A snipe is a marsh bird with a long and slender bill so it seems natural to name the snipe’s bill plane after the bird. After all, the snipe’s bill plane has a sharp snout.
These rare planes were generally sold in pairs to cabinetmakers who made their own mouldings for furniture. It is helpful to have a mirror plane when you run into difficult grain because sometimes a 180 is just what you need to do to get the job done. My sad little plane has lost his companion but is still helpful in the shop.
The blade is set at a high angle–almost like a scraper. This one is at 55 degrees–also known as “middle pitch”.
These planes were used most often to refine quirks, the little valley transitions in mouldings. Dedicated moulding planes can create highly refined profiles that are finished and ready to go. Mouldings made in pieces by H&R planes, however, sometimes suffer at the transition spots. H&Rs generally do not cut well at the edges. Hollow planes especially cut only the inside of the transition.
So along comes Mr. Snipe’s Bill plane to save the day. It can also be used along a batten to start a moulding feature.
But I don’t place much value in this use. There are many other easier ways to do that. My favorite way is to use the same batten but run a shoulder plane corner along it. That creates a really nice “vee” that can be quite helpful in profile building.
And we return to the original task–refining mouldings. In those pre-sandpaper days the snipe’s bill ruled the day. I can imagine a day when our hapless cabinetmaker was tired–they worked very long hours–and he was using a chisel edge to sharpen a the gullet of a finished moulding. And then disaster struck–his chisel slipped and trashed the moulding with its escape path etched across the fine plane work. OUCH! Bad day for Mr. Cabinetmaker. Time to trim a bit and try to salvage the piece of trim that took hours to create. All the time cursing and making vows to finally buy that snipe’s pair on the wish list. Those children will just have to go barefooted another season. That’s OK. It will toughen them up. The world can be a cruel place but snipe’s bill planes can soften the blows.