Need answers on Transitional Plane

[Joe Bailey]

I have a No. 26 "transitional" plane in really nice shape, with a full length "V"-logo iron, There's just one problem: The slot in the blade is too narrow to straddle the staked-on washer for the lateral adjustment pivot. As a result, the blade doesn't sit flush with the face of the frog. I'm assuming this blade (and the chipbreaker too, for all I know) belongs in a metallic No. 5 and that these transitionals have their own special blades?
Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on this.

[Andrae Covington]

I have a No. 26 "transitional" plane in really nice shape, with a full length "V"-logo iron, There's just one problem: The slot in the blade is too narrow to straddle the staked-on washer for the lateral adjustment pivot. As a result, the blade doesn't sit flush with the face of the frog. I'm assuming this blade (and the chipbreaker too, for all I know) belongs in a metallic No. 5 and that these transitionals have their own special blades?
Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on this.

The distance between the lever cap screw and the dog of the depth adjustment yoke is longer on Stanley transitional planes than their metallic planes, as illustrated in the photo below of my #28 and junky #5. I am puzzled though by your description of the slot being too narrow, as my examples appear to be the same width. At any rate, trying to put a blade and chipbreaker intended for a metallic plane into a transitional plane will end up with the situation you describe: the blades will not sit flush with the face of the frog. The blade itself might work ok, given a long enough slot, but the chipbreaker needs to have the little rectangular hole the correct distance from the threaded hole for the screw that holds it to the blade.

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[Joe Bailey]

Hi Andrae,
First off, thanks for the response. It appears I have the correct chipbreaker, but there's something strange about the iron.
The first pic is the iron that came with the transitional. You can see that the slot is too narrow to accommodate the "washer".
As a result the blade does not sit flush against the frog.
The second shot is of the same plane, but with an iron I borrowed from an old metallic No. 5.
Wonder where that "narrow" blade came from?


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[Andrae Covington]

Huh, makes sense now. I wonder if, say, Sargent or Union used a more narrow configuration on their equivalent planes, and someone tried to pair one of those blades with the Stanley.

[Joe Bailey]

No - it's a Stanley blade alright. I'm guessing it's one of (2) things: It's from a different vintage or model of the same plane, OR it's strictly a case of stacking tolerances -- a particularly narrow slot, with a particularly wide washer.

212288

[James Scheffler]

I have a Stanley transitional jointer (don't know the year) with an unmarked blade and a Type 11 metal No. 6 with a triangle logo blade. The blades are interchangeable between these 2 planes. I haven't heard that the slot width changed over the years that transitional planes were manufactured, but it's possible.

In response to Andrae, I have one Union plane where the slot of the stock blade is narrower than Stanley made them. I wanted to use the Union blade in one of my Stanleys, but found that it didn't work (and I didn't want to file down the washer on the Stanley).

Jim S.