B63-547. JOINTER PLANE. Chardoillet Patent. 1850s French patent with variable pitch cutter adjustment; 21" sole. All Chardoillet's are rare, but this one has two special characteristics. First, the blade holding mechanism is gunmetal, whereas most examples are cast iron. More significantly, the arm that adjusts the angle of the cutter is toothed. In the patent drawings, the toothed arm was adjusted with a rack and pinion which permitted fine adjustment. In almost all production models, the arm simply slides in a slot and is locked by a thumbscrew. Although this one has the toothed arm, it has the locking thumbscrew rather than the rack and pinion. Possibly a transitional model, when they were still using up their store of toothed arms but had switched over to the simpler thumbscrew lock. It's frozen in place and we don't want to force it, so we'll leave it to you to explore it further. Unfortunately missing its cutter, but still one of the most collectible of the early metal planes. From the collection of Cliff Sapienza. Fine 4000-8000