Stanley 45 cutters?

[Josh Bowman]

To spite Patrick Leach's feelings about Stanley 45 planes......I broke down and bought one. They're kind of neat little whiz bang things. It came without cutters, so I found some on Ebay, now I have 18 of the the little suckers! I noted that for the blade adjustment that some have holes in them instead of slots, is this normal? I have a Record 50 and it's blades all have slots? The only reason I ask is the ones with holes are a little fiddlely to put them in the plane.
Secondly, some of the blades have a fair amout of bow in them. It's bowed the way that the http://www.cornishworkshop.co.uk/combihow.html web site says it should, but it's heck to get them in the plane. Is this ok?

[Stephen Reid]

I don't know that stanley made these cutters with a hole for the adjustment.Sounds like they might be cutters from before stanley put the adjustment feature on the 45.Someone may have drilled a hole to allow use in a newer 45?Can you grind the slot to the edge to be the same as your other cutters?As for the bow,if its enough to make it hard to fit the cutter in the slot it seems excessive.I havn't had this problem with my 45 cutters.FWIW I really enjoy using my 45.

[Josh Bowman]

The box is hard to read and may not be the actual box for the cutters, however, I was able to read Stanley 45 on it. The slot can be cut on the larger ones, but the real skinny ones will have to stay. As far as the box, looking at them, it looks like someone put the bow in them.

[harry strasil]

the real early ones are much shorter than the later ones with the slot.

[harry strasil]

The early ones had neither hole or slot, they are about the same length as those for a #50

[Jim Koepke]

The early Stanley 45 blades had no means of adjustment as stated by Harry. The first ones with adjustment ability had holes to mate with the pin of the adjuster mechanism. Later a slot was used.

So the ones with holes are most likely from the type 5 and 6 models.

I received a type 6 that was one of my great-grandfathers that came with one blade and it had a hole.

jim

[Bill Houghton]

I have one blade with a hole, but it won't mate properly with the adjustment mechanism in my particular 45 - won't bed down. Give them a try and see if they work; if not, you may need to file the hole into a slot or, as is necessary with the really narrow blades anyway, use the adjustment pin as a pusher against the top of the cutter, pulling it up by hand if you need to retract it.