Like many people, Konrad Sauer was drawn to woodworking as a solution to purchase handcrafted furnishings he couldn’t in any other case afford. However he was annoyed with a few of his hand instruments. “My hand planes weren’t doing what I assumed they had been able to,” he mentioned.
Sauer’s seek for a greater aircraft led him to an vintage instrument vendor, who requested Sauer if he had tried an infill aircraft and satisfied him to purchase a classic Spiers smoother, with the basic metal exterior, rosewood infill, thick blade, and stable mechanics.
“There was a noticeable distinction in efficiency and functionality,” he mentioned. “The suggestions was so completely different. With curly maple, for instance, I received a transparent, tactile sense of going with the grain, then towards the grain. It was like driving a automobile with actually good suspension.”
The coffin-sided smoother had no deal with, and Sauer preferred the compact form. “There have been so many choices for pushing, pulling, and skewing it. It felt like pushing a rock that spit out a gorgeous shaving.”
Sauer came upon {that a} woodworking pal, Joe Steiner, owned one or two infill planes and shared his ardour for them. Sadly, within the late Nineteen Nineties, simply as the 2 woodworkers began on the lookout for different infill fashions, the collectors’ market received scorching, powered by eBay, a brand-new shopping for instrument, and the classic planes had been exhausting to come back by.
Sauer and Steiner then had the identical concept. Previous Norris and Spiers infill smoothers had been made by hand, so what would cease them from making comparable planes themselves?
It was quite a bit like Sauer’s preliminary attraction to woodworking, however completely different. “This was scarier than making furnishings, as a result of metalworking was concerned,” he mentioned. “So I framed steel as an odd wooden with unusual working properties and determined that I might study as I went.”
“It was a mixture of naivete and youthful exuberance,” he mentioned. “My highschool store trainer at all times requested, ‘What’s the worst that may occur? You have got a colossal failure and lose a while and supplies.’”
Making planes for enjoyable
Sauer and Steiner, who stay about 90 minutes aside in Ontario, Canada, put their heads collectively and started finding out outdated planes and sharing designs with a neighborhood firm, Shepherd Device, that was gearing up on the time to promote infill kits designed for DIYers to deal with at house.
Retracing the steps of the unique makers, Sauer and Steiner minimize the perimeters and sole of their first aircraft from flat steel plates, utilizing a hacksaw, after which sawed and filed and peened tight dovetails to affix the elements. Subsequent got here the rosewood infill, with the again piece angled to help the blade.
The 2 pals made the transferring elements by hand too: lever cap, cap screw, and pivot pin. The thick aircraft irons got here from customized blade makers.
“I put within the blade at 3 a.m., and the aircraft labored in addition to my Spiers did,” Sauer recalled. “That’s what I wanted to know.”
Though their final aim was to breed the curved-sided coffin smoothers that had first captivated them, Sauer and Steiner began with less complicated designs, with parallel sides and a deal with for pushing. That mentioned, they traded gentle metal for brass of their second aircraft, and improved a couple of different particulars as nicely.
That lovely brass infill smoother, made in late 1997, was the instrument that launched their enterprise.
May this be a enterprise?
Whereas the 2 pals had been demonstrating hand-tool use at a small-town craft present close to their houses, a girl wandered over to the bench, watching Sauer use his stunning brass smoothing aircraft. After chatting with him for some time, she requested if he would make her one similar to it.
After the present, Sauer mentioned, he and Steiner “sat in a doughnut store and wrote out how [plane-making] may work as a enterprise, what our prices can be, and our hourly wages, after which what aircraft costs would have to be. We got here up with a quantity, and we each gasped.”
After calling the client again and beating across the bush, Sauer got here out with the quantity and was shocked to listen to the voice on the opposite finish of the road say, “Nice. When will or not it’s executed?”
“We knew proper then—there’s a enterprise concept right here that neither of us anticipated,” Sauer mentioned. The 12 months was 2001 and the 2 pals formally registered as a partnership, holding their day jobs.
Two turn into one
In some ways Sauer and Steiner had been good for the enterprise. Each had been passionate woodworkers. Joe Steiner was a technician by commerce, who labored in a dental lab making enamel. Sauer was a graphic artist in advertising and promoting who deeply understood the ideas of excellent design and aesthetics—a part of what makes his world-class customized hand planes so wanted.
One in every of their first duties was discovering totally cured rosewood, which is completely suited to aircraft making. Rosewood that has been seasoned for 30 years or so has a novel high quality: after slowly compressing and stabilizing over many cycles of seasonal motion, it’ll broaden and contract only a few thousandths of an inch.
Sauer and Steiner made all of the parallel-sided infill planes they may consider—panel, jointer, and shoulder—after which realized to make the unhandled, coffin-sided smoother Sauer had fallen in love with. “When Joe and I had been growing the planes, we didn’t inform anyone, only a few trusted folks we swore to secrecy,” Sauer mentioned. “You solely have one probability to make a primary impression.”
Sauer and Steiner’s intuition was proper, and prospects supported the enterprise as quickly as the 2 males launched it. Though they by no means requested for fee till a aircraft was executed, many early prospects despatched the entire quantity up entrance, to assist the brand new enterprise with money movement. “We had by no means met these folks they usually needed to help us,” Sauer mentioned. “I assumed, ‘These are the sort of folks I need in my life.’”
As orders flowed in, nevertheless, issues started to emerge within the partnership. Though they had been working from the identical plan and patterns, they had been 1-1/2 hours aside, and their planes had been popping out a little bit completely different. Additionally, Sauer was able to focus full-time on the rising enterprise, however Steiner wasn’t. “I used to be 10 years into advertising and promoting, and I needed my soul again,” Sauer mentioned. “Joe nonetheless loved what he did on the dental lab. So he mentioned, ‘I’m joyful to get out of the best way. You run with it.’”
Sauer stored Steiner’s identify within the enterprise, and his former companion nonetheless attends instrument reveals to assist out.
Daring new route
After working from conventional fashions and templates for 10 years, Sauer started designing wholly authentic infill planes, which now account for 95% of his enterprise. The daring change of route re-energized him at a time when he was rising bored and contemplating strolling away from the enterprise.
Just like the aircraft that began Sauer’s journey into aircraft making, it was a single aircraft that modified it. A devoted buyer, after shopping for three customary planes from Sauer, requested him to utterly reimagine the following one. He preferred the general size of classic panel planes however nothing else about them—not the clunky, Victorian seems or the heavy weight. “He challenged me to rethink your entire factor and make it extra trendy,” Sauer mentioned. “There was no time constraint and no finances constraint.”
Ten months later, Sauer despatched the client detailed sketches and a mock-up, and he liked the brand new design.
The brand new aircraft was in contrast to something on the collectors market: low-slung and lighter weight, curvy and cozy, and undeniably trendy. “I needed it to appear to be it’s transferring when it’s standing nonetheless,” Sauer mentioned. He referred to as the brand new infill aircraft the K13, adopting a extra easy nomenclature for his authentic designs. The Ok is for Konrad and the quantity refers back to the size.
As quickly as the brand new aircraft hit Sauer’s web site, orders for extra rolled in. A person in New York ordered the K13, then a K9 and K18, after which requested Sauer to make an authentic shoulder aircraft too. He ordered a set of 5 in 1/4-in. width increments, and Sauer scaled the peak and size of every one accordingly.
“I knew immediately this was going to be my new route,” Sauer mentioned. “I wanted to place in these first 10 years to have the ability to deal with the problem, and it got here simply on the proper time.”
By creating infill planes for the trendy period, Sauer introduced his profession full circle, reaching into his design background to make one thing completely private.
To see extra of Sauer’s instruments, go to his web site (sauerandsteiner.com) or Instagram feed (@sauer_and_steiner).
Asa Christiana is FWW’s editor-at-large.
| From High quality Woodworking #315
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