Spill plane

Dandelion was asking in the tea room if anyone got any homemade gifts this Christmas. Well, aside from C-H Jnr's hamper and some tomato chutney, I didn't, but I did give a few homemade gifts. This one was made for a Clearview stove owning woodworker.



It's a spill plane. The steeply bedded and heavily skewed cutter, and the shape of the plane body and wedge, cause it to take shavings that curl up tightly and are ejected out of the hole in the side. They burn steadily for a few tens of seconds, and give a much better reach for fire lighting than a match.

I meant to reply to this when I first saw it but got sidetracked.

What a great bit of kit CH. Does it work with any wood, or just certain types? And is there something about a Clearview stove that needs a longer reach? I use long matches, but only because I don't have an such elegant solution as yours.

Ah, I can see it now on the big computer screen rather than the Kindle. I couldn't work out how the curl worked as I had envisaged it curling the other way & wondered how it ended up straight when it came out (sorry, I think in pictures and it has to look right in my head before I can understand things). It is, of course, quite lovely.

Another beautiful piece of kit, Chilli. I hadn't spotted the curliness until Ploshkin made her comment.

I didn't mean that Clearview stoves had any more need for longer matches than any other, but they are a top end stove, and most of the owners I know are quite enthusiasts about their woodburning, so likely to be fond of their accessories !

Relatively straight grained softwood works the best. You need a piece about 3/4 to 1 inch thick, and as foot or so long. The shaving rolls up tightly, and emerges through the hole in the side as a long, conical spiral wound "tube", as you can just about see.

Spill planes are mostly a thing from the past; at the time they were popular it would have been more common to have naked flames available to transfer around with a spill - lighting the fire from a candle, lighting your pipe from the fire, etc. Now they are mosly a bif of fun, perhaps a nice object to sit on the mantle piece and intrigue visitors. And handy when the long matches run out !