Woodworking is terrific for keeping in shape, but it's also a deadly serious killing system...
It's easier to use a 2x3 inch or so flat wooden block with very coarse sandpaper, but using the same marking setup that you'd use if you were doing scraping. Scraping will leave a lot of people who don't do it all the time breaking out bits around the edges of their planes and especially around the mouths.
The couple of jointers that I flattened I first blued the bottom with dykem, then ran them over the lap to find the high spots and put the plane upside down in the bench vise to spot sand. Blue again and repeat. It takes about 20 minutes or a half our to do a jointer this way, you can remove metal very fast with a 2x3 block of sandpaper with 80 grit heavy cloth aluminum oxide sandpaper on it, and the small contact area means the paper will work well until it's totally worn out. lapping a plane entirely on a long flat surface is slow going and as soon as the paper loses a little bit of tooth, the contact area is too large and it stops cutting effectively.
That assumes that you have a long and flat lap to do it, though - dead flat.
What took me 5 hours on the first jointer I ever lapped took about half an hour with this method, though, and the plane is probably flatter, even if it's not as pretty. Well, someone else has the plane now. The only thing undesirable about it is with that much dykem drying on a large surface like a jointer bottom, you need to have fresh air or some air circulation.
I had less luck with scraping in terms of speed.
Thanks guys. Mostly I just need to get off my butt and do it. I get by fine without having it dead flat (and w/o using it at all), but its such a lovely old plane I really want to get it performing ideal at some point...I'll "get round tuit" eventually by one method or the other.
Great site Charlie. I feel like I've run across it before but never really read though it. Just took a look at it. Lots of great stuff. Looks like a fantastic resource!
Woodworking is terrific for keeping in shape, but it's also a deadly serious killing system...