any use for old plane irons and chipbreakers?

[Zach England]

I have now refurbished quite a few old planes and for each one I have purchased a modern iron and chipbreaker, so I'm building a bigger collection of the older ones. Is there anything fun I can do with these?

[Jim Hoti]

well, you can always regrind them to use for scrapers or even marking knives.

Or you could just send them to me and I'll put 'em to use!:D

[Sam Takeuchi]

If they are tapered plane blades from wooden planes, I think building planes for them would be good. If they are thin blades from metal planes, I'd say you can make lots of stuff, like marking knife, small carving knife, mini chisel, blade for marking guage, so on and on. While I wouldn't build full blown wooden planes using thin blades from metal planes, if you manage to cut them and grind them well, you may be able to make a couple blades for specialty planes.

[Tony Zaffuto]

Some time ago, I saw a jig Tage Frid made with an old blade to split waste wood off to make tenons. Maybe someone here recalls the tig and can provide further info? What I remember was a blade mounted on a board with a spacer just under the thickness of the tenon side.

[Zach England]

Thanks for the ideas. Any tips on cutting the steel?

When we are talking about older blades is the steel throughout the whole thing as useful for honing and holding an edge as it is at the cutting end?

[Roy Wall]

I have now refurbished quite a few old planes and for each one I have purchased a modern iron and chipbreaker, so I'm building a bigger collection of the older ones. Is there anything fun I can do with these?

Zach -

You can use these to sharpen 'shorter' blades such as those in the #51-54, #151 spokeshaves. Using it like an extension of these shorter blades:

Just loosen the nut enough to slide the (#51) blade between and tighten it down. Now put the entire assembly to your blade holder to run over the stones. This gives you the length to achieve 25*-30* angles on the short spokeshave blades.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Some time ago, I saw a jig Tage Frid made with an old blade to split waste wood off to make tenons. Maybe someone here recalls the tig and can provide further info? What I remember was a blade mounted on a board with a spacer just under the thickness of the tenon side.

Tage claims that this is a fast and easy way to make small tenons.

First, cut the shoulders (crosscut). Tage used a backsaw and a Miter Saw jig with a depth stop so as to not cut too deep.

The jig has a large bottom board. Add a small board that you lay the plane blade on. The small board brings the plane blade up to the height that will cut the tenon.

Place another small board on top of the blade and then screw this in place.

Wack the end of the board to cut with a mallet so that the plane blade removes some wood.

[Jim Koepke]

You could sell them to raise money to pay for the replacement blades.

Old Stanley irons are usually laminated at the business end. Only the side the faces the cut and only up to the slot has hardened steel.

I have a lot of spare blades that are kept sharp for times when a blade in use gets dinged by a knot. Sometimes a piece of unknown wood might get the old blade first.

I used a ceramic wheel on a Dremel tool to cut an old blade and make a marking knife.

You may also them useful if you find a good deal on a plane at a yard sale.

If you decide to sell them, you may find it more profitable to sell them as single blade and breaker sets instead of one big lot. More people are looking for spare blades for their planes than people looking for a stack of parts.

jim

[James Taglienti]

If you have any #3 or 4 size irons i'd gladly pay for them