Well my Sargent VBM 424 that I posted about last week arrived at the office yesterday so here's my report:
The Good:
The good is that it seems to be an early model Sargent with all original parts. Additionally, the plane arrived nicely clean and oiled. From what little I know about Sargents my guess that it was made around 1910, but I don't know a lot Sargents, so I've included some pics below that will hopefully help someone else (e.g. Joshua Clark) tell us more about it.
IMG_0413.jpgIMG_0414.jpgIMG_0426.jpg
The Bad:
Though the plane was clean and complete there were a couple aspects that concerned me when I checked it over. Using my precision wooden straight edge (aka. one of my winding sticks), it was clear that the sole was noticeably convex, the worst offending area being the at the tip of the toe. Even more concerning, however, was the fact that in an effort to make an extra buck some numbn*ts repainted the bed and while they were at it painted right over the frogs mating surface.
IMG_0433.jpg
Honestly, I wasn't sure if this would affect the performance or not, but despite the paint on the machined mating surface, the frog still seemed to rest solidly on it's bed so I moved on to prepping the blade.
Like many old planes the blade came in really rough shape, additionally it was a bit short with a bit less 1 1/4" of life left in it. Of course, this can be taken one of two ways - yes a short blade doesn't have a lot of life left, but it also means that the plane was used a lot throughout it's life, which to me is an encouraging sign.
The back of the blade was fairly pitted, but fortunately a fellow Creeker recently gave me a Shapton Pro 120, to take care of such situations. About 20 minutes of work on the 120 and almost all of the pitting was gone (before & after below).
IMG_0442.jpgIMG_0443.jpg
After grinding out the pitting on the 120, I spent about 20 minutes regrinding the edge on my 6" grinder and then proceeded to work may way up through the grits on my Sigma's. After honing/polishing the back and bevel I dressed the leading edge of the chipbreaker which thankfully was already in very nice shape, and only took a minute. So after about 45-60 minutes of work on the blade I put the plane back together, crossed my fingers, and put metal to wood.
The Pudding: (pic heavy, see next post)
Reply With Quote