Handplane repair

[D.McDonnel "Mac"]

A Good Neighbor, knowing I was a woodworker, brought over a milk crate with several derelict handplanes in serious disrepair. A friend of his was disposing of them and he diverted them to me. Four old Bailey's in bad shape and a bedrock 603. No blades, chip breakers or lever caps on any of them. I have a few old stanley planes from which I can steel the blade and lever cap. The 603 cleaned up okay and I went to put a front knob on from the milk crate.............. arrrrrr...... the hole in the body is stripped out big time! I thought about drilling and tapping it to 1/4 - 20 but it's too wallowed out for that next up is 5/16 and I think the casting has plenty of meat to accommodate. Then I'd make a rod by welding a 5/16 thread on the bottom and a #12 piece on top to accommodate the proper knob nut.

That's my idea to make this a user plane. any better ideas?

[David Keller NC]

I'm not really up to speed on heli-coils, but it occurs to me that might be the simpler option if you can get one that size. A slightly different take but a similar theme might be to drill out the boss and braze in a threaded insert to accomodate a 1/4-20 threaded rod.

[John Tallyn]

I don't normally use the front knob, personally I wouldn't worrying about it.

[Zach England]

If it is just a user plane and is already pretty beat I'd say there is no harm in drilling through the sole and counter-sinking a screw and attaching the knob with a small nut. It is crude, but it will work as long as the screw does not protrude.

[Jim Koepke]

The difficult part about doing this right is the original tap was 12-20. They are available, but you will have to buy a few taps to get to the minimum order of the place that sells them. Then you will need to grind one of them to make a bottoming tap.

I have repaired threads that were just lightly damaged by filling the hole with JB Weld and then re-tapping it. With a big hole, it might be better to make your own insert and then use JB Weld to hold it in place.

I got a couple of taps from victornet.com, but it looks like the 12-20 is not longer listed. May be worth giving them a call to see if they will have more.

jtk

[Chris Fournier]

Helicoil or quite frankly you could even go with JB weld and re-tap!

[Jim Koepke]

Helicoil or quite frankly you could even go with JB weld and re-tap!

There are a few ways one can go when repairing damaged or missing threads. Here is my post showing my repair using JB Weld.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?132457-Advanced-Fettling-404&p=1339970

So far this has done a good job on two of my planes.

There are other products others have suggested. Some are available from automotive supply stores.

I did a quick search on > thread repair < here on SMC and found this that mentions a few other products.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?125255-uuugh-thread-repair

Good luck and keep us posted.

And don't forget, everybody loves pictures. :)

jtk

[D.McDonnel "Mac"]

Thanks Guys! I wasn't sure the JB Weld type repair would be strong enough but it looks like there has been some success with it and it is a much simpler repair. I'll just have to order the taps.

[Chris Fournier]

I've repaired damaged motorcycle engine cases with JB Weld, ate lunch and then headed back out onto the track to crash it all over again. Worked every time. Now my leathers were tougher to repair.