People have been making tools for half a million years, and the general shape and application of modern hand tools were formulated as long ago as Roman times. Most ancient tools are instantly recognizable for what they are by today’s craftspeople. Hand tools are an excellent example of ergonomic design—the worker knows better than anyone what type of tool is easiest to use, and craftspeople often made their own tools until the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century.
The earliest manufactured tool was probably the ax, made of flint or stone in Neolithic times (4000–5000 B.C.E.). An early example of the specialization of tools was the development of the adze, a primitive type of chisel. In comparison with the ax blade, which was securely mounted to a handle with the cutting edge parallel to it, the adze was more lightly bound, with the cutting edge at a right angle to the handle. The ax was designed to split wood, and the adze was invented to remove strips of wood in order to shape it.
The saw and the bow drill were developed in ancient Egypt. Saws were made of copper or bronze, and the teeth were sharpened on the back edge so that the cutting took place as the worker pulled the saw inward, to avoid buckling the soft metal. An early advance in technology was the setting of the saw teeth in alternate directions; this type of blade, in carrying away the sawdust and leaving a kerf (saw-slot) slightly wider than the saw blade, reduced friction. Early carpenters, having no screws or nails, secured their constructions with wooden dowels (round pegs). The bow drill was used as long ago as 3000 B.C.E. for carrying out various drilling operations.
Planes
In the first century C.E., Roman craftspeople already possessed a range of carpenter’s planes not much different from those of today—with a wedged cutting iron and a cleared-away holding stock to allow the unrestricted escape of shavings. About 1860 in Boston, Massachusetts, an American toolmaker, Leonard Bailey, filed the first of several patents for bench planes. His name can still be found on many factory-made planes as an acknowledgment of his contribution.
The modern bench plane is made up of a steel cutting blade set into a triangular casting, called a frog, which in turn is mounted on the plane base. The blade is pressed from carbon–chrome steel, is surface ground to a precise thickness, and has a beveled cutting edge, hardened and tempered. The edge must be honed by the user, the factory edge being unsuitable for fine work. The frog and the base are cast from gray iron and machined on the appropriate surfaces to provide accurate seating of the frog and to provide smoothness on the bottom of the plane, the sole, which comes into contact with the wood. In some designs, the cutting edge is presharpened, and a disposable blade is clamped in place on the frog. With wooden planes, the frog is cut into the body (stock) of the plane. Molding planes have profiled cutters, ground to shape for cutting various standard sections.
