to the stock, exotic timbers. The iron is always set on the skew. Side fillisters can rebate along and across the grain. In reality they were seldom used by joiners, the plough and common rebate, or the Badger, serving the purpose. They were more commonly used by Cabinet makers.
Back Fillisters
These were the essential plane of the joiner being used to rebate stuff for sash windows, also jamb linings, gauging floor boards etc. Nicholson, early C19th, talks of throwing shavings on and off the bench. A clearer way for the non user to visualise the two types of back fillister is to realise that the back fillister exists in an "old" and "new" form.
Old Pattern Back Fillister
In this plane the stock is rebated and has a plough type stop. No knicker is provided. This has two disadvantages.
- The cutting action is not visible to the user.
- lf the grain runs the rebate is rough.
New Pattern Back Fillister: The Sash Fillister
The plane has an eye opening towards the users left hand. The cutting action is unobscured. A knicker is provided to sever the fibres. This gives a clean cutting action. In sash making the "sticking on" and "sticking down" lines must be finished true from the planes. If they are not the sash will have open shoulders and scribes and probably be a slack fit. Unlike modern windows traditional sashes were precise, they must be water tight, if not wood and householder rot.
The iron is on the skew and the plane is subject to extras. All back fillisters are quickly identifiable by the outrigger fence. Superficially they are like ploughs.
Next to the plough they were the joiner's most expensive tool. First rate joiners treasured their ploughs and fillisters. Hence toolmakers lavished extras on these tools. Many patent fences were devised. Screw staves and metallic staves were great time savers and today are much desired by collectors.
A well sharpened and correctly adjusted sash fillister is a most pleasant tool to use. For sweetness of cutting action it equals the sash moulding planes. But of course they are partners in a technique which had reached total perfection before being displaced by the Spindle.
Patent metallic sash fillisters were also made for circular work or shaped sashes. That is another topic