New guy with a box full of old planes

[Cullen Parish]

So I've been doing a little woodworking for a while now, mostly in my grandfathers workshop. I have since moved out of state and started purchasing my own tools. I brought my normal hand tools, mostly mechanics type stuff and have just started purchasing some wood working tools. I've bought a used table saw, craftsman over 24" width capacity. Last week at an estate sale I saw a table full of planes and bought 7 for around 30 dollars, pretty rough shape but nothing some paint elbow grease and sharpening can't fix. I don't know much about them but there is a miller falls that looks pretty nice has a cast frog some of the others have stamped steel. There are 2 stanleys a fulton and some that I can't find a name. I'm gonna restore some of them to use.

Take a look and tell me what you think.
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/ac26/forker26/IMAGE_037.jpg

The miller falls is first, I'll follow with more pics.
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/ac26/forker26/2.jpg

I'm also going to pick up some chisels and some sort of dovetail saw or dozuki saw to do some hand dovetails on a humidor. I'm cheap though so that is making for a difficult purchase.

[Brian Kent]

Welcome Cullen.

As for your planes, for a second there I thought you said you got all of them for $30.:eek: That would qualify for a "wow" and an "oh, man" and a "way to go!"

Brian

[Brian Kent]

As for good dovetail saws, Rockler's dozuki is rated highly and has served me well for years:
http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=1062&filter=dozuki

For a western push saw, Lee Valley seems to hold the "best buy" record, though in an untraditional shape:
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=61974&cat=1,42884

But with the way your luck is going you'll probably find a box full of fine old Disston saws that need love, for about $30.

[Bill Houghton]

Starting with the Millers Falls makes sense. You've got bench planes of three types there: jack (the longer ones), smoother (the shorter ones), and one block plane. Having a jack or two (more below about "two") and a smoother is a good beginning; you also need a block plane, but I'm afraid the one you bought is not a very good one.

Cleanup: I always go for simple. Disassemble, clean with mineral spirits (paint thinner) or warm water and an SOS pad followed immediately by hand drying, then WD-40 and hand drying with a fresh paper towel; wax the sole of the plane and the frog (surface on which the cutting iron runs); lightly oil the threaded parts; sharpen the iron (the most important step, and the one that'll take you the longest to learn to do well); reassemble and try it out.

Jack planes are useful for rough work, reducing thickness or planing past the rough cuts if you buy unsurfaced wood; and for small-scale jointing (getting edges straight). You need different "cambers" for these different tasks. "Camber," in wood-plane-speak, means how much curve you put in the cutting edge. Rough work requires a definite curve. An iron used for jointing requires either no curve or a very subtle one - there are at least two different schools of thought on this.

The jack plane in front, from the lateral adjuster, looks like a Sargent, IF the frog is cast iron - hard to tell from the pic. If so, probably worth cleaning up. The plane at the left looks like a Stanley, also worth cleaning up. For the moment, I'd scavenge parts from the red plane and the one just to its right to get these two and the Millers-Falls running.

Look for a better block plane. Garrett Hack's "The Hand Plane Book" will give you an idea of what a better block plane will look like, and is a good general intro. I also like "Planecraft," available new from Woodcraft for about $12 and used for the same or more; you have to get past the British terminology, but if you apply the instructions there, you'll have a good beginning on using these tools.

[Jim Koepke]

Cullen,
Welcome to the Creek and the slippery slope of old planes and hand tools.
Nice score on the old planes.
Hope to see how you do with the rehabs.

Near the top of the Neanderthal Haven is a "Sticky" post, Neanderthal wisdom/FAQs. There is a lot of information their.

Here are a couple of sites not listed that are helpful:

This is a listing of Stanley planes and some information on them.

http://www.supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan0.htm

This is an identification of different lateral levers.

http://www.brasscityrecords.com/toolworks/graphics/plane%20id.html

This is Johnny Keso's site that has a lot of information on planes.

https://home.comcast.net/~rarebear/planes101/planes101.htm

have fun,

jim

[Cullen Parish]

Hey guys thanks for all the help and useful info. I will be working on the plane over the next few days, but I also need to build some saw horses and a work bench, I am really starting from scratch here.



But with the way your luck is going you'll probably find a box full of fine old Disston saws that need love, for about $30.

I actually just got a brand new porter cable circ saw for 40 and a used porter cable 12 inch compound miter saw for 155.

Thanks again for the good info

[Bill Houghton]

I actually just got a brand new porter cable circ saw for 40 and a used porter cable 12 inch compound miter saw for 155.

I understand that Black and Decker, which owns Porter-Cable now*, is putting the P-C label on some real trash these days. The name may no longer be a reliable indicator of a professional tool.

*which is kind of like Yugo or Trabant buying Mercedes, in my opinion. B&D did have some quality professional tools at one time, but that time was 40-50 years ago.

[David Keller NC]

"I'm also going to pick up some chisels and some sort of dovetail saw or dozuki saw to do some hand dovetails on a humidor. I'm cheap though so that is making for a difficult purchase."

Cullen - After teaching a fair number of folks to cut dovetails (and asking them to bring the saws that were giving them trouble), I'd highly recommend not going too cheap on the saw. The really inexpensive backsaws in the big-box stores are really just saw-shaped objects. You can certainly cut a board in half with one, but doing it accurately is a hit-or-miss proposition. Most of the ones that were brought to me were filed cross-cut, and had way, way too much set to work well as a dovetail saw, though that was what they were billed as on the outside of the package.

If funds are very tight, there is one company that is making extraordinarily inexpensive saws that are actually pretty good tools. And American at that - Zona. I've one of their 24 tpi model-maker's gent saws, and it performs admirably for $10, though this is a very small saw that is only appropriate for small box dovetails.

I'd also caution to be very selective when it comes to Dozukis. Some of the very inexpensive ones just don't perform well in domestic hardwoods - presumably becasue the tooth geometry was intended for japanese softwoods.

Chisels are different - you can get some very decent chisels that have good blades but not-so-nice handles for very little (search SMC for "chisel recommendations" - you'll notice that there are lots and lots of opinions, and lots and lots of brands listed - which is a good clue that there are plenty of choices that perform at least reasonably).