Stanley No92 With A Bad Temper

[steve swantee]

Hi All, quite some time ago I bought an English made No92 shoulder plane off the 'bay. The price was really good and it was like new with all the nickel plating and full length iron. Pretty happy for a while, but once I had a reason to use it I found I was unable to take a consistent shaving. I put a straightedge against the sole and discovered that the front piece was not in the same plane as the rear of the sole. Out came the sandpaper and I was able to lap it flat and square in about a half hour. Tried it out again and it worked ok but needed to be sharpened. A couple of minutes at the grinder to correct the ultra steep bevel the previous owner had ground on it, and a few minutes at the waterstones and I was ready to go. After about five cross-grain shavings on the birch I was working with the shavings turned to fine powder...I looked at the iron, and it looked like someone had used it as a cold chisel. The edge was completely blunt. I guessed that this was the reason the previous owner had such a ridiculously steep bevel on the iron, to keep it from blunting so quickly because the iron was obviously made of taffy. So...back on the shelf it goes.
Several months later, this morning in fact, I resolved to fix the problem. It's useless anyway, right? I couldn't make it worse. I had read a couple of articles about people restoring the temper to chisels, so damn the torpedoes, out comes the torch. I clamped the iron in my vise and heated the business end up cherry red and quenched it in a container of oil. Once cool, I reheated it again to a light straw color and let cool. Back to the grinder for a second to clean up the bevel and a quick slide across the waterstones and back in the plane to try it out on a scrap of birch. What a difference. It's holding an edge now and is no longer a shelf queen.
I wrote this in case there is anyone else out there with a plane sitting on a shelf because it is not tempered properly. If I can do it so can you.

Steve

[Jim Koepke]

Steve,

Glad to hear you got it working.

This can be an inspiration to others to try something to improve a tool they may have left on the shelf.

For a few other tricks on a shoulder plane, look here if you haven't already:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=119301

jim

[steve swantee]

Thanks Jim, I remember reading that thread when you first posted it. Lots of great info there.

Steve

[george wilson]

Since the blade had a bevel on it,you are very lucky that the blade didn't warp across its width. Be careful if you try that on a full width blade. I can almost guarantee you that it will warp. To prevent this,you can grind the end of the blade down until it is square,but you lose a bit of iron. It's better than warping the blade,though.

Also,blades can be made of different steels. The most common are water hardening(W1),oil hardening(01),and air hardening(A2).

Don't get too exuberant about re-hardening blades. It's more involved than you think.If you quench an A2 blade in oil or water,it is liable to crack,plus,it will get a soft skin if it isn't protected from the air.

Quenching water hardening steel in oil can result in incomplete hardening,and when you temper it,it will come out too soft. Water hardening steel is also the most treacherous steel to quench,even in water. It can distort,crack,and make all kinds of trouble. If it has a hole,or slot in it,the hole is liable to start a crack. Stuff any holes in ANY steel with fine steel wool,and cram it in tight with a blunt ended punch. That makes it act like there is no hole,and will keep it from cracking.

Quenching oil hardening steel in water can crack it also.

Google normalizing. You ought to normalize the steel before re-hardening. It gets the molecules ready to re-harden.

You got lucky.

[Jim Koepke]

You got lucky.

Some of us are either lucky or blessed everyday.

My thanks are given for being either or neither.

jim

[steve swantee]

I probably was lucky, but I wasn't too concerned about it as it was pretty useless the way it was. It was either going to work, or I would be searching for a new iron anyway. Luckily it worked. Good idea about squaring off the end to prevent warping though, and interesting to know that the higher quality steels are somewhat finicky when it comes to rehardening.
I think that this may have been a problem with some of the Made in England No92s as I recall reading somewhere on another forum perhaps about someone also having issues with blade hardness on these planes.

Steve

[george wilson]

Another problem is that in England,at least years ago,it seems that it was nearly impossible to fire someone who did poor work. I read an article by a harpsichord maker in England who had a new guy who simply refused to follow directions. He put the bridge on a harpsichord just where he FELT it should go. When stringing the instrument later,the owner of the shop kept breaking strings. He found that the bridge was completely in the wrong place. He had to rip out the whole soundboard and start over. Apparently there was nothing he could do about getting rid of the idiot.

I don't know if things have gotten better,or not. This is what happens when the country has so many protections for its workers that things get totally fouled up.

Maybe your plane iron was never hardened at all.