I recently completed my first ever restoration of a Stanley plane. I bought a rust bucket #5 jack plane off that auction site fairly cheaply (<$20 incl shipping), figuring no matter how much I mess up I'm at least not damaging something valuable. I have the before and after pictures below, although they don't really capture the shape this guy was in. In any event, I wanted to share my progress and thoughts on this process; I also had a question I was wondering if someone could help answer (it's at the end of this message, which is fairly long, in case you want to skip ahead):
I don't have a dog in the "new vs used" argument when it comes to hand planes. My own thought is that as I'm just starting, I wanted to good learning vehicle, and I felt that I'd rather use the $20 plane instead of the $200+ plane for that. I figured I can always get a new one later once I really decide how I want to proceed in the hobby.
I also needed to get some sharpening equipment, but I figured I needed to do that anyway (even new blades eventually become blades that need sharpening). So I did want a blade on which I can learn to sharpen and hone. Another argument for the used plane. Having said that, I did buy a new blade and chipbreaker from Lee Valley so I'd have an idea how a sharp, fresh from the factory blade would work.
My first step was to disassemble the plane; quite a few of the screws were stuck and required liberal amounts of WD40 to get free. I used electrolysis to remove the rust from the plane and old cap iron and blade with some success. I used white vinegar for the screws and smaller parts with less success, but I got enough rust out to make them work. Next time I may try Evaprust or similar. I then gave the plane body a coat of paste wax and went to work to put everything back together, using the replacement blade and cap iron.
My first shavings were far from satisfactory; taking a closer look it was obvious why: I could not move the frog back far enough to allow for any space between the end of the blade and the front of the mouth. And the blade was probably not well supported with the frog that far back. Before doing anything else to the plane, I decided first to put the original blade and cap iron back in. But before doing that, I had to sharpen the old the blade.
To do that, I used my newly purchased low speed grinder from Woodcraft to grind the primary bevel. And then Norton waterstones (1000 and 4000 grit) to hone the bevel. Without going into details, it did take me several tries to get it right. One reason I was glad I used an old blade first. One issue is that there's not a lot of iron left on the old blade (it came like that). But once I felt the blade was sharp enough (not truly sharp enough, as I'm not there yet; but sharp enough for now), I put it in my plane and finally got a shaving off my scrap Lowes-bought hemfir of about 0.003". And there was much rejoicing!
Next step was to file the mouth to make it wide enough to accept the new blade. Being a newbie, I took a bit too much off: 1/16", which is probably about twice what I needed. Thankfully it's only a $20 plane (I knew I would do something wrong). I adjusted the frog, put in the new blade, and got the shavings down to about 0.002". OK, getting there. I then put in the new cap iron, but had trouble getting shavings that thin and had some chatter and skipping. Not sure why yet, but it could be technique related; I still have some things to try.
I will say that doing all this took a lot longer than expected. It's one thing to read Garrett Hack's book (highly recommended, btw) and watch all the various online videos, but it's a whole 'nother thing to actually go and do it. Quite a few mistakes were made that had me going back to the book and browsing this forum and others to see what I may have done wrong. It's important to keep perspective: it's a hobby and fun time; there's no schedule to keep. Far better to take extra time to do something correct than get frustrated and make a bigger mistake. But I learned a lot in the process; it was highly valuable experience to me, and rewarding to boot. Those looking to decide "new vs. old" should keep that in mind. I'm sure I would have been getting shavings within the first hour of buying a new LV or LN. But I'm not sure I would have learned as much. And either way, I still have a lot more to learn.
Finally, on to my question: near the toe of the plane are several dimples in the service; see the final photo for a view. Are these a problem? It would probably take me days of nonstop lapping to remove them, if that's even possible. Therefore, are they really going to be a problem once I start doing real work?