Finger Plane

Identity

Finger Plane — the name this entry uses as primary, though it is a genuinely contested name rather than a settled one, and the contest is this entry's own subject rather than something to smooth over on the way past. Alternate names, each checked: "palm plane" (Veritas's current retail name for its own line, and the term the Anthony Hay Cabinet Shop at Colonial Williamsburg uses for the same family, per the sibling Violin Maker's Plane entry's own sourcing); "thumb plane" (live forum and dealer usage); mameganna, literally "bean plane," per Wikipedia's "Finger plane" article (snippet-level, carried from the original run and not re-read; see Honest Gaps).

The identity problem, stated plainly rather than resolved. Sources use "finger plane" in overlapping ways. Wikipedia's "Finger plane" article (snippet-level only, not re-read) is carried as saying a finger plane is "a small plane, typically with a brass body, used by luthiers" [manual, relayed]. Joel Moskowitz, founder of Tools for Working Wood and Gramercy Tools, writes in his "A Look at Violin-Maker's Planes" article (read directly in this clearing pass) that "Finger Plane" is another term in use but, "in my view, that term is more suited for the family of small boxwood planes" that were "used by cabinetmakers and casemakers, not by luthiers." He says he chose "violin maker's planes" for the metal instrument planes because that is how Preston listed them. That is Moskowitz's stated personal view, and this entry records it as such, not as a trade-wide taxonomy. Against it stand the entry's own sources: Colonial Williamsburg's cabinet shop calls its luthier-origin tools violin, finger and palm planes [manual, relayed]; Lie-Nielsen sells its No. 101 as a "Violin Maker's Plane"; current makers and working luthiers use "finger plane" for instrument planes. Moskowitz's article also carries the "at least as far back as the 16th century" claim for violin-maker's planes and Preston 1909 size and blade details; those are his secondary claims, and the text consulted does not give a dated 16th-century object record.

How this entry uses the name. "Finger plane" is treated as a vernacular umbrella for several palm-sized detail planes, not as a separate family. "Palm plane," "thumb plane," "baby" or "bunny plane" and "violin maker's plane" overlap with it in live usage. Capability in this entry is keyed to physical configuration (sole, blade, mouth, depth method, size), never to the label.

One-line summary. A small, hand- or finger-held detail plane for localized fitting and trimming, made in many configurations (wooden or metal body, fixed or adjustable mouth, tap-set, screw-clamped or mechanically depth-adjusted iron, plain or toothed blade). Moskowitz would reserve the name for small boxwood cabinetmaker's and casemaker's planes; most current retail, forum and institutional usage applies it to instrument planes as well. This entry's research found the practitioner record does not sort cleanly into either camp: working luthiers call their own small wood-bodied planes, some of boxwood, "finger planes."

Family / category. Sits inside the palm-sized detail-plane space shared with Violin Maker's Plane, distinguished from a general block or smoothing plane by scale and task. Configurations vary: many examples lack a dedicated depth adjuster, but some (Lie-Nielsen's No. 101, Ibex's adjustable mouth) do not fit that description, so no adjustment trait is carried as a family rule. These planes exist to remove small, controlled amounts of material in tight, curved or localized places; they are not a substitute for a bench plane on broad reference faces, long-edge jointing or efficient bulk dimensioning (see Matching).

How NOT to use it

not-for

• Broad surfacing, flattening of reference faces, long-edge jointing, or efficient bulk dimensioning — a bench or block plane's job. (Small-area leveling and localized graduation are allowed; see Matching.)
• Broad bulk stock removal. Removal rate is model- and blade-specific: a plain narrow-mouth plane will clog on heavy cuts, but Lie-Nielsen sells a toothed No. 101 blade described as "great for quick, heavy stock removal" for localized roughing, with the warning that "something like a knot in pine can break the teeth so be careful around difficult spots" (read in this pass). Use a scraper or plain blade for final cleanup where appropriate.

dangerous
Context. No finger-plane-specific injury record or incident thread was located in the original run's searching. That is a research result, not a risk assessment and not a safety method. The plane is a sharp exposed iron used within fingertip range on small work, so a slipping workpiece, excessive force, a loose iron or an exposed stored edge can cause a laceration. The controls below follow the CCOHS guidance for sharp blades or edges (read in this pass: check the tool before each use, keep blades sharp because "dull blades require more force, increasing the chance of injury," cut on a stable surface or hold the item with a mechanical device, keep all body parts out of the cutting path including where the blade would go if it slipped, "do not use excessive pressure," store the tool securely) and the Lie-Nielsen and Veritas pages. CCOHS addresses sharp-edge hand tools in general, not planes; applying it here is this entry's reading, so the maker's instructions for the exact plane win.

Minimum safe-use sequence

• Inspect before use: body, sole, mouth, iron, cap, wedge or cross-pin, retention screw, and palm rest if fitted. Do not use a plane with a cracked body, a damaged or chipped iron, or retention parts that do not seat firmly.
• Use a sharp, undamaged iron. A dull edge needs more force. Fix a dull edge by resharpening; never compensate by tightening the clamp harder.
• Secure the work. Hold small or irregular pieces against a stable surface, in a vise, or in a mechanical holding device where practical, so the piece cannot slide or rotate into the stroke.
• Arrange the stroke so neither hand nor any body part is in the iron's possible slip path, including the path the iron would take if the plane or workpiece slipped. Where a grip puts a finger beside or ahead of the mouth, re-position the work or the hand before cutting. Cut-resistant gloves and eye protection are the CCOHS recommendation for sharp-edge work in general; whether gloves suit a given plane grip is a judgment for the user.
• Take controlled cuts with moderate pressure. Do not force a cut that stalls or chatters. Reduce the cut, resharpen, or change blade or sole rather than pushing harder.
• Follow the model-specific adjustment and clamping instructions. For the Lie-Nielsen No. 101, the maker says to loosen cap pressure slightly before adjusting the iron, then retighten, and not to overtighten. For tap-set wooden planes, tap with the plane resting where the iron's edge is clear of your hand.
• Handle the removed iron as a sharp edge, and hone it under control with the edge protected from the hand.
• Protect the cutter in storage: retract or cover the edge and store the plane so the edge is not exposed in a drawer or box. The CCOHS storage guidance is for knives (a rack or drawer with handles facing out); the same principle is applied here.
• Material-specific maker warnings travel with the model. Lie-Nielsen's No. 101 page carries a California Proposition 65 notice that bronze and brass alloys contain lead, with the advice to wash hands after handling. Toothed-blade, sharpening-dust, finish and wood-dust precautions attach to the relevant model and material rather than being universal.
• Shop-made and improvised planes: the hazards of cut metal parts, improvised blade steel, heat treatment and an unretained iron are the builder's to manage; this entry gives no build procedure.

Source status: CCOHS, Lie-Nielsen and Veritas pages were read in this pass through a page-summarizing tool. The Veritas page itself carries no safety notes and links a Care and Use PDF that was not read.

damaging

• Forcing a wedge-set blade too deep for the narrow fixed mouth clogs it and risks cracking a wooden body right at the mouth — the same brittle-mouth failure point documented for cast bench planes generally, proportionally worse here because the opening starts out tiny.
• Using a flat-soled example on a concave surface, or a convex-soled example on a flat one — the entire reason the "family of soles" convention exists in every serious kit, the identical finding the sibling Violin Maker's Plane entry already sources for its own tool.
• Reaching for a plain blade on figured, reversing grain it wasn't set up for — a toothed blade is the usual answer, and a live maker on the Anthony Hay thread says he can't imagine scooping curly maple without one [manual, relayed]. Conversely, running a toothed blade through knots can break the teeth (Lie-Nielsen).

beginner-trap

• Assuming the tool's tiny size makes it more forgiving than a full-size plane, or that building one is an easier warm-up. Every shop-made-plane build account located in the original run treats getting the cross-pin placement, wedge fit, and mouth opening right as a genuine fitting skill in miniature, not an easier warm-up version of full-size planemaking.
• Buying a single plane and expecting it to cover both convex and concave work, instead of matching sole to curve.
• Over-tightening a screw cap or wedge to compensate for a dull blade. With no chipbreaker on most examples, a dull edge has nowhere to hide the way it might on a Bailey-pattern bench plane — the fix is always resharpening, never a tighter clamp.

lineage-misuse

• Treating the label as the capability. Assuming a plane called "finger plane" has the setup of one called "violin maker's plane," or vice versa, instead of reading the sole, mouth, depth method and blade. The mirror error is applying a luthier-specific setup (a toothed blade tuned for figured maple backs, a sole curved to match one instrument's arching) to general cabinetmaking work it wasn't tuned for.
• Grouping Stanley No. 100 to 103, Preston violin planes, Ibex/Herdim/CAG luthier planes and Veritas detail palm planes as mechanically uniform. Body size, bed angle, mouth, blade width, adjustment, sole and intended application vary across them.

Correct use

What it's genuinely good at: fitting curved parts to each other, leveling and trimming inlay or veneer banding across a curved or flat show surface, delicate touch-up on glued joints and brace ends, and hollowing, leveling or graduating thickness in a small localized zone — work too small, too curved, or too close to a finished edge for a standard smoothing or block plane to reach without risking the surrounding surface.

The best-sourced account of this in actual cabinetmaking use is Ed Wright's, above (Human Side): trimming curved crossbanding, shaping a spinet baseboard's curved bentside, flushing glued brace ends working from both directions specifically to avoid end-grain tearout, and fitting a soundboard liner joint after rough-chiseling the bevel.

The short version of using it well. Match the sole profile to the curve in front of you rather than forcing one plane to do a family's job — a working kit holds several soles of differing curvature, the same convention the sibling entry documents for violin planes. Take light, controlled passes; on examples with no chipbreaker and no mechanical adjuster there is no mechanical fallback for a cut set too heavy. Tearout depends on the sharpness of the edge, the cutting angle, grain direction, mouth, blade projection, sole registration and whether the blade is plain or toothed, not on shaving thinness alone; a fine shaving is one defense among these. Read the grain before committing on figured stock. A toothed blade is the usual choice on reversing grain, but it leaves a textured surface, so finish with a scraper or a plain blade where the surface must be clean. See "How NOT to use it" for the safe-use sequence.

Matching

Does: fits curved parts to each other; trims and levels inlay, purfling, or veneer banding across a curved or flat surface; touches up glued joints and brace ends flush without tearout; hollows, levels or graduates thickness in a small, localized, often curved zone (localized thickness graduation is dimensioning at small scale, and it is in scope); works surfaces too small or too tightly curved for a standard block or smoothing plane to reach.

Suits: cabinetmaking and casemaking at the fitting and final-touch-up stage (Ed Wright's spinet work is the directly-sourced anchor); marquetry and inlay-banding trim work; model-making and instrument work where the specific plane suits it (Veritas's current page names "musical instruments or models"; Stanley application labels are secondary and per-model, see Lineage); a well-documented secondary overlap with lutherie, where the dedicated, purpose-tuned form is Violin Maker's Plane — see that entry for instrument-specific setup rather than re-deriving it here.

Kit-fit. Pairs with: scrapers and files for the same fitting work; carving gouges, for roughing a curve before the finger plane refines it. Substitutes for: a standard block or smoothing plane, but only on work too small or too curved for those tools to reach — not a general substitute for either. Can't replace: a bench or block plane for establishing broad reference faces, jointing long edges, or efficient bulk dimensioning. A flat-soled model can level a small area and a suitable model can graduate localized thickness; the boundary is workpiece area, sole geometry, the reference surface wanted and removal rate, not an absolute inability.

Match on configuration, not on the label: trade and application; sole profile and radii; body length and width; blade width and plain or toothed form; bed and cutting angle; fixed or adjustable mouth; depth-setting and retention method; workpiece curvature; localized roughing versus finishing; material and grain; workholding method; and the user's sharpening and setup skill.

Not-for (project-keyed): establishing broad reference faces, jointing long edges, and efficient high-volume dimensioning; any surface with real flat area a standard plane would cover faster and more evenly. Small-area leveling, localized thickness graduation, curved fitting and detail trimming are not excluded when the specific sole and blade suit the work.

Access. Effectively intermediate-to-advanced. The mechanism is often simple (a wedge or a screw clamping the iron, depth set by tapping or by a small adjuster, varying by model), but controlling a cut this close to the fingers, on work with essentially no margin for a correction pass, is a genuine tactile skill. Every sourced account of using one well is from a maker who already owns and has learned a standard kit and hit a specific fitting problem those tools couldn't solve, not a first-plane purchase.

Revival. The shop-made tradition documented in Human Side extends here: Smishkewych's walnut-offcut planes and the Hackaday pen-blank build are documented small-plane build projects. This is a documented tradition, not an inherently easier project than a full-size plane; the entry's own beginner-trap note says cross-pin placement, wedge fit and mouth opening are genuine miniature fitting skills. A project recommendation should be gated on accurate layout, secure blade retention, suitable blade steel and heat treatment, sharpening competence, and safe handling of cut metal parts and the exposed edge (see the safe-use sequence below).

Anatomy

Finger-plane anatomy varies enough that this entry records it as variant fields rather than a single anatomy. Fields, with what the sources show for each:

• Body material: dense brass, bronze or gunmetal (Ibex silicon bronze; Herdim die-cast brass; CAG stainless steel; Veritas investment-cast steel); or shop-made and traditional hardwood (boxwood, beech, walnut, ebony, rosewood).
• Sole profile and radii: flat, concave, convex, double-convex (see Variations).
• Mouth: fixed on Veritas (read in this pass); adjustable on Ibex (per Patrick Chase's account, original run [manual, relayed]); fixed narrow on tap-set wooden examples.
• Blade-depth method: tapping the iron (wooden and wedge-set planes; the working violin maker "Pong" says he adjusts "by tapping the blade" [manual, relayed]); screw-clamped with depth set by hand; or a mechanical adjuster. Lie-Nielsen's No. 101 has a captive-nut blade adjuster (read in this pass). A screw or wedge that merely clamps the iron is not the same as an adjuster, and "no adjuster" does not mean "unadjustable."
• Retention method: a wedge bearing on a metal cross-pin (classically cut down from an old drill bit in modern shop builds), a brass or steel clamp screw (Veritas brass retention screw), a screw-cap lever (Ibex), or a spinwheel cap (Lie-Nielsen, which says to loosen cap pressure slightly before adjusting and not to overtighten).
• Blade width: from about ⅜" (Veritas) through about ⅞" (Lie-Nielsen No. 101, ⅞" × ⅛") up to cello-scale planes (Herdim).
• Plain or toothed blade: both exist; Lie-Nielsen sells a toothed No. 101 blade.

Lie-Nielsen No. 101 body, as read in this pass: 3-7/16" long × 1-3/16" wide × 1-5/8" tall, 0.50 lb. The body/sole profile is the single most consequential design choice (see Variations). The blade/iron is undersized relative to a bench plane's, sized to trim an edge or work a small area rather than span a wide surface.

Many finger planes are genuinely unhandled — gripped by the shape of the body alone, seated in the palm or curled fingers rather than held by a knob and tote. Veritas's current design makes this explicit: a removable, height-adjustable palm rest rather than a fixed handle, which the page describes as giving "better in-hand registration for controlled cuts" and which can be removed for tight spaces. Where makers describe mass as helping a fine cut stay controlled (a claim from the original run, not tested here), bodies are cast in dense brass, bronze, or gunmetal (Ibex: silicon bronze; Herdim: die-cast brass; CAG: stainless steel); where a shop-made tradition prevails, bodies are cut from dense hardwood offcuts — historically boxwood and beech, with modern shop-made examples using ebony, rosewood, and other dense woods (see Human Side).

Size, and why it exists. Modern catalogs put the body at roughly 1.5–2.5 inches (Veritas's palm-plane sole: ~1½"×⅝") up to a cello/bass-scale 3–4 inches at the large end (Herdim's fingerboard planes). This is not miniaturization for its own sake — length is wasted mass on a tool that never spans a wide area, and small size is itself the control mechanism: worked by direct tactile feel rather than an adjuster dial, a maker gripping the tool in fingers or palm can feel the sole read a compound curve in a way a full-size handle would only insulate against.

Variations (living)

The single most consequential variable across every source checked is sole shape, because it determines what kind of surface the plane can follow:

• Flat sole — for convex work: trimming an edge, leveling a raised surface, general fitting.
• Convex/round-bottomed sole — for hollowing concave work. The Anthony Hay shop's own pair, described first-person: "one is compassed, meaning convex-soled with a flat blade, the other is flat-soled with a convex blade."
• Concave sole — the mirror case, for convex work needing a tighter fit than a flat sole allows (Veritas's Concave Detail Palm Plane).
• Double-convex ("spoon") sole — Veritas's own naming, a compound-curve profile (½" side-to-side radius, 4" front-to-back radius) for work scooped in two directions at once.
• Toothed-blade option, a plain-vs-toothed fork that runs through this family exactly as it does the sibling entry: Preston's historic catalog offered "either a toothed or regular blade" as standard on its small planes (per Moskowitz, via the sibling entry's own snippet-level sourcing), and it recurs on the modern side — a maker on the Anthony Hay thread says all four of his curved finger planes carry a toothing blade for scooping curly maple.

Vintage makers, checked rather than assumed. Preston (Edward Preston & Sons, Birmingham) is the one vintage maker this run can confirm with real dates: first listed as a plane maker in the 1833 Birmingham Directory, planes added to the line by 1866, trading as "Edward Preston & Sons" from 1889, liquidated 1934 with the plane line sold to C. & J. Hampton/Record. A specific "finger plane" (as distinct from "violin plane") catalog listing could not be independently verified this run — the scanned 1901 catalog pages were not text-readable — so this remains an open gap shared with the sibling entry.

Modern manufacturer range, cross-checked against live catalogs. Ibex (US; designed by Irving Sloane; silicon bronze; flat-sole 10×30mm–22.5×60mm, round-sole 10×30mm–18×47mm). Herdim (Germany; die-cast brass; "developed together with violinmakers more than 20 years ago" — an undated relative claim, not pinned to a calendar year; a Fingerboard Plane for cello/viola work; a "Micro Plane" marketed as one of the smallest available). CAG (stainless steel, HSS blade HRC 60–62, explicit dual violin-maker/woodworker marketing, directly fetched). Veritas/Lee Valley (investment-cast steel, four sole profiles, "small tasks, or for constructing musical instruments or models" — again a manufacturer refusing to sort into one side of the trade split, directly fetched).

Stanley's own small-plane line — general trade, not lutherie, and genuinely separate from the modern finger/palm-plane family above. No. 100 ("Squirrel Tail," 3½", curved rear handle, dates conflict as noted in History); No. 100-1/2 (curved sole, 1936–1962, "model making and hollowing out"); No. 101 (from 1877, general/hobbyist per period catalog language); No. 102 (from 1877, low-angle, for end grain — a general-purpose block plane in Lie-Nielsen's own current descendant marketing, not a finger plane by their naming); No. 103 ("apron plane," pocket-sized, 1876–1950). A German antique-tool listing labels a Stanley No. 103 "Fingerhobel" — literally "finger plane" — a single-source (lower-confidence) but real piece of cross-linguistic evidence that this vernacular name attached to Stanley's small planes specifically, independent of the Moskowitz luthier/cabinetmaker naming question.

Trades

• Cabinetmaking — the core trade this entry is built around, per Moskowitz's attributed view; independent corroboration not found.
• Casemaking / box-making — directly sourced via Ed Wright's spinet-case work (curved bentside shaping, brace flushing, liner-joint fitting), not merely inferred.
• Marquetry / inlay work — the veneer-banding trim on the Seaton-chest reproduction till lid is directly documented.
• Model-making and pattern-making — Veritas's current page names "models"; Stanley application labels for individual numbered models are secondary (collector, snippet-level) and were not verified at catalog level. Not asserted for the whole Stanley line.
• Lutherie — a real, well-documented secondary trade for this tool family, but the corpus's dedicated entry is Violin Maker's Plane; not re-derived here beyond noting the overlap in names and use.
• General fine woodworking — CAG's own marketing explicitly frames its finger planes as "suitable for woodworking" beyond the violin-making market it also serves.

Lineage

Ancestors — a narrower claim than the sibling entry's. Violin Maker's Plane carries a MEDIUM-confidence claim that dedicated small metal violin planes go back "at least as far back as the 16th century," sourced to Moskowitz's writing. The same sentence appears in the Moskowitz article read in this pass; it is his secondary claim, and the text consulted gives no dated 16th-century object record. For the separate boxwood cabinetmaker's and casemaker's planes Moskowitz names, his claim is a single unelaborated sentence with no date, origin story or maker chain. Nothing earlier than "Moskowitz asserted this distinction" was found for that boxwood family: no period image, no dated catalog entry naming a "cabinetmaker's finger plane." This is carried as an honest gap.

Contemporaries — the general miniature-plane field. Stanley's No. 100 ("Squirrel Tail," curved rear handle, 3½" long, 1" iron) and No. 101 (from 1877) are dated, catalog-documented tools in this space. Per the reviewer, the Stanley catalog Stanley Tools: Standard the World Over lists the No. 100, 101, 102 and 103 as iron block planes with dimensions, finish, adjustment and price, and does not assign model-making, pattern-making or cabinetmaking to the line [manual, relayed]. This entry therefore uses the Stanley sources for dated existence, dimensions and mechanism only. Application labels exist in two places and are kept apart and secondary: the sibling entry's earlier-fetched Stanley 1879 catalog wording that the No. 101 was pitched at "amateurs... who work with scroll saws, picture framing etc." [manual, relayed] (the edition and model wording was not re-checked in this pass), and a collector reference (snippet-level) that calls the No. 100/101 pair a "model makers plane, violin makers plane, toy makers plane or a pattern makers plane" [manual, relayed]. These two characterizations are in tension, and neither is assigned to the other models. A correction to an assumption in the original research brief: Lie-Nielsen's current catalog shows the No. 101 Violin Maker's Plane and the No. 102 Low-Angle Block Plane; no current Lie-Nielsen "No. 100½" product exists [manual, relayed].

Descendants — the modern metal-bodied line, and a real irony worth stating. The tools sold today as "finger plane" or "palm plane" are made almost exclusively for instrument work — the trade Moskowitz's stated view says the name is less suited to. Ibex (US, designed by Irving Sloane, silicon bronze) and Herdim (Germany, die-cast brass, HSS blade hardened to ~60 HRC) both sell dedicated finger/palm planes to luthiers as their primary market (cross-corroborated across independent retailer listings — International Violin, Southwest Strings, Woodcraft — snippet-level, not independently fetched). CAG (stainless steel body) markets its finger planes explicitly as "specially tailored to meet the needs of violin makers while also suitable for woodworking" — a manufacturer's own dual-market positioning, directly fetched from the maker's own site. Veritas Detail Palm Planes (Lee Valley, current production, directly fetched product page) is the most concretely documented modern descendant: investment-cast steel body, four sole profiles (flat, concave, convex, and a double-convex "spoon" profile with a 4" front-to-back radius), and a removable, height-adjustable hardwood palm rest the product page marks "Patent pending" — no patent number given, and this entry carries it as pending and unnumbered rather than inflating it into a granted patent. The Veritas page read in this pass says "small tasks, or for constructing musical instruments or models" [manual, relayed] (quoted from the original run; the page was re-read in this pass for the dimensions and features above) — again not sorting into either side of the Moskowitz naming view. Dimensions confirmed in this pass: soles about 1½" × ⅝", fixed mouth, 45° bed, brass retention screw, included blade 30° bevel A2 tool steel, 0.06" thick × ⅜" wide.

A possible Petroski thread, held as inference. The Veritas palm rest is removable and height-adjustable, and the product page says it gives "better in-hand registration for controlled cuts" and can be removed for tight spaces. The page does not say the rest was designed to cure grip fatigue, and no patent, design note or manufacturer statement making that claim was found. Forum voices below describe discomfort with commercial planes, so a fatigue link is a practitioner inference, not a documented manufacturer intent or a documented form-follows-failure case.

History — form follows failure

The problem this tool addresses is the one Violin Maker's Plane documents for its own tool: localized, fine material removal in a spot — curved, confined, or simply too small — that a full-size plane's footprint cannot reach. Whether that is one shared problem solved under overlapping names, or distinct trade problems that happen to look alike, is carried here as open.

Dated sequence, honestly graded.

• 1877 — Stanley No. 101 launches (per the sibling entry's earlier-fetched source [manual, relayed]); the 1879 catalog wording quoted in Lineage pitched it at amateurs. Existence and mechanism only are relied on here.
• 1898–1962 (dates conflict across sources) — Stanley's No. 100 "Squirrel Tail" in production; one collector reference gives 1876–1962, another 1898–1958 — unresolved here rather than silently picked.
• 1936–1962 — Stanley No. 100-1/2, the same 3½" body with a curved sole, described by one collector reference (snippet-level) as intended for "model making and hollowing out... for pattern makers, model makers, instrument makers, and the like" [manual, relayed]. That is a secondary label for this one model, not catalog-verified, and is not carried to the other numbered models.
• 1887–1908 — C. Nurse & Co. (London, trademark "Invicta") documented via antique-tool dealer listings as making, among other items, a set of sixteen miniature boxwood planes and wedges. This is the closest thing this run found to a dated physical object in the period Moskowitz's cabinetmaker-boxwood claim would require — but no dealer listing found this run labels these objects "finger planes," "cabinetmaker's planes," or "casemaker's planes" by name. The connection is circumstantial (boxwood, miniature, English, right period), not confirmed.
• 2011–2020 — a live, documented shop-made tradition: Wolodymyr Smishkewych, a former instrument builder turned Fine Woodworking editor, wrote "Baby planes" (2011, directly fetched in full) describing his own walnut-offcut small planes, wedge-retained, bevel-down, no chipbreaker; a Hackaday post (Dec 2020, directly fetched in full) documents a maker building one from stabilized pen-blank material with a cut-down drill bit as the cross-pin.
• Current production — Veritas's Detail Palm Plane line (see Lineage), patent-pending palm-rest mechanism, no further founding date given by the manufacturer.

Patents — a clean negative finding, with one honestly-flagged near-miss. No dedicated design or mechanism patent for a "finger plane" or "casemaker's plane" under that name was located on Google Patents or (per a targeted search) DATAMP. Stanley's No. 100 knob casting carries an embossed "PATENTED SEPTEMBER 25, 1877" — but that identical embossing also appears on the unrelated Stanley No. 113 Circular Plane, tied there to a different inventor's patent entirely, strongly suggesting a stock knob casting shared across several small Stanley models rather than a patent specific to the No. 100's own mechanism. No verified patent number for this date, as applied specifically to the No. 100, is asserted here — precisely the kind of plausible-but-unconfirmed patent claim this corpus has previously caught and rejected, and it is not repeated as fact in this entry. This mirrors the sibling entry's own clean negative patent finding for the violin maker's plane: a wedge-and-blade or simple screw-clamp miniature plane rarely carries a patentable mechanism of its own.

Human side

Traditions & trades — Moskowitz's claim, and what the practitioner record actually shows. Moskowitz's stated view reserves "finger plane" for small boxwood cabinetmaker's and casemaker's planes. Independent corroboration of that specific trade attribution was searched for and not found; it stays at secondary-authority level. A plain dictionary check on "casemaker" returns a bookbinding trade definition (a maker of book covers/cases) rather than a furniture case-work one — a real, stated ambiguity about what Moskowitz actually means, left open rather than resolved.

What the research found instead is overlap, not a clean split. The richest, most concretely sourced human-side material this run turned up is luthiers using small wood-bodied planes and calling them "finger planes" in their own words — the opposite of what Moskowitz's proposed reservation would predict:

• George Wilson, the same named Colonial Williamsburg master toolmaker the sibling entry already cites, posting on a Sawmill Creek "making finger planes" thread (Oct 2017, directly fetched in full): "When I make the planes of wood, I use boxwood" — a real, named, primary confirmation that boxwood is a genuine working choice for finger-plane bodies, offered in a thread that is squarely about instrument-adjacent small-plane making, not cabinetmaking. He separately warns against Brazilian rosewood ("wears pretty rapidly, and is a poor choice") and against a beginner's-guide claim of tempering a plane iron at 200°F ("ridiculous. try 700 degrees").
• Ted Phillips, same thread, prefers quartersawn beech for shop-made small planes, naming boxwood and persimmon as runners-up.
• Patrick Chase, same thread, a genuine first-person comparative account: owns both an Ibex finger plane (18mm iron, adjustable mouth — "took some practice to consistently get irons in and out without nicking them when the mouth is set tight") and Veritas palm planes ("easier to set up and use than the Ibex planes, but they lack the adjustable mouth").
• On a Hackaday build post (directly fetched, including its comment thread), a self-identified working violin maker posting as "Pong" (2023) writes: "I'm a violinmaker — my fingerplanes don't have adjustment levers or even depth screws. I adjust by tapping the blade... Wooden planes work just as well and are more easily made and customized." A second commenter, "Robin Marwick" (2021), independently confirms building "several of these wooden planes using blades from an old plough plane" and finishing "a violin back using both my 6 and 12mm planes."
• Francis Beaulieu, a named luthier commenting on a Moskowitz blog post (directly fetched): "Ibex planes are so uncomfortable, it's like a blister machine... One day I might take a week off and make myself some mini infill planes, but until then I'm using the uncomfortable ones" — real, first-person dissatisfaction with a commercial finger/palm plane from a working luthier, not marketing copy.

A named editor's own cross-trade account, directly sourced. Wolodymyr Smishkewych's "Baby planes" (Fine Woodworking, 2011, directly fetched in full) states the crossover runs both directions: luthier's small planes get used in furniture-making tight spots, and "bunny planes" — small metal-bodied trim planes — cross over between finish carpentry (architectural trim) and instrument work alike. He made his own from walnut offcuts, the smallest "3 cm, or 1¼ in., long," fully convex-bottomed, wedge-retained, no chipbreaker.

The clearest directly-sourced case of genuine cabinetmaking (not lutherie) use. Ed Wright of the Anthony Hay Cabinet Shop, Colonial Williamsburg — the same shop the sibling entry already cites — used the shop's small planes, by his own account "mainly the province of the violin maker," "frequently for the small, precision situations that arise in the spinet work here," on tasks he calls "very un-violin oriented": trimming curved crossbanding to fit inlaid stringing on a Seaton-chest-reproduction till lid, shaping the concave and convex sections of a spinet baseboard's curved bentside, flushing glued brace ends working from both directions to avoid tearout, and fitting a soundboard liner joint (Anthony Hay Cabinetmaker blog, "Small Planes: More Tools of Our Time," 2011, directly fetched in full — the same post the sibling entry already cites for other detail). This is this entry's single strongest piece of evidence for a genuine, non-luthier, cabinetmaking use of a small finger-style plane — even though Wright's own words locate the tool's usual home in lutherie, which is evidence of cross-trade use of small planes, not evidence for two non-overlapping families.

Named makers. Ibex, Herdim, CAG, and Veritas/Lee Valley (current production, directly sourced above); C. Nurse & Co. (1887–1908, London) as a documented, though not directly finger-plane-labeled, maker of miniature boxwood planes.

Proof of existence

Earliest example — a shared anchor with the sibling entry, reached by an independent path. The strongest physical anchor for the tool's early form is the same one Violin Maker's Plane carries: Antonio Stradivari's own surviving iron planes at the Museo del Violino, Cremona. This entry's own research reached the same object by a second, independent route — the Anthony Hay Cabinetmaker blog links to photographs of Stradivari's tools and captions some of them "finger" planes in the vernacular, the tool's own working name applied to this exact object by a source independent of the sibling entry's citation chain, which strengthens rather than merely duplicates that anchor. Diderot's Encyclopédie (Vol. 5, "Lutherie," 2nd suite, plate XII, mid-18th century France) is shared evidence with the sibling entry, not new evidence.

Dated, catalog-documented production line (existence, not trade). Stanley Rule & Level Co./Stanley Works ran a dated small-plane line — No. 100, No. 100-1/2, No. 101, No. 102, No. 103. A production listing proves existence, dimensions and mechanism, not trade or operation. Per the reviewer, the period catalog directly lists No. 100, 101, 102 and 103 as iron block planes without assigning application [manual, relayed]. The No. 100-1/2 rests on collector references only (snippet-level, not re-read).

Preston & Sons — same dated maker chain as the sibling entry (Sr. listed 1833, "& Sons" from 1889, liquidated 1934). A specific "finger plane" catalog listing distinct from "violin plane" could not be independently verified this run — an open gap shared with the sibling entry.

Modern manufacturer proof, directly checked against live retail catalogs. Veritas/Lee Valley and Lie-Nielsen pages were re-read in this pass; Ibex, Herdim and CAG rest on the original run's retailer and maker listings [manual, relayed].

Museum records — a genuine, stated gap. No V&A, Smithsonian NMAH, or Mercer Museum catalog record specifically naming a "finger plane" object (distinct from the Cremona/Stradivari holdings already covered) was located this run, despite direct searches of each institution. This mirrors the identical gap the sibling entry already flags for its own subject.

Patents — see History, above: a clean negative finding for a dedicated finger-plane mechanism, with the Stanley No. 100 knob-casting date identified and rejected in the original run as a shared stock-casting mark rather than a tool-specific patent [manual, relayed]. The Veritas page's "Patent pending" status is carried as pending and unnumbered.

References

• Joel Moskowitz, "Tools & Craft #48: A Look at Violin-Maker's Planes," Core77 / Tools for Working Wood blog (toolsforworkingwood.com/store/blog/797/title/a-look-at-violin-makers-planes) — read directly in the 2026-10-16 clearing pass (through a page-summarizing fetch tool); supports his stated naming view ("in my view"), the Preston 1909 size range (5/16" to 15/16", flat or convex sole), the plain and toothed blades, and the 16th-century claim as his. Does not establish a trade-wide taxonomy. [kind: named authority/tool historian, secondary, direct read]
• Wikipedia, "Finger plane" — available only via WebSearch summary this run, full article not independently fetched. [kind: encyclopedia, snippet-level — flagged]
• Sawmill Creek forum, "making finger planes" thread (George Wilson, Ted Phillips, Patrick Chase, Matt Lau), Oct 2017, directly fetched in full. [kind: forum, named/dated]
• Hackaday, "Building A Tiny Finger Plane For Detailed Work," Dec 14 2020, including comment thread ("Pong" 2023, "Robin Marwick" 2021), directly fetched in full. [kind: hobbyist build log with named commenters, primary]
• Anthony Hay Cabinet Shop (Colonial Williamsburg) blog, "Small Planes: More Tools of Our Time," 2011, directly fetched in full — same source cited by the sibling Violin Maker's Plane entry. [kind: institutional/trade shop blog, primary, named practitioners]
• Wolodymyr Smishkewych, "Baby planes," Fine Woodworking, Jan 28 2011, directly fetched in full. [kind: trade magazine, named author]
• Lee Valley / Veritas, "Veritas Detail Palm Planes" product page, re-read 2026-10-16. [kind: manufacturer, primary]
• CAG Tools, finger plane product page, cag-tools.com, directly fetched. [kind: manufacturer, primary]
• Lie-Nielsen Toolworks, No. 101 Violin Maker's Plane page and toothed No. 101 blade page, re-read 2026-10-16 (captive-nut adjuster, dimensions, cap-pressure instruction, Proposition 65 notice, toothed-blade and knot warning); original run's catalog check of the Low-Angle Block Plane and the absence of a "No. 100½" product carried as relayed. [kind: manufacturer, primary]
• Joel Moskowitz (via comment thread), Anthony Hay Cabinet Shop blog comment exchange — see ref. 5. [kind: named authority, primary, embedded in ref. 5]
• Stanley, Stanley Tools: Standard the World Over (period catalog, Wikimedia Commons PDF), as described in the review [manual, relayed] — lists No. 100/101/102/103 dimensions, finish, adjustment and price; no application assigned to the group. [kind: manufacturer catalog, primary, relayed]

11b. Handplane Central / Time Tested Tools / Old Woodworking Tools, Stanley No. 100/100-1/2/101/102/103 collector references, snippet-level, not independently fetched this run. [kind: tool-history/collector reference, secondary, snippet-level — flagged]

• Google Patents / DATAMP, targeted search for "finger plane" and "casemaker's plane" mechanism patents — clean negative result. [kind: patent registry, primary search, negative finding]
• Stanley No. 113 Circular Plane knob-casting cross-check (via collector references), used to identify and reject the "PATENTED SEPTEMBER 25, 1877" date as a shared stock-casting mark rather than a No. 100-specific patent. [kind: collector reference, snippet-level — flagged]
• Merriam-Webster, "casemaker" — checked to test Moskowitz's trade attribution; returns a bookbinding definition, not furniture case-work. [kind: dictionary, primary]
• International Violin Company / Southwest Strings / Woodcraft, Ibex and Herdim retailer listings, cross-corroborated, snippet-level, not independently fetched this run. [kind: retailer, secondary, snippet-level — flagged]
• Antique-tool dealer listing (C. Nurse & Co. miniature boxwood plane set, 1887–1908), snippet-level, not independently fetched this run. [kind: antique-tool dealer, secondary, snippet-level — flagged]
• German antique-tool eBay listing labeling a Stanley No. 103 "Fingerhobel," single-source. [kind: dealer listing, single-source — flagged]
• CCOHS, "Working Safely with Sharp Blades or Edges" (ccohs.ca/oshanswers/safety_haz/sharp_blades.html), read 2026-10-16. [kind: government occupational-safety authority, primary, general sharp-edge guidance, not plane-specific]

Honest gaps

• The cabinetmaker/casemaker naming split rests on a single secondary source, and it is Moskowitz's stated personal view. The article was read directly in this pass and does say "in my view, that term is more suited for the family of small boxwood planes" used "by cabinetmakers and casemakers, not by luthiers." Direct access verifies what Moskowitz wrote, not that his terminology reflects broader historical consensus. Independent period catalogs, museum records or trade texts corroborating the split would be needed before it rises above an attributed naming opinion. The "at least as far back as the 16th century" claim is likewise his, with no dated object record in the text consulted.
• No primary cabinetmaking-trade catalog or museum record independently names "finger plane" as its own cabinetmaker-specific product line, separate from "violin plane." Preston's own catalogs could not be read at the specific-listing level this run.
• Stanley No. 100's production date range conflicts across sources (1876–1962 vs. 1898–1958) and was not resolved.
• "Casemaker" as a historical woodworking trade term was searched for and not confirmed — the only definition located is a bookbinding trade, not furniture case-work, and is flagged as likely not what Moskowitz means, without being able to confirm what he does mean.
• Maestronet, the major lutherie forum, remained inaccessible this run — the same blocker the sibling entry already documented.
• No finger-plane-specific injury, safety or incident record was found in the original run. This is a research result, not a risk assessment; the safe-use sequence in "How NOT to use it" rests on CCOHS general sharp-edge guidance and the Lie-Nielsen and Veritas pages, and the Veritas Care and Use PDF was not read.
• No DATAMP.net-specific patent sweep beyond a targeted search was completed.

The reviewer's corrections (9)

• BLOCKER — 1. — Exact claim: “This entry is the direct companion piece to Violin Maker's Plane — not a duplicate,” and the core framing says “finger plane” is a separate cabinetmaker/casemaker family while lutherie is only a secondary overlap.
• BLOCKER — 2. — Exact claim: “A small, hand- or finger-held detail plane, unadjustable and built for one narrow task”; “the mechanism is simple — a fixed mouth, a wedge or a screw, nothing to adjust”; and “the fixed narrow mouth and unadjustable blade have no mechanism” for broader work.
• BLOCKER — 3. — Exact claim: “Neither this family nor its luthier cousin is built to flatten or dimension anything,” while later sections say it can work a flat show surface and “hollow or graduate thickness in a small localized zone.”
• BLOCKER — 4. — Exact claim: The Dangerous section says no injury record was found and offers only an inferred fingertip caution; the entry gives no positive workholding, hand-path, inspection, blade-setting, or storage procedure.
• SHOULD-FIX — 5. — Exact claim: “Model-making and pattern-making (Stanley's own period marketing for the No. 100/100½/101/102/103 line ... both name this explicitly)” and “Dated, catalog-documented production line specific to the general/cabinetmaking market.”
• SHOULD-FIX — 6. — Exact claim: “Hogging or heavy stock removal of any kind” is not-for because the mouth “will clog on anything heavier,” and “the fineness of the shaving is the tool's whole defense against tearout.”
• SHOULD-FIX — 7. — Exact claim: The entry treats Veritas's palm rest as “a direct ... fix” for grip fatigue and says the design is “a real manufacturer response to exactly this.”
• SHOULD-FIX — 8. — Exact claim: The Moskowitz article is “snippet-level, unconfirmed by a verified direct read,” and Honest Gaps says future work must settle whether it can be fetched.
• MINOR — 9. — Exact claim: “A genuinely approachable first plane-making exercise, easier than building a full-size bench plane.”