Dovetailed Infill Jointer Plane By Wayne Anderson

Wayne Anderson is a contemporary infill plane maker working from Big Lake in Minnesota. His hand planes are like no other makers, and exhibit an almost “organic” fluidity to their lines and construction. Using gunmetal, steel, precious woods and exotic inlays, Anderson has carved out his own niche in the infill plane market.

Which is probably one of the main reasons I admire his work so much. Anderson is not concerned with knocking out the same old shapes and patterns made famous by the old masters, his inspiration seems to harken back to an even earlier period where metal planes were made by individuals for their own use. Wayne is more of a custom infill plane designer than a standard “batch made” planemaker.

Influenced by Italianate and neoclassical designs and often featuring acanthus leaves and deeply fluted mouldings, these planes would look perfectly at home in the workshops of the great violin makers of Cremona, for instance. They also exhibit many of the design features found in traditional Scottish infill planes, before designs were “standardised” in the mid to late 1800’s.

And I have to say I’m probably a little jealous. They’re the types of infill planes I would’ve loved to have made had I been more adventurous 20 years ago! Back then though it was hard enough for me to knock together a stock standard infill plane, let alone the inspired work that Anderson is now famous for. Nowadays if I was to make a similar plane it would, to me, just be an Anderson style knock off. Wayne has grabbed this particular market by the horns and made it his own. There’s little mistaking an Anderson plane.

So what of this particular plane? Well, once again, I grabbed the images from eBay (sometime in 2006 I think). From memory, Wayne had made it for a client but then the deal had fallen through and the client could no longer go through with the purchase. This proved to be a boon however as I seem to remember that it fetched about $2000 more on eBay than Anderson was originally going to sell it for. My memory isn’t always 100% reliable though so I may be mistaken on this — I may be confusing this plane with another of Wayne Anderson’s jointer planes which sold on eBay at around the same time.

I believe this plane was around 17-1/2″ in length and it appears to have a Indian rosewood infill (can’t remember if it was actually Indian rosewood or not). As you can see the dovetailing on this Scottish style jointer is also quite exquisite.

I will be showcasing more of Wayne Anderson’s work in the coming weeks and months. In the meantime check out the images below or, if you want more, take a look at the Wayne Anderson Infill Planes homepage.

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