Wooden Plane with Dry Rot

[Timothy McDonough]

I found a wooden Bailey Plane in my mother's basement that was my grandfather's. I am guessing from the 40's or 50's, and has a lot of sentimental value to me. The plane is in pretty good condition except for some dry rot on the corners of the bottom front edge. Is there a way to repair this? Would epoxy hold up to planing? Could I cut the damage out, and glue in a repair?

Thanks for any help or suggestions,

Tim

[Michael Faurot]

Pictures of the plane and damage would help to make a better determination of what could be done with it.

Without seeing the damage, I can say that if the cracks aren't too bad you can wick in some thin super glue.

When you say it's a "wooden Bailey Plane" that sounds like it's one of the transitional type planes. If this is the case and if the damage is fairly significant, you could also just replace the wood entirely.

[Timothy McDonough]

Hi, I am sorry but I don't have a digital camera with me today. The damage looks as though some rounded over the front bottom edge and the front corners are rounded over also.

[Jim Koepke]

You might look here for information on what you have:

http://www.supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan4.htm

There are some products for treating wood rot. I have seen them advertised in Fine Homebuilding.

Search on > wood rot treatment < to find many solutions and formulations.

jim

[Robert Rozaieski]

Sounds like a transitional plane from your description. You could always just shorten the plane by cutting off the dry rotted parts if the damage isn't too extensive. Stanley made a bunch of different length transitional planes using the same metal parts but just making wooden soles of different lengths. Another option if the damage is extensive is to replace the wooden bottom as has already been mentioned, and reuse the metal parts and the iron.