Is it worth restoring an old plane that looks to have been used as a hammer?

[Josh Hutchinson]

I have an old Millers Falls No. 14 plane I picked up on eBay a few years back. I had bought a replacement Hock blade for it, but I'm just getting around to taking a closer look at the plane. The sole has 15-20 dents from what I'm guessing was a previous owner using it as a hammer. A straight edge shows that it's not very flat.

I could put it in a mill and flatten the sole pretty easily. I'd have to remove somewhere between 1/64" and 1/32" to flatten it. Is it worth doing? I'm wondering if even with a flat sole, the blade alignment could be out of whack. Other than the damage from being used as a hammer, it's in pretty good shape.

[Bill Houghton]

Only you can decide...but there are some tools for which the effort to fix it exceeds the value (not money, but usefulness) when you're done.

[Nicholas Lawrence]

The 14 is a size that could make a useful jack. Depending on what you want to do with it, perfect flatness may not be that important. Photos would help folks evaluate what you have.

[Josh Hutchinson]

The 14 is a size that could make a useful jack. Depending on what you want to do with it, perfect flatness may not be that important. Photos would help folks evaluate what you have.

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I have Christopher Schwarz's book and am building the French bench. I have been intending to add a few planes to my shop for some time, and this is a good opportunity as I will need them to flatten the top. Other than a Lie Nielsen apron plane, the Millers Falls is all I've got. If it can make a useful plane, I'm OK with putting a little work into it, especially as I've already bought a replacement blade.

Ideally I could save some money by restoring the Millers Falls, allowing me to splurge on 1 or 2 planes from Lee Valley, Lie Nielsen, or Clifton to tackle different tasks.

[Rick Malakoff]

Absolutely fix it up and use it, or sell it to someone here, there are a few of us who will fix in a hart beat and use the heck out of it.

[justin sherriff]

I am a bit new to this but I do not see how the pit marks would hurt anything.

[Pat Barry]

Its obviously trashed. You'll never get a mirror like finish on that sole. It will make a nice paperweight if the blades is kept retracted. JK

[Jim Koepke]

Howdy Josh and welcome to the Creek with your first posts.

If the dents do not have metal sticking out to scratch the surface being planed then it will likely work fine without major metal removal.

The best way to tell if work is needed is to reassemble the plane, sharpen up the blade and give it a test drive.

The Millers Falls #14 is a good size to tackle a lot of tasks. A blade with a radius will enable it to hog off a lot of material in the first steps to flatten a bench top. Change the blade to one with a more straight or slightly cambered grind, with the chip breaker back a bit to use for with the grain flattening like a jointer then get the blade as sharp as can be, set the a bit closer to the edge for the final smoothing. That is why it is called a jack plane, as in Jack of all trades.

jtk

[Mike Baker 2]

I would restore, especially since you can mill it flat.
I would do it with sandpaper and a flat surface. With a mill, what have you got to lose?

[Ted Reischl]

I would not mill it until I had lapped the sole to make sure none of those dents was causing it to appear so out of flat.

For a sole to be THAT far out of flat is pretty unusual in my experience, which, admittedly is somewhat limited

[george wilson]

You will, of course, widen the slot the blade comes through. The slot will get considerably wider for the amount you will remove. So, mill off as little as possible.

As a machinist myself,I advise you to take care clamping it. Much pressure AT ALL will cause the sole to begin to bulge up. The plane may become convex down its length as pressure is added. When you are finished,and remove the plane from the vise,the sole will become concave in both directions.

I'm sure that any plane maker had special cradles to hold their plane bodies in as they were milled and ground. THE SAFEST thing to do is to do what most guys who don't have machine tools do: Affix coarse Wet or Dry paper to a flat surface, and rub the plane on the paper. Use water or the paper will load right up. One of the members here uses a long surface with abrasive belt fixed to it. That will increase efficiency.

About clamping the plane in a vise; if you don't clamp the plane sufficiently, it could easily get loose, run up into the cutter and get totally ruined. So, be careful.

[Derek Cohen]

Josh , if you wish to restore it to working order, then all that is required is that the toe, mouth and heel are coplanar. Any low spots between are more cosmetic than anything else. Similarly, the dents should not affect the plane's performance, as long as they are not around the mouth.

I would lap the plane on sandpaper. I have a 1m long glass plate glued to three layers of MDF that I keep for this purpose.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Kees Heiden]

And to repeat, for a jackplane for rough work, nothing is neccessary for this sole. Sharpen the blade and have fun.

[Pat Barry]

Those dents are not anything to be concerned with.

[Josh Hutchinson]

Great, thanks all.

The sole is convex both across its width and its length, so I think I will try to put it in a mill, careful not to clamp it too hard. I'll report back with a picture once it's finished.