Jim Koepke
08-11-2010, 12:04 AM
Showed this not long ago as a find from the Restore, a Stanley #102.
It confused me at first since under the cap it has a 103 in the casting but the base revealed a 102 when the dirt was knocked off.
I cleaned the rust off the sole and gave it a minimal lapping. The blade was sharpened and works OK, but it will need a bit more honing to get past the pits.
Today, the idea came to me to try the #9 blade from a Stanley #45 since it is about the same width. The #45 blade is a bit thicker. It was ground and honed at 25°.
158001
What seems amazing is this is the first standard angle block plane that actually seems to work well for me, even with the original blade. In the past, my planes included a #9-1/2 & a #18. Neither of those seemed to work well for me and a small bench plane was always preferred.
Despite the comments on the Supertool.com site about this one being a "cheap piece of junk" it seems to work fine and fits my hand well. It also seems to complement and fit in with my bench plane sizes instead of just taking up space in a drawer.
It is a little fidgety to adjust, but that is just getting used to very light taps with the plane hammer as it is a smaller plane.
For $2.25 +tax it is a nice addition to the accumulation.
jim
It confused me at first since under the cap it has a 103 in the casting but the base revealed a 102 when the dirt was knocked off.
I cleaned the rust off the sole and gave it a minimal lapping. The blade was sharpened and works OK, but it will need a bit more honing to get past the pits.
Today, the idea came to me to try the #9 blade from a Stanley #45 since it is about the same width. The #45 blade is a bit thicker. It was ground and honed at 25°.
158001
What seems amazing is this is the first standard angle block plane that actually seems to work well for me, even with the original blade. In the past, my planes included a #9-1/2 & a #18. Neither of those seemed to work well for me and a small bench plane was always preferred.
Despite the comments on the Supertool.com site about this one being a "cheap piece of junk" it seems to work fine and fits my hand well. It also seems to complement and fit in with my bench plane sizes instead of just taking up space in a drawer.
It is a little fidgety to adjust, but that is just getting used to very light taps with the plane hammer as it is a smaller plane.
For $2.25 +tax it is a nice addition to the accumulation.
jim