Plane Restoration

[Charles Bjorgen]

Plane Restoration

The following link was in my "What to watch" queue on YouTube yesterday so I took the time to view the entire video. This was done by a fellow in the UK named Mitch Peacock. He goes by the tag name of WOmadeOD on YouTube. Be aware that this video is nearly two hours long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtfS-EMtBho

Because restoring, rehabbing and fettling old Stanleys is a frequent subject here, I believe this video will answer lots of questions for those just starting out. The video is broken down into evaluating a plane's condition, flattening the sole and squaring the sides, fettling the frog and it's mating surfaces, cleaning and sharpening the blade, chip breaker and lever cap, and finally refurbishing the wood parts.

There's lots of detail here, almost painfully so. Frankly I've never gone so far in flattening a plane but I may give his technique a try on some older type 6 Stanleys that I have. I found the work he did on the frog extremely interesting and will probably borrow those tips on one or two of mine. He uses sandpaper for most of his rehab tips.

Hope this helps answer some questions that frequently are discussed here.

[Jim Koepke]

Frankly I've never gone so far in flattening a plane but I may give his technique a try on some older type 6 Stanleys that I have.

My approach is to only "flatten" the bottom of a plane if it really needs it. A few swipes on an abrasive surface to remove rust is one thing. Trying to create the perfect geometric plane is another.

If a plane isn't having performance problems it likely doesn't need more than cosmetic work on the sole.

jtk

[David Weaver]

I will flatten smoothers and jointers (if the jointers can benefit from it). The rest of the stuff with the frog and the lever cap, etc, is self-entertainment without practical purpose for the most part.

If you can look at the mating surfaces and see that they touch at all and lock tight, that's the end of any need for anything else. If there is nothing on the bed of a plane frog, most of the time, there will be no problems (unless it was milled out place, which you won't fix by lapping the face of it).

The real problems I've seen with planes (that don't involve something being broken):
* concave soles
* soles with twist
* planes that have had mating surfaces painted (paint is slippery under pressure), or that have very heavy rust (even the rust doesn't keep the frog from staying properly tight - just the paint).
* one plane that had a burr on the surface of the frog (a file fixed it), it looked like slag
* totes that look tight when the plane isn't in use but actually are not when it's in use (the rod is usually too long in the tote, and the front screw holds the tote in place - and the plane cuts intermittently)

I'm not telling anyone they can't do all of that fooling around, but I'd advise that it generally satisfies a need to tinker more than it provides practical benefit.

[Zach Dillinger]

I'm not telling anyone they can't do all of that fooling around, but I'd advise that it generally satisfies a need to tinker more than it provides practical benefit.

That there is signature-worthy...

[David Weaver]

That there is signature-worthy...

Straight from someone who has some serious tinker problems elsewhere...

[Jeff Heath]

I will flatten smoothers and jointers (if the jointers can benefit from it). The rest of the stuff with the frog and the lever cap, etc, is self-entertainment without practical purpose for the most part.

If you can look at the mating surfaces and see that they touch at all and lock tight, that's the end of any need for anything else. If there is nothing on the bed of a plane frog, most of the time, there will be no problems (unless it was milled out place, which you won't fix by lapping the face of it).

The real problems I've seen with planes (that don't involve something being broken):
* concave soles
* soles with twist
* planes that have had mating surfaces painted (paint is slippery under pressure), or that have very heavy rust (even the rust doesn't keep the frog from staying properly tight - just the paint).
* one plane that had a burr on the surface of the frog (a file fixed it), it looked like slag
* totes that look tight when the plane isn't in use but actually are not when it's in use (the rod is usually too long in the tote, and the front screw holds the tote in place - and the plane cuts intermittently)

I'm not telling anyone they can't do all of that fooling around, but I'd advise that it generally satisfies a need to tinker more than it provides practical benefit.

I agree with most of what you say, but I don't agree about the frog mating surfaces with the bed. I have fettled more than my fair share of older bedrock planes, and for most jack or #6 planes, I agree.......no need to mess around. However, with a smoothing and jointing planes, I have been able to improve the quality of performance most of the time by making the extra effort. We all know cast iron moves, and we also all know that most of these planes were not cared for very well over their 70 to 100 year life span. Frogs move and twist, too, and I got into the practice of using a little marking blue to see how well they would mate up. In most cases, less than 20 minutes of filing would make a plane that would chatter into a plane that would not.

I think it's important to not overlook this aspect when talking about planes that are intended to take a very fine cut with no tearout. A jointer plane used for flattening a table top is one thing. A jointer plane used for truing a glue surface on the edge of a board performs better if it is tuned like a smoother.....at least in my shop. I guess that's why we have more than 1 of everything.....at least I do.

That's all I've got....

[David Weaver]

I don't know, in about three dozen metal planes, I haven't had one that chattered in anything but the heaviest of cuts (they will all chatter if you make the cut heavy enough and back off the cap iron far enough, but chatter isn't really an issue if you're in that situation). I have had frogs that moved because of dirt or paint, though, and I'll bet out of the three dozen, 6 had foreign unexpected paint or shellac on the mating surfaces, I guess because someone was trying to prevent rust or they were too lazy to tape surfaces off when they repainted the planes.

If the frog doesn't lock down tight or has wobble, you should be able to tell it without planing.

It's quite likely that most new beginners have a greater chance of damaging the frog than they do making any realistic improvement. Just my opinion, though.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I haven't done it in years, but somewhere I picked up that a "good idea" was to put valve grinding compound between the frog and base casting where they met and then work the frog around for a while. Then clean everything off real good.

Looking back, I can't imagine it did anything other than get me a small tube of valve grinding compound I've been wondering if it has any other purposes for a guy who's not going to use it for it's actual purpose. I'm wondering where I heard it and why I did it, now.

[Daniel Rode]

Some of the best advice I got here was what not to "fix" and when good enough is good enough.

[Tom Bussey]

Try putting a bolt on a drill press chuck and turning it on and then take a piece of cloth backed sandpaper paper( emerycloth)at least 100 grit. Tun on the drill press about 250 RPM and see how long it takes to remove .010 from the diameter. One will need a mike or a dial caliper. I have reground so many boched up planes that people thought they knew what thy were doing mest up That if Ifind out I charge them more money because it takes me longer. I can check them out and tell if you are right or left handed.

At best the bottom gets shined up. The old saying that a just washed car drives better holds true here. The last plane I ground was a #5 and it took me 4 hours on a machine designed to do one thing, remove metal. I guess the old addage which is if man was supposed to fly God would have give him wings , but then the wright brothers didn't get the memo.

Tom

[Tom Bussey]

If you aren't trained in machine rebuilding and can at least verify it as being flat then I question the job.
DSC00850.jpgDSC00851.jpg

[Tom Bussey]

If you aren't a trained machine rebuilder and can at least verify the flatness, I guestion the validity of the work. DSC00850.jpgDSC00851.jpg

[David Weaver]

If machining of old planes needed to be done, we would've seen it when people were making a living with them.

I wouldn't get machining planes mixed up with being something practical for a skilled woodworker, or even one not that skilled.

[Jeff Heath]

David, with all due respect, you must be finding, or found, hand planes that are in much better shape than the one's that I find in garage sales and flea markets. Back about 15 years ago, when I was in the middle of a personal quest to own the most bedrock planes on the planet, I was finding planes so twisted, warped, and just generally un-flat that hand lapping was initially taking what seemed like centuries, with bleeding knuckles, to get flat.

I'm not trying to split hairs here, but it is easy to demonstrate the improvements made to a smoothing plane, or any other plane where you might be taking a fine, finishing cut (like edge jointing). I remember having a Bedrock 604 that was impossible to use as a smoother, it was so bad....not to mention that it was coated in something that resembled a dark brown tar-like substance. I media blasted it, and a few others I had that needed major lap work, and took them to a local machinist. The guy was about 70 at the time, still had his shop open (during a time when American machinists could still make a good living in a small shop) and ended up trading him some work I performed for him at his shop for having him grind the planes.

The only difference in the setup shown above by Tom was that he used two vises to hold the planes, and on the 607, he put a neat little "jack screw" thingamajig in the center to keep it from flexing. After indicating them in, he would grind away, slowly, with a lot of coolant, and a mag. base.

When he was done, I had to do just a little bit of final lapping on sandpaper and granite. I purchased an older 24"X36" granite Do-All Surface plate from him, and I still use that same plate today to flatten all the plane soles that I build today in my business. It's a B-grade, .0005, but perfectly more-than-great enough for a hand plane.

As stated earlier, I noticed a big difference, and could get my Bedrocks to work just as well as a 4 1/2 I purchased from Lie Nielsen pretty much when they first opened.

You must have a much better source for decent used (read abused) tools in Pa than we do here in the upper midwest.

[David Weaver]

David, with all due respect, you must be finding, or found, hand planes that are in much better shape than the one's that I find in garage sales and flea markets.

It's quite possible. I was sorry I posted that yesterday (just because it's a fruitless disagreement), but I hate to be the kind of person who puts something up and takes it down. It could very well be circumstances of different planes. If there's a problem, you fix it. I haven't had the same problems, so I haven't had to fix them.

I have found planes that need major lapping because of abuse, though. I had a #8 that had a diagonal groove worn in it and the cap iron literally was worn through but only in the middle. I almost wonder if someone had a job of doing nothing but knocking the edge off of very dirty lumber with it, or if it was affixed in something to run over the edges of boards, I can't imagine someone used it by hand the way it was and managed to wear such a consistent diagonal groove in it.

I've also had two (bailey) planes that had the frog milled way out of square, and I threw them away. I've had minor twist in soles (but nothing like you'll find on some wood planes). Mouth erosion being more common, as well as, and for some reason, barely convex soles that have to trim the ends off of boards that are flat to a 4-foot 385 series starrett straight edge before they take a full length shaving (that's a pain - they get lapped so that they do take an immediate full length shaving on an edge prepared that flat).

But as far as working as well as a lie nielsen? My planes do as long as they're locked down tight - it could be that the difference is I've bought four bedrocks, the rest have been bailey pattern, which are less susceptible to problems, in my opinion, because in the middle of the mating surfaces where there could be contact of bellied surfaces, there is no contact at all by design. I'd actually say mine work better than a lie nielsen, because the big ones weigh two pounds less. They don't feel as heavy, and in a woodshow contest where people want to say "oh...i hardly feel that planing at all", I'm sure a newbie would prefer a LN because they don't yet understand the concept of getting tired due to repetition, but that's OK.

It could be the bedrock vs. bailey issue. I senselessly sanded the (otherwise clean) contact points on the first bailey plane I ever got, I'm sure I didn't improve it. It was a nuisance. Since then, I have only removed paint, rust and dirt. And only still have two of the bedrocks - both of them are very solid. point is, the lapping made a big difference on taking a full length shaving on a truly flat board, but none of the rest of the stuff has amounted to much with my planes.

I would advocate that most folks don't waste their time with the frogs other than to make sure everything is clean and locks down tight. Machining woodworking planes in general where there is no practical problem that can't be solved by lapping (e.g., the convex bottoms) is something I can't get into. Nobody did it with any regularity until recently - when the average experience level per customer went way down.