Score!!! I think?

[Jim Matthews]

They each weigh a ton; must weigh 30-40 lbs. each.

One of them will be a genuine prize.
Hard to say which, from the photos.

Do you have a metal detector, or can you borrow one?

[Bill Brush]

I would give the planes a dip in Evaporust. About 12 hours in that stuff and 95% of the rust will be gone.

[Al Launier]

Hi Al,

If the lumber looks good after you run it through the planer, please post a photo. Have you done any thinking about potential projects to use the lumber in?

Regards,

Stew

Will do Stew!

[Chris Hachet]

Fifteen bucks?

You suck.

Agreed! Very jealous of this little find....I need to head north to see Steven C Neuman....

[Al Launier]

Well I couldn't wait any longer to see what the old planks would give me. I washed the sand off with a hose, let the wood dry for a few days, checked for nails & removed the two that I could find, used the hand belt sander to remove the high spots in preparation for the planer, then proceeded to remove the "scale". Handling these bulky, heavy planks (~40 lbs) were awkward in a small shop.

It wasn't until about the third pass of 1/32" DOC each, that I heard a "ping". Crap! Just clipped another nail head. The nail wasn't noticed before & it was about the size of an 8P nail. Removal was easy; it broke off about 1/2" below surface. It was an old "rectangular" nail from the good 'old days & very hard. Finished planing both sides without further incident.

The second plank was a different story. This time the "ping" was a slightly more noticeable. It was another hard rectangular nail that I hadn't found earlier, but larger than the first nail. Removal of this nail was a real chore as it took quite a bit of excavation & about 15-20 minutes of effort, and this one broke off about ¾” below the surface. After this no more incidents & I completed the rough planing of the second plank. At this point they are both 3 5/8" thick.

In each case the nail heads were barely clipped, but I’m still not looking forward to checking out the blades. Glad they're reversible.

Now that I've "exposed the planks for what they are, I'm not sure what to do with them. They have a number of cracks leaving little to salvage. Glad I only spent $12 for the pair. Also, I was told one was hickory & one was walnut. I don't know my woods, but it seems that both planks were hickory. Hard to tell when in the rough. Lesson(s) learned!

[Jim Koepke]

Mallet handles?

jtk

[Stew Denton]

Al,

One thought I had would be to use the planks as two foot pieces for the legs to mortise into for a work bench base, or perhaps the top piece of the trellises that the top of the work bench sets on. Fill the cracks with epoxy, you can work it in deeply into the cracks with a putty knife. You might think about ways to color the epoxy so that it will match the color of the finished lumber. I am not sure what you could do to color the epoxy, but I have a set of kids chalks in one of my carpenters tool boxes, and I am thinking that perhaps some of that could be powdered and added to one of the two parts of the epoxy before it is mixed. You would have to do some experimenting.

The planks are big enough that I would be tempted to use them for some purpose like that so to take advantage of the size, but that you didn't need finish grade lumber for. With epoxy to fill and strengthen the cracks, and perhaps Dutchmen to fill the spots where you had to dig out the nails, if carefully done, they might not look too bad.


Just a though for a possible use. I don't have a workbench yet, and have thought about one, so that may be why using them in a bench comes to my mind.

For the price you gave for them, I don't think you did too bad at all, especially if you come up with a good use for them.


Stew

[Al Launier]

Well, I decided to resaw the planks into 1" boards & see where that takes me. There are a number of splits, but there is also a fair amount of salvagable wood. Included is a pic of the naoil that was buried in one of the planks. Just barely clipped the top of it with the planer. Going to get a metal detector this weekend to find nails before I clipp any more. Since the wood was very old I don't think much drying will be required, but it will be sticked until I'm ready to start a project with it.

My nephew would like a "Letter Box" to store important letters & his passport in a drawer below the letters. Think I'l give this a shot (without his knowing about it), but perhaps with a false bottom for his passport instead of a drawer. Don't know what size the box should be at this point, but will think of something???

[Mike Null]

Al

Congrats on the find.

I have in mind to build my grandson a writing box and thought these might provide some food for thought for your project.

https://www.google.com/search?q=writ...F&ved=0CEYQsAQ

[Al Launier]

Thanks Mike, really appreciate your suggestions!

[Mark Stutz]

Nice looking stuff. Too bad about the planer blades, though.

Have you had a chance to clean up those planes yet?

[Stew Denton]

Hi Al,

From the looks of the lumber, you did better than it looked like you might....much better. You came out great on the rust hunt on the lumber from what it looks like!

Stew

[Jim Koepke]

Yes, the lumber looks like the deal of the year.

jtk

[Jerry Olexa]

WOw.....you did GOOD!!!

[Robert Engel]

The block plane is a standard Stanley type nothing special. But you can get it in usable condition fairly easily.

The larger one looks like a #3 of some type.
In my experience, most planes without a name are (there's now easy way to put this) forgettable.
That being said (and not knowing what you're level of expectations are for hand tools) I wouldn't spend a whole lot of time trying to make this into your daily user.

Before you do anything check the condition of the blade and cap iron. Do some initial honing on the blade back with a fairly coarse stone to see if its even worth going further. If you can bet the blade back flattened (without spending half a day) then proceed to the next step, which is checking the flatness of the sole.

If both of these check out, you'll have a usable plane, but how usable, I have no idea. I note there is no frog adj. which is a game stopper for me.
The cheaper Stanley knock-offs (even some Stanleys themselves) are notorious for not holding the blade setting and you'll find this out when you try to use it.

Even if they don't pan out, you made good on the wood.

Good luck.