How to fix / rehab a #4 Stanley Plane

[Patrick Chase]

Yeah, I had never seen that before, but without Steve pointing out that it was not right, I probably would have simply shrugged and moved on.

When took possession of the plane, the blade was mounted the wrong way around, so the chip breaker was not near the tip of the blade, it was near the edge of the bevel. One result was that the blade protruded significantly out the bottom and there was nothing that you could do about that. I don't know if that is why someone tried a shim, which was still not enough, or if it was because the be bottom of the from was very rough, but Steve hit that with his belt sander and made short work of the issues there.

A friend of mine who was new to hand tools tried to set up the blade on his #4 bevel-up as you describe. He had enough sense to recognize that he was doing something wrong instead of just bulling ahead and shimming the frog, though.

[Robert Engel]

At least the tote isn't plastic, but I suggest you should check the pedigree before you go further. hyperkitten.com

Question I have is if the plane is warped due to stresses in the metal, will that recur after machining?

[Derek Cohen]

Somebody stuck a shim under the frog? That's... bizarre.

I've done that. Many years ago I was experimenting with converting a stock #4 into a high cutting angle. I added spacers (washers cut in half) under the rear of the frog. This way the plane reached a 55 degree cutting angle. It was tight and planed beautifully.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[steven c newman]

The frog on Andrew's Cordovan Stanley #4 sat on three "flats".....2 down at the mouth opening, and a single small "pad" at the rear. Had to flatten a spot on the frog's behind, to match that little square pad. Once that was done, frog no longer rocked side to side. Sole wasn't all that far out of whack. Chipbreaker needed matched to the flat back of the iron. Once there wasn't any gaposis under the chipbreaker, things worked a lot better. Andrew already had the iron nice and sharp.

We found out WHY the #8 would get a fouled mouth.....the after market iron and cb. There wasn't enough room between the cutter and the front of the mouth. And a #8 was never designed to take see-through shavings like a smoother.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

The frog on Andrew's Cordovan Stanley #4 sat on three "flats".....2 down at the mouth opening, and a single small "pad" at the rear. Had to flatten a spot on the frog's behind, to match that little square pad. Once that was done, frog no longer rocked side to side. Sole wasn't all that far out of whack. Chipbreaker needed matched to the flat back of the iron. Once there wasn't any gaposis under the chipbreaker, things worked a lot better. Andrew already had the iron nice and sharp.

We found out WHY the #8 would get a fouled mouth.....the after market iron and cb. There wasn't enough room between the cutter and the front of the mouth. And a #8 was never designed to take see-through shavings like a smoother.

Yeah, for these two issues, Steven was certainly "da-man". When I got home, I was able to do some decent work with the #4. it is certainly not nearly as nice as my Lie Nielsen #4, but I had no problems using it. Previously, it was pretty much completely NOT usable.

As for the #8, it will take some very nice whisper thin shaving. Much more than that and it clogs up. Makes sense after having Steve point to the opening and imparting the knowledge.... "too small"!