Hand plane?

[Jamie]

So with our talk on the workbench coming around to my drawer of rusty hand planes, I decided to look in there tonight after work and pulled them out. No clue what I’m looking at. Decided with a house full of quarantine women who haven’t got to go shopping in a few weeks that it was better for me to find something to do in the shop. 
 

This is one of the 4 that were in the drawer. It’s a Stanley #4. 
Worked on cleaning it up by soaking some parts and sanding on others. It seemed to me that this wasn’t the first time this has been done to this plane. Had super deep scratches in all sides. Almost looked like a belt sander was used. 

After about an hour between the random orbit and sanding on a piece of stone I got the bottom pretty flat and even. 

Left some of the deeper scratches in it. Went to work on the plane iron and got it pretty sharp. Went to a 35 degree angle as per googles instructions.  Took the other parts in and took a toothbrush to them. 

Got it back together! Even made some shavings! 
How have I been doing woodworking darn near my whole life and never experienced this?! It was incredible experience having shavings hit the floor with no noise! I only wish I knew more about them and the setup. Will have to get better at sharpening as well. What a thrill! 
 

I gave the plane a coat of wax before I put it together, is that the way to care for it?

[Kev]

Nice little smoother and great job!

I probably use my smoother more than any of my other planes..  It's the perfect tool for fine tuning parts!

[Jamie]

10 minutes ago, Kev said:

Nice little smoother and great job!

I probably use my smoother more than any of my other planes..  It's the perfect tool for fine tuning parts!

Thanks!

I could see it being handy for fitting inset doors. Would it be good for flattening panels?
 

I see now why you guys have beefy benches. Took quite a bit of force to get it to cut. Like the upper body workout tho!  Need to do some reading up on the setup on it. Like how close to have the chip breaker and how to get it sharp. 

[Tmize]

It looks to be a 70’s-80’s model. Yes fitting doors or drawer the #4 is great for. As far as flatten a panel it can just depends on how much you need to take off to get it flat. An the amount you need to take off is based on the mouth opening an camber on the blade. If you want to take a med size shaving say thickness of card stock in hardwood a pass. I would do a 1:10 - 1:12 camber. Which is draw a  10 or 12 inch circle cut it out an place it over the back of the blade draw the curve onto it. Then take it to the grinder an grind the corners back to the marks. Be careful an not get the metal to hot. When it gets to hot to touch drunk it in some water to cool. 
 

The chip breaker setting it up can be tricky. It really only comes into play for me jointing an smoothing. The rest of the time it’s just there to function the depth controls. I’ll try an get some pictures tomorrow of how I set mine up. I set it back from the edge to where you can only see the tiniest bit of shine under direct light. Experts say between 2-5 thousands back is perfect I just eyeball it ?. You want it to fit the back of the iron where no light is passing thru when you hold it up on either side. The chip breaker should be just as polished as the cutting edge where it is coming out of the mouth. 
 

The job of the chip breaker is to guide the shaving up at 80-90* at that angle right as it is being cut eliminates tear out. What it does is forces it to bend an not break out ahead of the cut. If you get the angle higher it actually mimic a scraping action an creates dust instead of a shaving. 
 

The angle the blade is honed on a bevel down plane doesn’t have any effect on its ability to cut. 35* is perfectly fine where the different angles come in to play is the steel the iron is made of. A1 steel holds a edge longer at a steeper angle. O1 gets sharper than A1 due to finer grain structure but wears faster but holds up better at a lower cutting angle than A1. Now can I really tell that much of a difference. Nope I have both an as far as working can’t tell. A1 is a lil tougher to sharpen tho takes couple extra seconds. Thee is a few more types out there I just don’t have enough experience with them to say on. 

[Jamie]

Holy smokes! There is a ton to learn! I have been watching some videos on plane restoration tonight. Shoulda watched them before jumping in on this! I am going to have to give it another sharpening. Didn’t spend much if any time on the back of the plane iron. It honestly looks like the guy took it all to the belt disc sander to clean it up at one point. Actually the grizzly sander that i have came from the same auction. 
 

Not sure how far I’m going to take all this, but it is nice to have another tool to grab. 
 

What is the best way to set the depth of cut? I think I had it set way to aggressively. 

[Tmize]

7 hours ago, Jamie said:

What is the best way to set the depth of cut? I think I had it set way to aggressively. 

Start with the iron barely fully retracted in the plane. Start pushing it on the piece of wood. Then start slowly spinn the wheel clockwise with your trigger finger. If it will not spin easy enough back off on the screw holding the cap iron. This way you can slowly advance to the cut you want an not have any surprises like you take a huge chunk out of your workpiece

[Tmize]

This the chip breaker placement on my main smoother type 11 Stanley #4. This is the mouth opening on the #4. I’m believe the chipbreaker setting is the key to no tear out. Many different views on this subject

This is my all around workhorse Stanley type 11 #6. I do my final flattening an jointing with this. You may notice has the same tight chipbreaker. It makes it a lil tougher when taking a heavier shaving but worth it in that I don’t have to worry much on grain direction. My jack plane if I have some material to remove like 1/8 or so in couple passes. Will smooth to on narrow pieces. Finally my foreplane its for when I need to make the wood disappear. It just a old woodie that I refurbished. You hardly know it’s cutting til the chips start flying up out of it. ?

Hope this helps explain some of what I was trying to say last night. 

[Jamie]

@Tmize it helps out a ton! Thank you for taking the time to show me! The plane I have I read that it’s a flipped bevel or something along those lines. What I mean is the plane iron is in backwards compared to a block plane. It seems kinda backwards to me but that was the way it came apart as well. Is that normal?

Edited April 23, 2020 by Jamie

[Tmize]

Yes they are called bevel down planes. Most block planes are bevel up. Easy way to remember is if the bed angle on the plane is 12-20* then the bevel faces up. If the bed angle is 40-60* the bevel is down. 

[Jamie]

6 minutes ago, Tmize said:

Yes they are called bevel down planes. Most block planes are bevel up. Easy way to remember is if the bed angle on the plane is 12-20* then the bevel faces up. If the bed angle is 40-60* the bevel is down. 

That is good to know. How did you become so educated on hand tools??!

[Tmize]

Lots of reading. I’m the type that when I find a interest I dive head first an try an learn as much I can. Forums, books if you do a little research you will find so much info you had no idea was even out there 

[Jamie]

@Tmize  so I took the blade back off, polished the back of the iron, which was a pain. Took quite a bit of time to get it flat as it seemed like it was taken to a disc sander. Worked on it off and on for a couple hours. Then sharpened the cutting edge. Re shaped it to a 30 degrees and put a 35 degree secondary bevel on it. Made a huge difference! Cuts like a hot knife through butter. Tried it on some read oak, can really see where hitting a board with this before sanding could save a ton of time.  The finish on it turned out really nice. Thanks for all your advice!

[Tmize]

Any oak is such a porous wood it’s hard to judge the finish level of it. What I mean by that is when sanding it feels the pores with dust which can seem smoother with sanding. Try it on cherry or walnut or maple an the difference is amazing. Now on occasion I will hit a surface with 320 grit hand sanded if it gives me some problems. 
 

Before you went thru the whole back flattening google the charlesworth ruler trick. You can still do it now it does hurt. Basically it put a back bevel of about 1/2 degree an takes a lot of the work out of the flatten process. 

12 minutes ago, Jamie said:

@Tmize  so I took the blade back off, polished the back of the iron, which was a pain. Took quite a bit of time to get it flat as it seemed like it was taken to a disc sander. Worked on it off and on for a couple hours. Then sharpened the cutting edge. Re shaped it to a 30 degrees and put a 35 degree secondary bevel on it. Made a huge difference! Cuts like a hot knife through butter. Tried it on some read oak, can really see where hitting a board with this before sanding could save a ton of time.  The finish on it turned out really nice. Thanks for all your advice!

 

[Jamie]

2 minutes ago, Tmize said:

Any oak is such a porous wood it’s hard to judge the finish level of it. What I mean by that is when sanding it feels the pores with dust which can seem smoother with sanding. Try it on cherry or walnut or maple an the difference is amazing. Now on occasion I will hit a surface with 320 grit hand sanded if it gives me some problems. 
 

Before you went thru the whole back flattening google the charlesworth ruler trick. You can still do it now it does hurt. Basically it put a back bevel of about 1/2 degree an takes a lot of the work out of the flatten process. 

 

That makes a ton of sense to just put a slight back bevel. Another lesson learned. 
 

I did try it on a piece of hard maple and was impressed on how easy it took a shaving. Didn’t look real close at the finish, it was a piece of scrap that had a jointer tear out on the edge. Ran the plane over it a few times to see if I could remove the tear out without causing more. Worked really well! I think I have found another weapon for the arsenal. Best part is I don’t have to plug it in!  
 

Next one I’m gonna try is a little adjustable mouth block plane. Shouldn’t take the 5 hours that I have in this one with a little different process. 

[Tmize]

Just a warning it’s a slippery slope you are going down?

[Jamie]

9 minutes ago, Tmize said:

Just a warning it’s a slippery slope you are going down?

Oh I know ?. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pulling the plug on any of my saws or other tools. Just thinking it will add to the skill set. Also I’m between projects right now and need something to pass the time. Had these in a drawer for a year or so with the intention of cleaning them up someday. 
 

Next project lumber did get purchased today, or should say an agreement was made on it. Need to pick it up yet. 8/4 red oak, 360bf for 2.50 a bf

[Tmize]

My option it’s a great skill to master to can only make your work more enjoyable an effective. 

26 minutes ago, Jamie said:

Oh I know ?. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pulling the plug on any of my saws or other tools. Just thinking it will add to the skill set. Also I’m between projects right now and need something to pass the time. Had these in a drawer for a year or so with the intention of cleaning them up someday. 
 

Next project lumber did get purchased today, or should say an agreement was made on it. Need to pick it up yet. 8/4 red oak, 360bf for 2.50 a bf