Wood plane repair

[Lonnie Gallaher]

A friend gave me an old German Wooden Smoother. It is not in great shape, but does have a full double iron. I think it can be put back into use with some work. The body has shrunk in along the blade area. the blade was a bear to get out. I am sure the body has just dried out and caused the shrinkage. Will oil help it regain its form?

The biggest problem is the front "handle" has come loose do to use. It is joined with a sliding dove tail to the body. The dove tail in the body has worn or the wood has compressed over the years to the point where the front handle will not stay in place. My thought is to clean up the joint and epoxy the handle in position. Any thoughts here from the wooden plane experts.

If the picture works, you can see the situation at the handle. This is not a picture of my plane, but it looks to be the say manufacturer.

The plane has little value so keeping it as a collector is not an issue.

[Zach Dillinger]

Oil will not do much, if anything, to help you make that blade fit. If I were you, I would oil the body lightly, but would still grind a hair off the sides of the blade. This will allow the plane to be used and adjusted as it should be.

I wouldn't use epoxy on that front handle. A little hide glue will set things right and is the proper material for the repair.

[Lonnie Gallaher]

Zach,

Thanks for the advise. My thought was to adjust the blade width to make it fit.

I have not used hide glue. Will it fill voids like epoxy?

[Zach Dillinger]

Small ones, but how big are we talking?

[David Weaver]

I have two muji continental smoothers of that type. The front handle came out of both of them eventually, and I put them back in with hide glue. I agree with zach, epoxy only if hide glue doesn't work first. You can use liquid hide, whatever. It's held well on both of mine for a few years now. Epoxy has a good chance of leaving a big plastic glom of stuff on the plane and being less convenient in the future.

Clamp it tight when you hide glue it, or insert shims in the dovetails if you need to and glue everything, there should be at least one direction that you can get the handle clamped tight against the wood.

[David Wong]

To fit the blade, you can use a narrow chisel to lightly pare the sides of the plane body to allow some lateral movement of the blade. This is desirable to adjust the blade when the edge is not 90 degrees square to the sides. You do not want to pare too much. Maybe the thickness of 2 or 3 sheets of paper on each side. Taper your paring as you get towards the bottom near the mouth.

[Lonnie Gallaher]

Thanks all for the information. I feel like I can jump into getting the plane up and running without making a mess of it.