Stanley 78

[Jim Foster]

I have a Stanley 78, the one with the lever to adjust the blade. I'm curious about the "tunability" of it. In the first picture the twin frogs are only machined up from the sole for about 1/2", and the raw casting along the rest of the frog surfaces are rough cast and about 1/32" or so below the machined surface. This means that when the cap is screwed down, the blade deformed to some extent and maybe subject to more chatter than I would imagine to be OK. Any users of the same model of the 78 that can speak to the tunability of lack there of? I suspect this version was made during the decline of quality of manufacturing for this tool and am curious how people that use this one make out make out with it.








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[Sean Richards]

The business end of the blade is sandwiched between the nose of the cap and the machined surface on the bed - as long as everything is OK in this area there isn't much to 'tune' really. I have a similar era #78 and it works fine.

[Jim Koepke]

My rule of thumb on tightening cap iron screws is that if something is being distorted, the screw is being over tightened.

It only needs to be tight enough to hold the adjustments.

You could always try a shim toward the top end of the blade and frog.

jtk