Favorite Stanley planes

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I am partial to the 4C for smoothing. All my Stanleys are corrugated. It just happened that way, but I do like the corrugated planes. I love a 7C and I have a 6C that I also love for short flattening jobs like a panel. For my wood surfboards, kayaks, and other curved things I like a No. 2, but that one is a LN. I still drool over a big heavy No. 8, but have yet to get one of my own.

All that said, my Veritas bevel up jointer, jack, and smoother are my go-to planes.

[Jim R Edwards]

I primarily use bevel up planes and sold most of my Stanleys. I did keep a 605 with an orange frog, 605 1/2 that was surface ground by Tablesaw Tom, and a 608, all square side bedrocks. All have a Hock chip breaker and blade and perform very well. The 605 1/2 is my favorite and gets used often.

[Mike Holbrook]

Interesting variety of preferences. It seems some people prefer heavy planes and some prefer lighter planes. I find tough wood with challenging grain may work easier with a heavier plane. As I recall Dave Weaver's posts over the years, I believe he works with softer woods which I suspect regular Stanley planes excel at working. Derek, on the other hand, works with all those challenging Australian woods which may benefit from not only steeper blade angles but heavier planes? I have Hickory, Purple Heart, and several other extra hard woods but still use softer even green woods.

[Sean Hughto]

which, specifically older Stanley planes, people find the most useful/favorite

Useful depends upon task. Favorite is usually dictated by sharpest at the time. I wouldn't like to be without my 3,4,5, 5 1/2 or 7 close to hand. I need my 40 and 248 and even 66 almost as much.

[Mike Holbrook]

I guess I need to go study up on Stanley Bedrocks. I assume the longer numbers belong to planes of that ilk from the little I have seen at auctions. I am not sure why they seem to sell for more money. I guess they are heavier. They seem to be more popular on auction sites than they are with posters on this site. At least they seem to sell for premium prices.

[Sean Hughto]

Bedrock lesson one: http://www.supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan15.htm

I think they are cool. Any plane names after Fred Flintstone's hometown is all right by me. Cool lever caps, cool chopped sides, and, of course cool frog/bed mating. Significantly better performance? Well, perhaps I'm not a sensitive enough instrument to gauge ....

[Moses Yoder]

The advantage of the Bedrock plane is that the mouth opening can be easily adjusted without compromising integrity. That is not as much of an issue in today's world where you have a hundred specialized planes, but in the days of yesteryore when a craftsman only had one or two planes it would have been a big deal. Still, the Bedrocks hold their value just as well as Wallstreet does; over the long haul the price will only increase. You can buy one and use it for 40 years and sell it for more than you bought it for.

[Stew Denton]

Hi Mike, the big improvement of the Bedrock design is the way the frog mates to the bed of the plane. The Bedrock has the bottom of the frog, and the mating surface of the bed are both milled dead flat, and they also have kind a rib on each side of the frog, and corresponding slots milled in the bed.

This type of bedding allows the frog to set dead flat and straight in the bed. It is a "rock solid" method of bedding and so makes the plane body and frog have a more solid and rock free type of bedding. The ribs and slots keep the frog straight with the bed.

The first Bedrocks came along about 1898, I think and the first ones were the first planes to have the frog adjustment screw, which Stanley patented, and which allowed the frog to move from front to back in the bed by adjusting the screw. This feature was added to their Bailey line about 1908 or so, with the type 10, I think.

About that same time, or shortly after that, Stanley added two more bolts to the back of the frog mounting shelf, on the bed, which fit into two pins with holes in them that fit through the frog. Thus by tightening or loosening these two bolts the frog can be freed up and moved, or tightened down in place without removing the iron, chip breaker, or lever cap. This made it much easier to adjust the frog, and hence iron, location, thus changing the gap between the iron and front of the plane mouth.....made life easier.

The design is so good that the LN planes, and some other premium planes made today are essentially copies of the old Bedrock design.

The Bedrocks were pricier than the Bailey models, and since the Bailey design was darned good, the Baileys outsold the Bedrocks by quite a bit. After WW2 started, Stanley felt the pinch on manpower and materials, and they discontinued their less popular lines like the Bedrock planes and Everlast chisels, which, unfortunately were also their premium products.

That is why the Bedrocks sell for more than the Bailey planes, they are a little better, and the later ones are easier to adjust. Plus there are a lot less of them around, so it is a case of supply and demand. Also, a Bedrock in good condition sells for less than most of the equivalent LN planes.

If you look at the link Sean posted above, you can read about it, and there is a drawing there as well. I need to add that many wood workers have a higher view of the Bedrock planes, including guys like Christopher Schwarz, than does the Blood and Gore site. Another way you can see the designs is to go to Ebay and search for Stanley Bedrock, often you will see a photo of a plane taken apart, so you can see a photo of the design.

Stew

[Chris Griggs]

No 4 and No 6 are my most used, hands down. I wouldn't want to be without my 5 for coarse work, I love my MF 15 (=stanley 5 1/2) and I certainly find my 7 useful for edge jointing...BUT I could pretty much get by with just a 4 and 6.

[Kees Heiden]

Another advantage is better support of the iron when the mouth is adjusted. In the Bailey, the iron looses support at the sole as soon as you move the frog forward. Not so in the Bedrock.

My favorite Stanleys are a 4c and a 7. Especially the 4c. But I like my Record 05 too, use it often.

[Mike Holbrook]

So Chris and others I am interested in how the users of these planes "tune" them. For instance a #6, regular Stanley or Bedrock, can be tuned to work more like a jack plane or a jointer. Assuming one recognizes the 5 as a plane designed to take larger amounts of wood and the 7 as a plane designed to level an entire surface after the jack plane has removed major rough and uneven wood. Is the 6: between the two, a jack that can also flatten or a jointer that can remove more wood as it levels? Maybe the answer is yes to all the above?

How much camber or rounding of edges do users of these planes find most useful for each, might be a better question?

[Chris Griggs]

I tend to keep my 6 setup as a try plane. That is, a moderately cambered jointer...enough camber that I can take a fairly heavy cut, but also little enough that I can back the blade up some and take what I would call heavy smoothing cuts....(e.g. there is not soooo much camber to make it leave troughs the way a heavy set jack or scrub might). I use it the same way one might use a 7 or a larger wooden try plane, and I just happen to prefer over the longer planes for my of my work. My 7, by contrast is ground straight across and is mainly used for edge jointer on longer pieces. I will use it on faces to flatten much the same way I use the 6 when the size of the piece dictates the need, but in my shop the 6 is used more often than not (on faces as well as edges).

You could certainly set a 6 up as heavy set fore plane, you could also set it up as a very finely set panel plane, or you could do like Jim K does and keep mulitple 6s with various setups, but for me a 6 setup as a medium cutting a try/jointer does a lot of work.

[Mike Holbrook]

Thanks Chris, I plan to set my 6 up similarly. I typically buy wood that does not require major work. Medium size pieces are typical of the projects I have planed. I think a 6 set up like you discuss and a 4- 4 1/2 can handle most of the work.

[Floyd Mah]

Get a #40. Very useful when you are trying to remove a lot of wood and would otherwise have to resort to a chisel or band saw. For those times when fine shavings are too slow. When removing strips of wood by millimeters at a stroke is better than fractions of a millimeter. I've used a #40 to remove wood when notching a post, removing wood on the way to correcting winding, taking bends out of a board prior to running it through a jointer and then planer. Think of it as sketching with a piece of charcoal or pencil prior to using a finer brush to make your work of art. My #40 ebay Stanley is probably 100 years old and does the same job as a more pricey LV or LN.

[Brad Chittim]

Floyd, you're right. Your #40 does the same job as my pricy LV. What it doesn't do is survive a four-foot fall to my concrete garage floor. My LV, ductile cast iron body, however, did survive the fall with barely a nick to show for it. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE vintage tools. What I don't like is that one careless moment on my part can send it to the trash bin.