I got a bee in my bonnet about this, and I ended up picking up another Stanley on Ebay. It's a #3 Type 11. Really nice. I paid a total of about $60, which is on the high side, but it's cheaper than a new Stanley that isn't as good. It had some kind of goo all over it it, with sawdust embedded in it. I tried acetone and turpentine on it, and wonder of wonders, it turned out window cleaner dissolved it without hurting the japanning.
I used a Proxxon with a brass brush and fiber brush, 200 grit sandpaper, four diamond stones, a 1x42 belt grinder I rigged up with a treadmill motor, window cleaner, acetone, and turpentine. I cleaned off the goo and what little rust there was. I polished what needed to be polished. I took all the screws out and cleaned them. I freed up the adjusting knob with Kroil. I ground down the gap on the chipbreaker, although whoever owned this plane had already done a good job. I just finished reshaping and sharpening the iron by hand. The only thing that remains is to flatten the sole.
I guess I'll end up putting six hours into the plane, but it's beautiful, and the edge I put on the iron looks like a machine did it. I completely understand the pleasure of taking something expensive and perfectly fettled out of the box and using it immediately, but it's also nice to look at my tools and see the improvements my hands made in them. I could never get that with a $500 plane. And I saved a 100-year-old tool that a lot of idiots would have left in a junk heap behind a barn. I see so many planes on Ebay with pits and rust a sixteenth of an inch thick. It's like people decided they were garbage as soon as power tools became popular.
If I gave this plane to a friend or relative, every time they looked at it, they would see me.
Cry "Havoc," and let slip the dogs of bench.
I was socially distant before it was cool.
A little authority corrupts a lot.