Stanley #46 cutters?

[Greg Crawford]

I was fortunate enough to aquire a Stanley #46 a while back. Of course, as Patrick Leach points out, it will most likely come with one cutter, the last one used. That's what I've got, and it's not an original, as it's not beveled. I've look at St. James Bay's reproduction cutters, but $110 is a bit steep (more than I paid for the plane, a lot more). Is there somewhere else to look?

[Tony Zaffuto]

Jim Reed, over on Woodnet made cutters for the 46. He's out of the business, but he may have a few sets remaining.

T.Z.

[Greg Crawford]

Thanks Tony, I'll check into that.

[Tony Sade]

I was fortunate enough to aquire a Stanley #46 a while back. Of course, as Patrick Leach points out, it will most likely come with one cutter, the last one used. That's what I've got, and it's not an original, as it's not beveled. I've look at St. James Bay's reproduction cutters, but $110 is a bit steep (more than I paid for the plane, a lot more). Is there somewhere else to look?

Assuming you can get the Bob the SJB guy to respond to your inquiries (always a challenge-he's much better by phone than by email) that's a better price than you're likely to find on eBay. I don't know anything about the quality of the SJB cutters.

Good luck-I hope Jim can come through for you.

[Greg Crawford]

Woodnet doesn't have nearly as good a member list or search as SMC, and I can't find Jim Reed. Can anyone tell me how to get in touch? Maybe he has a different user name on Woodnet. Anyone know about that?

I don't need all 11 cutters that SJB offers. In fact, I don't think Stanley ever had 11 cutters for this plane (unless some of them came as a later offering). I may just have a machinist friend make the one's I want.

Thanks

[Charles Murray Ohio]

I looked for a few years for cutters on e-bay. SJB were the least expensive, and were better quality than the originals (O1 vs high carbon). They also offer a 3/4 which Stanaly never did. You will enjoy the plane once you get a chance to use it.

[David Keller NC]

Greg - suppose this is sort of obvious, but one of the reasons that the plane was so inexpensive is because it didn't come with a blade set. That's fairly typical for stanley tools - a #55 without a complete set of profiled blades is worth at most a couple of hundred, unless it's a type 1. With all of the blades, it's worth in the $500 range, and more if it's in the original box with the original instructions.

My thought is that any set of 11 blades for $10 each is really cheap. There aren't many edge tools that you can buy that are that inexpensive.

[Jay Kir]

I also have a #46, and years ago faced the same problem. I had a 1/4" blade, the skewed kind, that came with the plane. I ponied up the money and went with SJB's cutters. Unfortunately, when they came, I tried using them, but couldn't make them cut without scraping. After fiddling for an hour, trying every cutter, I decided it wasn't me, that it must be the blades. I measured the original and then compared them to the new ones. Only 1 or 2 of the 11 that I ordered had the right skew (those blasted cutters have angles all over the place!). It was simple enough to tell: line them up all side by side. They should overlap or mate nicely, but they didn't. I returned them but had to eat the shipping to and from. Hopefully by now the quality has improved, but make sure that if you are not satisfied with the quality, that you'll get all your money back. I kept quiet all these years, and don't like speaking ill of people, but the subject came up, and maybe my experience will serve others.