Stanley #113

[Rusty Eads]

I am definitely not experienced with old hand planes, well any hand planes for that matter. Anyways, around where I live for the past couple of months there has been somebody on cl trying to sell a stanley #113 plane for $80. I'm not really interested in the plane but I thought it was one of the coolest planes I have ever seen. Does anybody know more about these planes? What they are worth and about when they were manufactured? I figured the neanders would be the people to go to for info about this plane. Thanks for any help in satisfying my curiousity.

[Steve Beadle]

That's a compass plane, designed to plane both convex and concave surfaces. I looked it up in Garrett Hack's Handplane Book, p. 208. IMHO, I would think that $80 is a very fair asking price, depending, of course, upon the quality of the plane. I'd love to have one myself.

[Darnell Hagen]

The #113 is a compass, or circular plane. It smooths and fairs inside and outside curves with a flexible sole. The price is about right, if it's in decent condition. See here (http://www.supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan12.htm) for things to watch for and a more experienced opinion.

[Jim Koepke]

Here is a post of mine on the #113:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=1230575#poststop

The link supplied by Darnell is an important place to start reading.

If the plane is not broken, it can come in handy for doing curved surfaces.

jim

[Mike Davis NC]

I paid $115 for mine, it had no rust but some normal wear. The blade is good, just needed honing and a little tune up.

If you think you might use it the price is good. Just be sure all the parts are there and nothing is cracked or pitted.

[Dan Andrews]

I was given a Stanley 113 about 2 years ago. While doing major chair repairs I finally had the need to use it to plane the concave sides of the chair bottom. It worked great. I can see that is is not a plane to get rough with though. I read someplace that the sole is prone to crack where it is dovetailed to the cast body. I don't go flexing it to the max while showing it off, just to avoid the risk of cracking the sole. If a need to flex it to the max for a job arrises, I will do so, buth that souldn't be very often.