[OP]
Member
Need some ideas of where to find a good Jack Plane, maybe a Stanley pre WWII. Not sure I want to get into restoring them myself. So I am really looking for some place or some body that sells them for a reasonable price and is reliable. I have played with the LV and LN new planes but so many say the older Stanleys are just as good if not better. Any leads or ideas will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Member
Wade,
Type 9 thru Type 13 Stanley's can be very good planes. If you try to buy on eBay in many cases by the time you pay for shipping and the burn rate you could have bought a LV, LN, or Woodriver and gone to work with a plane that for the most part works out of the box. I've found if you include all costs buying new is often cheaper. Of course YMMV.
ken
BTW, I know what to look for and I will occasionally still get burned buying on eBay.
Last edited by ken hatch; 03-03-2016 at 4:59 AM.
Member
I have to say that old Stanley planes that are clean, do a really nice job if you get all of the parts lined out, but ,IMHO, there's no way they will perform with a new Lie Nielsen . Neither will they match up with the Lee Valley planes.
I some of all three.
Contributor
Just as good or better is very subjective. I really like my old Stanley/Bailey planes. To me they have a more appealing look, that is just my opinion. If properly tuned they may take a shaving off a piece of wood just as nice, but it is very doubtful they could ever do it better.
Do you already have any hand planes?
Are you familiar with Patrick Leach or Bob Kaune?
A lot of the sellers one would be referred to in the past are no longer with us.
Are there any flea markets or second hand junk stores in your area?
I have found planes everywhere from antique shops to pawn shops. Surely there has to be somebody that has one sitting on a shelf waiting for you to find it in your neck of the woods.
A quick search turned up this:
Dowd's Vintage & Antique Tools
1400 Williams Drive
Garland, Texas 75042 -
See more at: http://dowdstools.com/contact-us#sthash.2nALKjO5.dpuf
Not sure what they have on hand, but you might send them an email or give them a call.
That is a bit of a drive, but if you are out that way.
There is surely an old tools store or something in the Dallas - Fort Worth area.
There is also a LN Tool Event in Dallas in mid April:
https://www.lie-nielsen.com/hand-tool-events/USA/52
If you are the gregarious type you might meet someone there who is just the sale of an old Stanley away from being able to buy a new LN.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Contributor
If you were a contributor ($6 donation), you could post a wanted to buy in the classifieds here and somebody might dig one up that they could spare.
Member
You're just trying to drive down demand so you can buy more planes for cheap, right? :-)Originally Posted by lowell holmes
Member
I already have 12 planes, I don't plan on buying more.
Member
+1 on everything Ken has said.
Now, for my 2 pennies worth...
I've rehabbed quite a number of vintage planes and like (no, love) the performance of the types 8-17 (even an occasional 19) of the Stanley line. Also, Millers Falls and Sargent planes can be quite wonderful, too.
LN are better made modern versions of the Stanley planes. The bodies are ductile, have better blades, cap irons, etc. They are just superior made. For all that, I can match my LNs (and many times beat them) with SOME of my rehabbed Stanleys, MFs, or Sargents (some with original blades, others with Hocks or Veritas replacements). IMO, once you take a LN apart and resharpen the blade, you really face the same issues as having to tune/fettle any vintage plane (that's still in good+ condition); so, buying a LN is not an automatic given that it will work without some tweaking. OTOH, that LN will come out of box tuned and sharpened to perfection. There's few vintage planes that can equal the LV performance without some significant fettling. Once done, and learned, then the vintage planes give modern planes quite the challenge.
My LV planes are a whole new, better class of engineering. LV has embedded screw stops, and added profoundly better adjustments and mechanisms. IMO, LV wins the contest for the better mouse trap! I don't like some of the ergonomic aspects or design lines on the LV planes as well as the LN planes; but, performance wise, they are superb and much easier to dial in and forget. Please don't misunderstand--I like (and have bought a few of each) LN and LV planes. I also like my vintage planes, as well.
Member
As much as I'm an LV/Veritas fan, I think that's a bit unfair to L-N. It's sort of like beating up on Porsche for continuing to produce the 911 as their top-of-the-line car, even though its engine is undeniably in the wrong place.
L-N's self-described mission is to produce "heirloom-quality tools", not "modern marvels of hand tool engineering" (that's LV's gig). Implicit in L-N's mission is a fairly rigorous adherence to traditional designs, and IMO they succeed magnificently when measured on their own terms. They've done a good job of figuring out where they can make improvements while preserving the essence of those classic designs, and their tools are superbly executed by any reasonable standard.
That brings me back to the Porsche comparison - They continue to produce the 911 because they have a customer base that loves that basic design and is willing to pay $$$ for the best possible implementation thereoff. Ditto L-N.
Last edited by Bruce Page; 03-02-2016 at 10:09 PM.
Member
After I have tuned up an older Stanley, I think Veritas planes are quite inexpensive. I usually replace the blade and cap iron with a LV PM VII so the cost difference isn't that great.
Contributor
Wade,
Like Jim I have bought type 10, 11, and 12 Stanley Jack planes at a flea market. I paid an average of less than $20 for them. I bought a couple for $10 apiece. Unfortunately I only get to a big flea market once in a blue moon. The ones I paid that price for were in pretty good user condition, but the did not look pretty. I was able to buy both Jack planes and smoothing planes for that same money, less than $20.
I have partially, to nearly fully, restored several planes, but the truth is that only a very minimal amount of restoration has anything to do with practical performance of the plane. I try to restore the appearance of the plane as much is REASONABLY possible, but of course a 100 year old plane that has been used a lot will have dings, etc., that you can't fix that without some sort of heroic effort. I am not going to make a heroic effort on a plane.
The truth is that if you clean off the rust that can be progressing (ie: leave the patina that is not leading to further rust), flatten the contact areas of the frog and bed of the plane, flatten and polish the back of the iron, touch up the chip breaker so the point of contact is flat and tight against the front of the iron, remove any burrs or high spots from the top of the frog so that the iron will fit tightly against it, clean up the threads of the bolts and bolt holes so that the plane can be easily adjusted, and finally sharpen the iron until it is frighteningly sharp, the plane will probably preform very well. It may be necessary to flatten the sole, but a lot of the time, such is not really needed all that much.
This type of restoration is not all that time consuming. Trying to make one look really nice takes a GREAT deal more time, but does little to improve the performance of the plane more than the simple steps in the above paragraph will do. You should be able to do all of the performance improving steps in a day or so.
What I am saying is you can save a great deal of money over buying one of the premium planes if you purchase a vintage Stanley Bailey plane from a flea market if you can get it at a decent price, and doing the CRITICAL restoration steps to make it a performer.
Finally some advise on buying a user grade vintage plane, and getting a GOOD user from it at a low price: 1. don't buy a plane that is missing parts, as Ebay parts for vintage Stanley planes will drive up the low initial cost of the plane a LOT, 2. don't buy a plane with the chip breaker or iron strongly corroded on the business end, as this will make it difficult to sharpen the iron and to keep it sharp, 3. make sure the sole of plane is dead flat, as far as you can tell, and 4. don't buy a plane that is a rust bucket where there are machine screws, etc. Finally, look over the plane very carefully before buying it, checking the body carefully for cracks, as small cracks that may even be fairly long are difficult so see.
A broken tote or knob is not a deal breaker, if both parts are still on the plane, and it can be glued up cleanly. The last tote I glued up and then sanded after a few weeks of drying time, was such that the break could almost not be detected. The last time I glued up a tote, I cleaned up the glue surfaces with acetone to get the oils out of the glue surfaces, and then used Gorilla glue. After it dried thoroughly, sanded it, and refinished it, the break was very difficult to see, and mechanically the tote was very strong.
At any rate, I think if you look enough, you should be able to get into a good jack plane that will do good work for a total of less than $40, if you do the restoration and sharpening, and if you buy one that has good parts on it to begin with. Fortunately there are so many Jack planes around that a Jack plane is one of the lowest priced planes you will find, and I have even bought Bed Rock Jack planes in good condition for $50, but it has been a while since I bought one for that price.
Finally, if you are looking at the long term on the planes, I recommend buying Stanley planes because should you break a part and need one, you can usually find the part on Ebay. That doesn't mean that the Stanley planes are necessarily any better than some other brands, but I can speak from personal experience that parts on other brands of planes can be pretty hard to come by.
Regards,
stew
Last edited by Stew Denton; 03-02-2016 at 11:50 PM.
Member
You might even consider an old wooden jack plane, although in that case (unless you know what you're looking for) you REALLY need to buy from a reliable source.
There's a certain vibe one gets from using an old, well-used tool, and woodies amplify that feeling by quite a bit. For metal planes, and if cost wasn't a factor, then I'd rather have an LV all day long. - but I MUCH prefer my woodies, when everything is set right & when I'm not in a hurry.
You can even get new ones, from companies like Old Street tool, (Clark & Williams) HNT Gordon, ECE, Ulmia, etc. I'm VERY fond of the ECE Primus planes. Still, they don't have the vibe of something that's actually been making furniture for the past 200 years.
Last edited by Allan Speers; 03-03-2016 at 10:42 AM.
Member
Hey guys, we're talking about a JACK plane here. A roughing tool. It can have all kinds of defects and still work perfectly well. Sole doesn't need to be flat, or square to the sides. Blade can have some pitting. Capiron can have a sloppy fit. Etc. Grind a bit of camber on the edge. Sharpen it and get loose.
Contributor
Hi Wade
What use do you plane to put your jack to? Is this to become a smoother or a roughing plane? If a smoother, then consider any quality plane ... although I must add that the #5 or #5 1/2 would not be my choice here. A smoother is better when shorter than this. If a roughing plane, the just about any #5 would do. Possibly better would be a woodie around 15" in length.
Regards from Perth
Derek
Member
I am with Jim K, my vintage Stanley #5 that I have used for three decades works as well IMHO for jack usage as any LN plane. There are a bunch of vintage #5 planes around, wood or steel. biggest thing is learn to sharpen if you don't already know and get a little camber in the blade. I ahve three jacks all set up differently....I have about $30 or so in all three....outside of the Hock Iron and chip breaker I put into the one I have had the longest.
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