Record #4 Smooth Plane - Refurbish or replace it?

[Tony Zaffuto]

I've got dozens and dozens of old & new planes. I've taken a Stanley Handyman (cheap homeowner plane) in #4 size and made it sing. This was with the stock blade and chipbreaker.

In addition to much of what has been posted, make sure you are using paper with a sticky back or affix with some spray adhesive. If you still are unable to get this plane to work, check the classified sections on the various woodworking forums for someone who will grind the sole flat. I don't know if the guy is on SMC or where, but I believe his screen name is "Tablesaw Tom". His rates (if I remember correctly) were about $40.00 for a #4 size. I have ground a few planes and even with the stock blade/chipbreaker, the performance difference is remarkable. Learn to set the chipbreaker correctly on your Record, and you'll be astounding all your woodworking buddies!

[Jim Matthews]

I would sharpen the iron, install it, and see how the plane functions.

+1 on this.
How the plane cuts is what matters.

[Peter Pedisich]

I only have one complaint about this plane (Record #4, about 14 yo), the depth adjustment has lots of slop, just like my Craftsman No 6, you get used to it!

[Joe Hollis]

Thanks to everyone for your feedback and suggestions. After some unexpected expenses, I elected to keep working on my Record plane and hold off on replacing it for a while. I could not get it perfectly flat, but with the new LV blade and cap iron, the plane is much nicer to use. There is certainly some sense of accomplishment in taking a basic tool like this and making it better. I'll likely have a go at my old standard Record block plane now, - at least I know how much sandpaper I'll likely be using.

Regards,

Joe.

[Jim Koepke]

...There is certainly some sense of accomplishment in taking a basic tool like this and making it better...

Regards,

Joe.

Making shavings with what was once a neglected pile of rust always makes me feel good.

Cheers on keeping the old thing doing its job.

jtk

[Mike Holbrook]

I bought 4 planes in resent months paying $10-$65 each. The $10 being a serviceable Sargent #5 with a front tote that may or may not need to be replaced. Turns out my spare LV tote is almost an exact match, with only a slight modification. The #4, #5 & #6 Stanelys, 1910-1930 manufacture, all have good Rosewood. The blades on the Stanleys were the only real problems requiring grinding new bevels. The bottoms even appear level after a cursory look with a square which is all I care about for planes I intended to use for rougher work. If I decide I like using the #4 it may get further tuning. I ran the #5 Sargent and the #6 Stanley through an Evapo-Rust soak, mostly to see how well the Evapo-Rust worked. All three Stanley planes have corrugated bottoms. Maybe the process of corrugating the bottoms adds a step in manufacture that reduces sole flatness issues?

I will say it took me a minimum of a couple months of looking\studying to find planes with little in the way of issues at those prices.

[Doug Trembath]

Fellows, I just lost a well reasoned response to this thread, and ended up somewhere in LALA land in the ether, and lost it. At the risk of my sanity, I decided to try again, because the message deserved it. (I HATE Windows 8!)

That being said, I recently purchased another economy box of abrasives from Klingspor, because I find many uses for it in my shop. During the discussion with one of their reps, on a weekend, by the way, I shared my frustration with getting plane soles flat. Man, it takes FOREVER!

I had been working on completing my collection of flat sided Bedrocks, just because I wanted to, and some of the planes I got needed significant attention. I am not anal about it, but I wanted them flat, and sides true to the soles. So sue me, I want them true, OK?

When I received the box of belt remnants, on top I found a note, which called my attention to some blue colored 80 grit Ceramic belt material the rep had thrown in to the box. He asked me to evaluate the abrasive and get back to him.

Fellas, I was amazed! That stuff cut like a cutting torch! Truly, a plane sole I had already spent long, long times trying to remove the concavity on, took seconds to get truly flat. I had to be careful not to go too far!

Face it, any one of you who have tried to flatten a sole has gotten bummed out after repeated attempts to get one flat, I know this. I have many on my own resume.

So, I wrote a glowing response, and let him know it was the best abrasive I have ever encountered. It works, guys. I have no affiliation, etc, etc, etc. Man, it cuts cast iron like butter. If you need to flatten something, it will do it quickly and efficiently. Do NOT press too hard!

Each of my bedrocks, with stock irons, will take sub thou shavings, and laugh at 8 to 10 thou, effortlessly, with absolutely no hunting for the sweet spot. All are flat, true, and a truly a joy to work with, all because I spent a little time working them into shape. I have no LN planes, with the exception of their 60 1/2 block (which I think is the best new production plane anywhere), and I don't need them.

Sorry for the rant, just wanted to share some really effective materials with my friends...

Doug Trembath

[Tom Bussey]

Nice looking plane. I read all of the advise on how to flatten a plane, but after working with steel for 50 years, and that includes a 4 year apprenticeship, I wouldn't bother.

[David Weaver]

Nice looking plane. I read all of the advise on how to flatten a plane, but after working with steel for 50 years, and that includes a 4 year apprenticeship, I wouldn't bother.

That sounds like something someone who doesn't actually use planes much would say. There is literally no function in woodworking that a hand lapped plane can't complete, and they are functionally superior in action to a plane that has been ground.

That is, they come out slightly convex and present less friction in use, and the difference is significant. It's even more significant if you compare waxed planes, as a ground plane will lose all of the wax on the sole much more quickly.

We don't hear anything about that because the market is driven by beginners who don't have the experience to know otherwise, and they're being directed by people (especially bloggers and tool show vendors) who also don't have the experience to know otherwise. People who describe how good a plane is with a straight edge or a dial indicator rather than use.

People who get their planes ground flat are wasting their money. The only excuse to apply machinist logic to planes is if someone has the desire to square a plane that is significantly out of square and they don't want to or can't learn to work the side of the plane to reasonably square. That is significantly more difficult than lapping a sole to practical usability.

For 8 years now I have seen various people on these forums claim that a plane needs to be machined and that nothing can be done by hand, and not a single one of them was a materially competent woodworker who has used planes heavily for more than trimming joints and removing planer chatter. The strawman that's used is the "ruined plane" or the "plane that was done by hand that still doesn't work". It costs $20 for an appropriate piece of glass and about $1-$3 per plane for the PSA abrasive needed to get them in good working order. Anyone claiming that doesn't make a suitable plane is full of it. I have literally done several dozen that way, maybe 50, and have never failed to end up with a good working plane, and without creating a whole bunch of unnecessary rust-magnet surfaces.

[Adam Cruea]

That sounds like something someone who doesn't actually use planes much would say. There is literally no function in woodworking that a hand lapped plane can't complete, and they are functionally superior in action to a plane that has been ground.

That is, they come out slightly convex and present less friction in use, and the difference is significant. It's even more significant if you compare waxed planes, as a ground plane will lose all of the wax on the sole much more quickly.

We don't hear anything about that because the market is driven by beginners who don't have the experience to know otherwise, and they're being directed by people (especially bloggers and tool show vendors) who also don't have the experience to know otherwise. People who describe how good a plane is with a straight edge or a dial indicator rather than use.

People who get their planes ground flat are wasting their money. The only excuse to apply machinist logic to planes is if someone has the desire to square a plane that is significantly out of square and they don't want to or can't learn to work the side of the plane to reasonably square. That is significantly more difficult than lapping a sole to practical usability.

For 8 years now I have seen various people on these forums claim that a plane needs to be machined and that nothing can be done by hand, and not a single one of them was a materially competent woodworker who has used planes heavily for more than trimming joints and removing planer chatter. The strawman that's used is the "ruined plane" or the "plane that was done by hand that still doesn't work". It costs $20 for an appropriate piece of glass and about $1-$3 per plane for the PSA abrasive needed to get them in good working order. Anyone claiming that doesn't make a suitable plane is full of it. I have literally done several dozen that way, maybe 50, and have never failed to end up with a good working plane, and without creating a whole bunch of unnecessary rust-magnet surfaces.

Are you sure he's just not referring to not wanting to touch steel again instead of implying that it needs machined? Maybe Tom just prefers machining it flat since it's just easier to do.

I'll admit it. . .I've rarely hand-lapped planes. I'm of the mind "if it ain't broke, don't mess with it". Literally, if there aren't any hairline cracks and it doesn't cut poorly and cause your planed surfaces to be out-of-flat, don't touch it. The effort is far outweighed by the benefit.

With that said, if I found a plane to be giving me fits and found out that it was seriously out of flat, I'd get it machined, not hand-lap it. Why? It probably has something to do with that whole "work smart, not hard" mantra. I'd much rather be playing Diablo III than standing at my bench making a bunch of metal dust that will end up irritating my skin if it accidentally gets into my pores.

Just a thought. Tom may have the same view, I dunno.

On a side note, don't you mean concave, not convex? Concave, to me, would imply the toe and heel are in the same plane with the middle not touching the work surface, whereas convex is the opposite.

[David Weaver]

I have seen tom, among others, cite before that lapping can't produce a flat plane (which is true in general), but others have suggested the same thing. Or that they see gobs of planes that were ruined by hand lapping (which is possible if a complete ham hander turns a plane into a banana through hours of unnecessary labor).

I've never seen, though, a #4 plane that cannot be lapped in 20 minutes on my lap (which is just a piece of glass 3 1/2 feet long with 80 grit psa roll on it) - it is usually more like 5 minutes or less. Surely there are some that exist that are so far out that it would take more lapping than that, but it is literally more time for me to box a plane and take it to the post office than it is to correct it. It's possible that the problem of this plane isn't the sole, though.

I stand by my comment that an experienced user will much prefer a plane that is slightly convex on the bottom, as a hand lapping will provide, to one that is ground perfectly dead flat. The more serious the user and the heavier the use, the more they will prefer a plane prepared by hand - due to the issue of friction.

it's one of the reasons that I've come to prefer refurbished stanley planes to premium planes for day to day use. The difference exists in long grain (the friction difference that is), but is more pronounced yet when planing end grain, too.

there is perhaps one place where a brand new ground plane or a refurbished ground plane will be nicer to use, and that is in a contest with your neighbor to take shavings less than half of a thousandth thick. The premium planes are definitely better for that, their adjusters are much finer in that range, and the irons are harder so they hold the edge of the envelope sharpness a little longer. In practical use, though, which is to be using a plane with some quickness and to be taking a shaving that's heavier, there is no advantage to a ground plane and you're still stuck with the additional friction, which is an uninvited guest once you've been moving a plane around for more than a couple of minutes.

[Adam Cruea]

Fair enough.

Do you have a particular brand of material you use? I use a similar setup, actually, but perhaps I'm using the wrong cutting medium (I think I use 120 grit, no-clog sandpaper). Maybe the difference between 80 grit and 120 grit is bigger than I thought.

Also. . .please clarify convex vs. concave here. For some reason, I'm seeing convex as able to roll the plane from toe to heel, and that's just not making sense at all.

[David Weaver]

Convex several thousandths is what you'll end up with hand lapping a plane. Probably find the mouth 5 thousandths lower than the front end and back end of the plane on a long plane like a jointer. That actually makes for a very nice plane to use, even if the plane is metal. it doesn't cause any problems on long joints, either.

Mirka gold 80. You want a paper as aggressive as you can find. 80 seems to me to be the sweet spot where the abrasive particles are far enough apart to dig in, but close enough together that you don't get a rasping type of feel.

I didn't have the same luck as mentioned above with ceramics, but I used a 3M belt and it may not have been the best thing. I find that all of them (abrasives) don't love low speed and high pressure, it breaks the abrasive down pretty quickly, but on 4 and 5 size planes, they still work pretty fast even when broken down some. With jointers, the paper really needs to be fresh.

Less is more, and if the 80 breaks down a little in use, there's really no need to do anything else with the bottom of the plane other than maybe run some high grit paper over it lightly by hand to take away some of the bite of the fresh grooves.

The longest I ever spent on abrasive paper was 4 hours with a newly made 18 inch panel plane made of mild steel (which is a far different experience than hand lapping cast iron, and that plane had some dovetails left that needed to be lapped off before the work proceeded to the sole, too). I think I may have spent a similar amount of time on an 8 that should've been thrown away about 8 years ago, but that, too, came out to be a nice-to-use plane. Since then, I've moved on with way-out jointers to finding the high spots with a marking fluid and removing them with a hardwood block holding coarse paper. It works far faster than lapping the whole plane, and once you get the high spots off, you can finish lap the entire plane to make sure everything is good to go. I could do that same 8 now in an hour, but in reality, I wouldn't buy that plane now - it should've been thrown away to start because the sole wasn't its only issue.

The biggest problem I've seen with people lapping planes is doing too much or trying to be too fine and remove every cosmetic blip they can see anywhere on the sole, and making the plane way too convex by doing that.

[Adam Cruea]

Really? This doesn't cause the plane to rock front-to-back at all?

Do you have any references you can point me to that I can digest to understand *why* you want this?

Thanks. Learn something new every day.

[David Weaver]

5 thousandths cause the plane to rock? No. If I gave you the plane to use and told you it was flat and didn't allow you to have a straight edge to check that comment, you'd never know it wasn't flat.

You want the lowest point on the sole to be the contact around the mouth, everything else can be a tiny bit higher.

In terms of preference, set yourself up a pile of wood that has just been hit with the jack or fore plane, and with edges that need to be jointed. Take a premium plane like a Lie Nielsen 7 and do half an hour's straight work with each of the two planes. Guaranteed the plane that has been lapped by hand will be less tiring and you can literally do more work with it. Both due to the weight and due to the flatness.

What you absolutely don't want is a plane that is concave where the mouth is above the front and back. You don't even want something like that within LN's flatness tolerance, because even on something like a #8 that may be 1.5 thousandth or two 8 hollow, you will literally have a cut or two at every jointed board before you can get a through shaving, and then you will have an impossible time making a mildly sprung joint.

Usually when you fit a long joint together to see if you have high or low spots, the trouble is at the ends or far too much taken out of the middle due to a heavy shaving, but the problems are not due to having a 5 thousandths error in the sole of the plane.

It never occurred to me specifically until recently, using a plane that is dead flat, how quickly the wax is gone from it and how substantial the friction is once the wax is gone. The premium planes *do* feel more solid in test cuts, but in the context of work, they take more effort vs. the planes I've prepared. It would be interesting to see if the premium plane makers could creatively solve this. I don't think most customers of planes ever use them heavily, though, nor do most people run a plane across the end of a panel to plane to a marked line - but the amount of friction and skip a plane that's dead flat will have on end grain vs. something that's not as dead flat is substantial.