Rehabilitating Old Planes (Big File)

[Brian Doris]

Thank you, Bob. Lovely style of article.
Regards

[Bob Smalser]

Here's one of the main reasons your old Stanleys don't perform as well as new LN's and LV's.

I've rehabbed a few dozen of these old Stanleys now, and have yet to see even the wide smoothers that weren't used to joint boards, creating a hollow right down the center of the sole. If both the sole between toe, the front of the mouth, the heel and the back of the iron aren't dead flat, it's impossible to take a perfect shaving of equal thickness throughout.

Here's an out-of-true #4 1/2 sole where sanding the blued sole shows high spots everywhere except around the sides of the mouth:



Here's the same sole after considerable sanding with high spots remaining at toe and heel...you can clearly see this smoother jointed a lot of boards:



And here's the completed sole....flat enough to perform well, but still with small high spots remaining at toe and heel:



Sanding is done using 60-grit wet-or-dry lubed with WD-40 on the jointer table, sanded until sufficiently flat then finished with grits in series from 80-150 grit.

[Wiktor Kuc]

Great article. This is one of the most detailed and well presented articles on planes rehab I have seen for a while.

Excellent!

Thanks Bob.

[Michael Peterson]

Bob, i'm a young woodworker with little to no access to a mentor with your kind of wisdom. Thank you for being able to provide that long distance! I've been learning for 3 years by searching through all kinds of books on joinery and finishing and am indebted to people like you who have taken the time to lay out concise instructions in an easily understood and practical fashion. Thank you Thank you Thank you!]

Michael