Identifying hand plane made in India

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Andrew, it's common on all Lee Valley bench planes. Lie-Nielsen has this on all of their low angle planes, which yes, are bevel up planes, but are still bench planes none the less. You also see this type of lever cap on infill planes, etc.

Mentioning Soba, which I had not heard of before - except for the noodles...., I found this blog: http://indiandiy.blogspot.com/2013/1...-in-india.html
The fellow speaks very highly of them.

I appreciate the link.... That looks right. I hope that this turns out to be equally as good. I will, of course, provide updates as I start to tune this up.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Time is tight, but, I did some work on the No 7 plane. First, I pulled the frog. Things seemed to match well enough. I did not take a picture of just the screws, so, I cut them from another shot. You can probably see that the washers kind of beat up and bent.

01-Plane-Frog.jpg 02-Frog.jpg03-Frog-Screws.jpg

This is the blade after I cleaned it. Note the odd imperfection on the blade. This is the blade top. The mill marks look the same on the front and the back. I ignored the imperfection on the blade, but remember, this is a new plane.

04-blade-imperfection.jpg

It looks like the blade was sharpened by hand against with a very uneven camber.


05-blade.jpg

And this is the bottom front of the plane. It looks like the plane might have been dropped (or similar). That imperfection sticks up on the bottom by a large amount. I used my dremel to knock that off.

06-plane-bottom.jpg

[Andrew Pitonyak]

First, I made things square. Off hand, I don't remember if I started with my dry slow grinder to square the edge or if I went directly to the Tormek, but, I squared the edge before I tried to flatten the back since it was so far out.

Flattening the back of the blade was a lot of work. I did the initial work using sand paper. I stated with 220 grit, but when I realized how bad this really was, I switched to a courser sand paper (80 or 100 I think it was). I worked this blade over numerous days and I spent hours trying to get it down. I would have saved lots of time if I had just started with the course sand paper, but it had not occurred to me how bad it would be.

This picture is after using some course sand paper on it. Notice that the upper right corner is not touched at all, even with course paper.

07-blade-back-starting.jpg

I did lots of work on this blade, and it was getting difficult to hold, so, I grabbed one of the magnets with a switch on it to hold the blade
08-blade-magnet.jpg

When I added the magnet, I chose to do this dry. The magnet collected the metal as it came off the blade. You can see that there is very little left behind on the sand paper.

10-blade-magnet.jpg 09-dry-sand-paper.jpg

I finally gave up on trying to flatten the back. That upper right corner, after many hours of work, was still lower than the rest. I decided that I would just try the blade as is, and, if the blade is an issue, I might just replace the blade with a PMV11 blade from Lee Valley or a Hock blade (or, if something else shows up, I might use that). Since I had trouble with the back, I used the ruler trick (thank you David Charlesworth).

I did some test cuts with this No. 7, but I have not spent much time with the blade. I had to leave town for a few weeks, so, that is something else that I need to come back to. I did use it to joint a few boards before joining them to make a wider board. The adjustments are not nearly as nice as my Lie Nielsen planes, and my older Stanleys probably adjust easier as well, but, I was able to make it work.

[steven c newman]

You can always drop that troublesome iron off over at my shop....might take an afternoon for me to fix it.

Just rehabbed a StanleyNo.7c a while back....didn't take all the long.

[Frederick Skelly]

Thanks for the interesting update Andrew!
Fred

[Andrew Pitonyak]

You can always drop that troublesome iron off over at my shop....might take an afternoon for me to fix it.

Just rehabbed a StanleyNo.7c a while back....didn't take all the long.

Ya know, I might take you up on that. Of course, I would want to see how you work your magic :-)

I am almost afraid to look at the other two planes that are still in sealed plastic. I have a few other items that are also of a high priority. First, I am evaluating something for Wixley to see how well it installed on my junk Drill Press. And a very close friend died and I have a bunch of his stuff that I need to sell for his parents (wish I knew more about vacuum tubes and watches; some are worth a bunch).

[steven c newman]

You are welcome to come on over, just let me know..

[Dave Lehnert]

I don't have my plane in front of me but looks like one I purchased from Hartville Hardware a few years back.
I see you are from Columbus, Ohio. so possible it came from Hartville Hardware in Heartville Ohio.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I don't have my plane in front of me but looks like one I purchased from Hartville Hardware a few years back.
I see you are from Columbus, Ohio. so possible it came from Hartville Hardware in Heartville Ohio.

Very astute, yes, you are very likely correct. I had not thought of that. And that sounds like the correct time frame (a few years back).

[Dave Lehnert]

Very astute, yes, you are very likely correct. I had not thought of that. And that sounds like the correct time frame (a few years back).

I remember at the time they were considered a good hand plane at a good price.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

4 1/2 years later, an update...

The #7 blade was very difficult the flatten the back, but the plane works very well after I finished with it. The biggest issue was flattening the back.

Yesterday, I pulled the #6 and the #5. The #6 blade had a hollow on the back so it took a while to flatten the back to get even a 1/4" or maybe closer to 3/16" smooth area back from the blade. The #5 went much faster (about 1/4 the time as the #6) and is probably about 3/8" shiny from the cutting edge.

I will sharpen the blades today (probably) and see how they cut. I hope they work as well as the #7 does.

[steven c newman]

Took me about an afteroon...to rehab an A4 Anant...
test drive.JPG
cleaned up.JPG
frog.JPG
sole.JPG
lever cap and frog.JPG
Spent $5, and walked home with it....
backside.JPG
sole.JPG
front end.JPG
Then...traded it off, for a Millers Falls No. 9..Type 4