Other Makers

While Norris may be the best known, it wasn't the only manufacturer.

Spiers - a Scottish manufacturer that made infills for a long time. Without going through a full type study, in general, the earliest of the coffin sided infills were made with screws through the sides into the infills, and a wedge instead of a lever cap with screw. Next were the planes with rivets into the infill which are nearly invisible, and a lever cap and screw to hold the blade in place. The earliest stamps on the lever caps were Spiers Ayr - though the words appear upside down. Later, the same words were stamped, though right side up. Click on the image to enlarge.

Later still, the lever cap bears a a script version of Sewart Spiers.

Later still, a recess was machined with Spiers in block letters. While I don't know if there is any information on when certain features were introduced, some Spiers have an overstuffed rear infill ( meaning the rear wood hides the top of the metal sides in that area - the photo below show an overstuffed rear infill) yet in others the wood infill does not extend over the sides. I would guess that the overstuffing was earlier, but it may be that it was simply an option that could be requested or not, and thus may be unrelated to age.

While Spiers planes can work well, most have at least one crack in the handle, usually very low on the handle. If repaired correctly, they can work fine. Sometimes, they can't be fixed properly and the handle must be replaced. It is also common to see chips to the top of the handle and damage to the front bun from being hit, but they may not impact its use. The handle on the right has both the very common low crack, and a pretty common crack a little higher.

Mathieson . Mathieson made parallel irons for infill planes and also made the planes. Often you will see an infill offered for sale on ebay claiming it is a Mathieson, when the only mark the seller can find is Mathieson on the blade. Mathieson infills can be very attractive, and are usually stamped with its mark and name on the toe of the plane , though that can be very faint, and on the lever cap.