Plane worth saving?

[Greg Crawford]

I got an old Stanley Bailey #5, but after cleaning it a bit, found the mouth is in bad shape. As you can see, it has some fractures at the front, and the whole mouth is concave. I've taken a bit off trying to flatten the sole and see if it was cracked or scratched, and it's cracked. The rest of the plane is in good shape.

Also, was this caused from hard use and the front of the mouth being worked too hard? I've read that the front is where all the action is.

Thanks,

Greg

[Michael Schwartz]

I wouldn't put a ton of effort into tuning it, but it should still be perfectly usable as a "Jack Plane" If you find a better one missing parts, you can allwayse mine parts from this one.

[Richard Niemiec]

I made me a scrub plane out of a #5 that had similar problems by grinding the blade convex, as when you are hogging off wood in scrub mode, the mouth does not matter at all.

RN

[Martin Cash]

Greg,
I had a similar problem with a number 5, and solved it by buying a much thicker blade - picked up a Lie Nielsen, but there are others. The mouth on mine was in much worse shape than yours, so I filed it back to square, but this of course opened it considerably. The repacement blade was too thick to have fitted the original mouth opening, and now it fits comfortably.
Of course the mouth is no longer capable of fine gossamer shavings, but as a jack plane for rough dimensioning work it is superb, and is the one I reach for after the scrub plane.
Good luck with yours.
Regards
MC

[Greg Crawford]

The consensus is about what I thought. Good for rough work, but will never be a fine plane. I was wondering if the cracks at the mouth would just keep getting worse. I guess if they do, I'll go from there.

It's an English made plane, and I was also wondering if the castings made there might have been more susceptible to cracking than US. Don't know if anyone can answer that or not.

Thanks All