Need Advise on Planes......

[Allan Speers]

That little ECE (primus) is a block plane, but it also works great as a small smoother, and it's a VERY nice plane. It has a lignum vitae sole, dovetailed in, which slides great, wears well, & is self-lubricating. (Though a little canola oil is still a good idea. The blade is Swedish steel, and nice & thick.

You will never have to replace that one.

[Drew Pavlak]

Here are the pics as promised. Also under the red part (frog?) I found the number 305 in the base. the Red part had the #5 and 496A in it as well.

Planes_002.jpgPlanes_006.jpgPlanes_005.jpgPlanes_004.jpgPlanes_003.jpgPlanes_001.jpg

[don wilwol]

I also agree with Jim. You wind up understanding how a plane works after you figured out how to make it work. I enjoy the process and have made it my hobby. I spend more time rehabbing and making tools than actual woodworking.

Anyone with reasonable mechanical ability and a small amount of materials can tune a plane. And there are plenty of how to's floating around the internet, most are over kills.

[Mike Holbrook]

Drew,

Nice finds!
You might save yourself some work by going to a Tractor Supply or buying/odering a relatively friendly substance called Evapo-Rust (32oz jug is $8.99 on Amazon). I bought a 32oz jug about 9 months ago and have cleaned up 8-10 planes and a bunch of other old rusty tools and I am still using it. You simply drop the metal parts into the liquid. I leave them alone for 12-24 hours then pore the liquid into another container and pull the pieces out. The Evapo-Rust turns all the rust to a carbon like substance that rubs off easily. I just dump all the parts, screws included in and get everything in shape in one soaking. You are left with a much more attractive gray surface without all the time trying to abrade all those surfaces. Evapo-Rust is biodegradable and touted to be harmless to skin though I try not to test it. I just sand the handles or use a rasp on them and add WATCO if I think the wood needs it. You can freshen the paint if you want to, some do some consider it a waste of time.

I think Brian approached the OP's question from a larger perspective. I would like for the OP to avoid some of the confusion I suffered as a result of not seeing the bigger picture. The work Drew describes would typically require a set of planes like Brian mentions. The confusion sets in because we tend to talk about specific planes individuals prefer in their specific environments and obscure some basic information about which planes and sharpening techniques the OP might need for the specific work mentioned and why there is so much gray and so little black & white.

Drew you hit the sweet spot for this forum on your first try. Neanders love their planes. Planes can be a difficult subject not just because of the planes themselves but because of the various ways to adapt different ones for a variety of work.

Jack/Scrub/Fore plane confusion
The Jack/scrub/fore..../try/jointer plane designations can be confusing at first. I know they were for me. For instance, planes from 14-18" are usually referred to as Jack or Fore planes. A confusing reality is some people use them like jointer or try planes for shorter/smaller pieces or adapt them for smoothing large pieces... The Jack and Fore planes are usually used with a good deal of blade camber (radius/rounding) although the blades you find on these tools usually are not cambered when you get them. I believe the Fore plane was the original plane used for this work but in more recent years many people adapt a 12-15" Jack plane for the work. The subject gets even more complicated when we toss the scrub plane into the arena. The scrub plane is a relatively simple plane designed specifically for removing large shavings. The scrub plane is usually a little shorter and narrower than a typical Jack plane. Some find the smaller plane/blade easier to work with when they are trying to remove large amounts of wood. Others tend to use a heavier plane like a 5 1/2 or 6 finding the additional weight helpful. Some people swear by their scrub plane and others find them superfluous, preferring to adapt a #5, 5 1/4, 5 1/2 or 6 for the work. Some even modify a #4 for "stock removal". The Stanley 5 1/4 has a body shape much like a scrub plane and is fairly easy to adapt for similar work. Whether you prefer a heavier or lighter plane for stock removal becomes a more personal choice.

The Try/Jointer planes vs Jacks
The other piece to this puzzle is longer planes are typically better suited to leveling surfaces, particularly wide or long surfaces. How long a plane you might use for this work, however, may depend on the size of the work, which is why some use shorter planes for jointing and where/how jointing, smoothing and stock removal can get confused. The try and jointer planes, by virtue of their longer bodies, tend to remove what Brian calls wind in surfaces. Jointer planes often also use blades that are cambered, although less so than jack/scrub planes. The reason Brian mentions three planes instead of one is he is trying to help the OP see the bigger picture in terms of leveling larger surfaces. Following Brian's approach to helping the OP see the bigger picture I think we need to delve into the larger picture in terms of sharpening. Adapting the blade one typically finds in a used or new plane for removing larger amounts of stock is a much greater sharpening challenge than simply keeping a decently honed blade sharp. Certainly changing the profile of a plane blade requires sharpening resources that are not necessary for maintaining a blade that already has the desired profile.

Sharpening tools
I bring the topic of removing large amounts of wood/stock removal up as I think it is a stumbling block for people new to using planes. Our OP mentions leveling sizable glued up surfaces as his objective. This type of work often involves sizable amounts of stock removal. The reason some posters mention starting with a smaller #4 plane and some suggest a jack or jointer is the smaller plane may be easier to learn starting out but the larger planes may be more suited/adaptable to the task the OP mentions. Several other posters have mentioned sharpening as a key part of this puzzle. I find particular relevance to these comments as they relate to changing the actual profile of the edge of a plane blade to adapt it for stock removal or jointing work. IMHO (in my humble opinion) Drew may face considerable frustration trying to use the planes he bought or any of the planes mentioned throughout this thread if he does not have a way to alter the profile of his plane blades for jointing and stock removal. I think he needs to consider some sort of abrasive technique that will make him successful at this more advanced sharpening if he wants to flatten glued up panels of relatively large sizes. The easy way to approach this is with some sort of grinder or belt sander with a coarse enough abrasive to do the work in a reasonable length of time. Rather than try to suggest some way to accomplish this work I think it would help to know if our OP has a grinder or belt sander....that can be adapted to this work. He can buy a coarse diamond plate, but large heavy ones appropriate to this task do not come cheap and a grinder...may actually save money.