A Brass Badged Sargent Made Craftsman #414C.

Here is a Brass Badged Sargent Made Craftsman #414C. I don’t normally restore Craftsman planes anymore. Not because they are not great users, they are, but because they usually have a low resale value. I don’t really know the value of this Brass Badged Sargent Made Craftsman #414C, its probably not extremely valuable, but it fits into my Sargent collection nicely.

 

No its not a Sargent 5409, but the other one?

I’ve got a very strict rule about computers. After the 2nd cocktail, I don’t return work emails and I don’t buy on ebay. But, who follows rules after the 2nd cocktail?

Apparently not me. The work rule is easy. Who wants to work once the fun starts. So I made this impulse purchase. Its 2 planes. I thought one was a Sargent #5409. It was all there, the thin casting, the steel insert in the adjustment knob, the twisted lateral and a corrugated bottom.

The problem!

The problem was the corrugated bottom was on the “other plane”.

A little bummed but I still had a decent type 3 Sargent 409. It’s got an American Beauty cutter, so I know that’s not original. I need to find out about the American Beauty part, but Sargent didn’t make a cutter back then with the round hole at the bottom of the cutter.

The other surprise was I was sure the other plane was a Defiance. But it had a corrugated sole and I didn’t think the Defiance came corrugated. Well come to find out, in 1939 (yep for 1 year) Defiance made a corrugated. Since the #1204 Defiance was made from 1932-1953, and the #1204C was only made in 1939 I’m going to assume it fairly rare.

But here is the Sargent type 3 #409 anyhow. Look for the Defiance in days to come.

If you know ANYTHING about the “American Beauty” Iron, I’d love to here from you. I know there is an American Beauty company in business today, I just don’t know if it’s the same, and they don’t do planes anymore.

 

A Sargent #5418 ready for Service.

In between getting a bunch of new old planes ready for resale I decided to resurrect this Sargent #5418.

This was one of those impulse buys. It was just a base and frog that had already been refinished. Anything in the #5400 series  is fairly scarce, so I snapped it up.

This one has the 2 piece adjuster. I remade the tote from a piece of Honduras Rosewood.

Unfortunately the cutter is not the right vintage. It’s a bit newer than the plane itself.  

A Sargent #410 restoration

So last time we talked about making a new mahogany tote for a type 4 Sargent bench plane I found at a flea market.

This one was a little different. The tote screw had been replaced with a larger diameter version. I’ll assume what ever happened to the original tote, also stripped the threads so a larger on was fashioned.

Also a type 4 would typically have metal knob and tote screws, but this one has brass. Were they changed when the tote screw was re-made? I’m guessing we’ll never know.

Here is the before and after pictures.

And here are the after.

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Making a Sargent Mahogany Tote

I picked up this nice #410, but it needed a Mahogany tote.

 

Comments welcomed on the forum.

Here is the original ‘Making a Tote’ page

 

Keep in mind when making a Sargent tote the angle of the rod is different than a Stanley so a Stanley template will not work.

A piece of old mahogany from a friend needed some sizing.

 

Comments welcomed on the forum.

The Sargent #411

Updated version is here

Sargent #409 with a Brass name plate.

I saw a posting on Ebay that looked like this:

Besides the upside down lever cap, something looked different. I thought the logo looked brass, so I contacted the seller. These Sargent planes with brass inserts were produced in limited runs sometime between 1927 and 1939. I put a max bid and won it for the exact max amount. How lucky is that? This is the first time I’ve seen one on eBay, and there were 3 at the same time, all different sellers. Talk about coincidence. A #407 had a starting bid of $270 (it did not sell) and a 414 that I lost the bid on. I wasn’t as aggressive on the 414, but glad I got the #409. It’ll fit in my collection well. The #414 had the brass inlay in the sole.

You’ll note some of the inserts were rectangular and some were oval.

Here are the #407 and #414 off ebay just for documentation.

**

And finally here is my #409

Fulton or Fulton Tool Company.

The problem with being on a quest for knowledge is the endless circles you often get stuck in, and the off roads that follow. I’m always looking for information on older Sargent hand planes. So recently I bought a hand plane off ebay that is an obvious early Sargent 409. It’s got Rosewood, a type 4 base, with a type 3 frog, and a “Fulton Tool Co” cutter.

The type 4 base dates it to 1911 to 1918.

I know Sargent made most of the Fulton planes for Sears, so I wanted to see what they were.

So off I go to find out what “Fulton Tool Co” is. My original research brought me to one of 2 conclusions. The first possibility was the Fulton Tool Company was a steel manufacture that made tools and accessories along with plane irons. The second was Fulton Tool Com were early Fulton planes.

Further research showed all of the planes I could find with Fulton Tool Co cutters seemed to be early Sargent’s. So could these just be Fulton? Was the Sears branded Fulton and Fulton Tool Company the same?

Even further research shows that the Craftsman brand came about in 1927, whereas Sears started selling Fulton in either 1905 or 1908. This lead me to believe it was possible that Fulton Tool Company could have been the early branding, and after Sears started to market Craftsman, Fulton became a secondary line.

This theory was further complicated when I bought a United Hardware and Tool Company catalog reprint from 1925. This shows the following photos.

The Logo

And the hand planes

So its fairly obvious that in 1925 these planes were NOT Sargent made. But could they still be the Sears rebranded?

So do I need to start finding early Craftsman catalogs to work this out? According to this site, (http://home.comcast.net/~alloy-artifacts/craftsman-early-tools.html#fulton) In the pre-Craftsman days, Fulton appeared to be the most popular brand offered by the Sears for tools such as saws, axes, planes, chisels, hammers, pliers, and many other items. References to Fulton tools appear in Sears catalogs at least as early as 1908, with illustrations showing either "Fulton" or "Fulton Tool Co." on the tools.

There is some further interesting history (http://www.searsarchives.com/history/index.htm) about Sears.

So at least for right now, I’m going to go on the assumption that either  "Fulton Tool Co."  or  "Fulton" Branded tools where marketed rebranded tools for Sears. "Fulton Tool Co." probably existed prior to 1927. To be determined will be when Sargent stopped manufacturing them. Since later model Fulton’s are made by Sargent as well, they must have won the contract back at some point.

It’s known that Sears put the contract out to bid for the tools, I don’t know the details or derations of the contracts, so that’s some more information to be gathered.

I hope you found this interesting, and please contact me if you have ANY information regarding anything about Sargent hand planes.

Here are some other examples I’ve managed to dig up. The are just internet found pictures.

Pictures of a Fulton as shown in the United Hardware and Tool Company catalog.

According to Roger Smith in PATENTED TRANSITIONAL & METALLIC PLANES IN AMERICA Fulton was made by Sargent except for 1925, and he states in 1925 they were made by  United Hardware and Tool Company

 

Sargent type 4 Bench Plane – 400 series

moved to http://www.timetestedtools.com/sargent-5400-series.html

Keep in mind, Sargent type study is a confusing work in progress. Please email me your example and expect things to change from time to time.  All dates are from Dave Heckel’s book unless otherwise stated.

Its got a type 3 cutter  (1910-1918)

• A type 3 cap.                (1910-1918)
• One piece yoke
• Replacement  knob and tote so this is unknown
• Plane number behind frog
• Steel knob and tote nuts
• Steel Adjuster knob
• Sargent stamped behind knob

This is the same as indicated by HMike

Old Sargent Planes #2: Typing the type 2 or 3 409c (or maybe 5409)

 

Keep in mind, Sargent type study is a confusing work in progress. Please email me your example and expect things to change from time to time.  All dates are from Dave Heckel’s book unless otherwise stated.

So again I find myself engrossed in the type information found in Dave
Heckel’s guide, and HMike’s
Blog.

I bought this because real early corrugated planes are not as common place as
some others. And as usually dating them can be a bit of a challenge.

The lever cap has the number and the cap, which means it could be a type 1, 2
or 3.

The frog puts it around a type 3, assuming all type 2’s had the horseshoe
lateral.

The base also put it at a type 3. The thin casting and squared post seem to
correspond to type 3 as well.

The adjuster however puts it at a type 2, with the steel insert.

The iron is also a clear type 2 iron with the oval logo and USA in the
center.

So here it is in all its glory.

My guess at this point is I didn’t find one of the Sargent enthusiast well
sought after 5409, but a very early 409c, with Sargent using up some of the
parts. Of course there is also the possibility that its a very late 5409, with
sargent using some of the new 409C inventory on the plane. Further investigation
may be needed.