Dispatches from the Land of Jack Planes

[Jonathan McCullough]

I've been keeping busy at the local garage sales etc. If I keep this up, there will be so many planes and such to restore that I'll never get any wood working done. No jack planes for some reason. Maybe I've scared them all off.

Here are a couple of old Bailey smoothers. One is fairly old and the other is a Sweetheart era. The totes are busted and one's missing a lever cap. The router plane is a No. 71 that was in really rough shape but I made it a project with my son and after cleaning it with Naval Jelly and painting it ooooh silver it'll be his to keep. One of the drawknives--the shined-up one--is a Witherby, which makes it local, and since these are the first I've seen I'll have to make a shave horse to go with them, naturally.
http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/Recent%20Hauls/drawknives.jpg

Schweet! A No. 16 and a No. 12 with the old "fix it with a coat hanger" dodge. The No. 16's actually in really good shape. I'll bet I can still get an etch off the No. 12.
http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/Recent%20Hauls/Disstons.jpg

And how do we sharpen our saws? With saw vises and a saw set. The guy who sold me the router sold me one of the saw vises and in both instances said, "now that I've given you such a great price, what is it?" I started to wax prosaic about how before there were routers, there were router planes, and his eyes started to glaze over. Oh well. A sale's a sale. I think I'll line the saw vise jaws with leather or gasket rubber.
http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/Recent%20Hauls/sawvises.jpg

And to round it up there were some spokeshaves and a square. Some chisels too but they went straight into the "to be cleaned" pile so no pictures. http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/Recent%20Hauls/spokeshaves.jpg

[James Owen]

Those tools are worthy of a huge: "You SUCK!"

Nice haul; congratulations!!

[David Weaver]

Shame to see the #12 in that shape, especially with what looks like the older raised nuts.

New tote's not tough to make though, especially on a saw as nice as a 12.

[George Sanders]

That really is a nice haul. At the risk of sounding heretical, you could find another #12 with an unusable blade and swap handles. Router planes seem to be scarce as hen's teeth in my neck of the woods. When I do find one the price is way too high.

[Jonathan McCullough]

I'm cleaning up one of the Baileys right now and taking pictures to document the process.

On the No. 12, the blade is slightly bowed toward the right also. I've been having success in fixing saw plates with my heated wax treatment, but if this one doesn't tame down I may try a different process I've been thinking about to treat bows. Kinks are something entirely different and much more difficult and intimidating to tackle.

George: I know what you mean. It's crazy what people want for routers. I think it's because it's basically a very very useful tool that Stanley should never have let out of production.

[David Weaver]

Unless something's changed, ebay was a good place to get routers, especially if you are willing to go with a millers falls or something of the sort.

I think the MF 77 that I got was about $12 plus shipping on ebay.

Walt has them (stanley #71s) from time to time (but it looks like there are some cheap on peebay right now anyway), and the irons from LV fit.

A router plane is something that is useless to look for locally (here at least). People who have booths or whatever think they're ultra rare because they don't look like a bench plane. Bound to show up with one iron for $100 or something goofy.