I just got a beautiful little plane. It's a 602 Bedrock Flatside, I believe Type 6. It's got some lite rust here and there, however I'm sure it's been cleaned of rust before, as there is cleaned out pitting on the blade. Some of the screws and nuts have lite rust. Japaning is about 60% left.
I've been restoring all of my old planes...strip and repaint, derust all parts, sand and shine up all nuts and screws and in some cases, knobs and totes stripped and refinished. This plane will not be a user, so I'm wondering if, as a collector plane, should I restore it or leave it as is? My first thought was that this plane had been worked on before, so why not take it the rest of the way and really make it shine. On the other hand, it looks pretty cool the way it is. What's the consensus?