Wooden Rabbet Rehab

[Dave Anderson NH]

Sometimes you are in the right place at the right time. Three weekends ago I was at a Guild of NH Woodworkers period furniture group meeting held at Al Breed's shop in Rollinsford NH. Al happened to mention that a friend who was retiring and getting out of woodworking had dropped off 70 wooden planes and that to make matters simple they were all $5 each. The stampede began. Most of the stuff didn't interest me since there were a lot of hollows and rounds, a few profile molders I had similar ones to, and a bunch of other stuff. There were however some nice rabbet planes that needed some work. I was able to rescue 2 rabbets 3/4" wide that had pretty good irons, but that were extremely grungy to the point of being almost black. Both carried owner stamps, but there was not even the vestige of any makers marks so they had no antique value and I figured I cound do pretty much anything I desired to make them good users.

I started with a mineral spirits and elbow grease scrubbing with minimal results so I went over them with 150 grit sandpaper. A good cleanup of the irons was done without too much work and they got reshaped and sharpened in about half an hour. Both were worn enough that they need new soles to add life and close up the mouths which had gotten too wide. The major work was epoxying on new soles from some Lignum Vitae scraps I had lying around. Here are some photos. My apologies for forgetting to take the obligatory "before" phootos. Total rehab time bof both planes was about 4 hours plus epoxy cure time.

[Steve Voigt]

Very nice Dave! Were they originally without boxing? The new soles should last forever!
Now all you need is a plane hammer. Do you know anyone who makes them? :p :p :p

- Steve

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Nice work! A sharp rabbet plane is a joyous thing to have around.

I don't always mind grungy-to-blackness, but it really depends on the piece. Sometimes it's just a pleasant patina, but sometimes it's this terrible mess that somehow seems to come off on your hands and everything else, but doesn't ever seem to lighten up in the process. But I like seeing an honest cleaning like that, as opposed to some of the rabbets and hollows/rounds that I've seen show up in antique shops, where they've been ROS'd back to whiteness. Or worse, ROS'd back to whiteness than coated in an eighth-inch of cheap poly. (If you're lucky, they didn't glue the wedge in [most likely upside down] in the progress of this "refinish". I swear some of these guys just put the thing on a wire and dip the whole damn tool in a vat . . . )

[Jeff Heath]

Very nice. I think you did the tool great justice, and the lignum vitae sole will last 3 lifetimes. I would have purchased every plane for $5 apiece if they were as repairable as this one. For my quarter, I personally don't care about over cleaning or sanding an unusable tool and returning it to usable status by whatever means necessary. In my world tools are for using. I've got an english made rabbet skewed rabbet plane made by Mosley of London that was originally 1 1/2" wide. The body came to me warped, and pretty much unusable. So, I flattened the blind side and planed the left side parallel. I had to grind about an 1/8" off the iron, but now I've got a 1 3/8" english made rabbet plane that works perfectly. Much better to me than something sitting on the shelf that doesn't work at all. Of course, all the patina from 200 years is gone, but I guess it'll get more from the next 200 years.

Nice plane.

[Charles Bjorgen]

Funny, Dave, but I was fiddling with one just like that in my shop this morning. Don't recall how I got this but know I've had it for a least ten years. I'm curious about the size of the mouth you've achieved with your rehab. Mine is 5/16". Also,what is the procedure for using this plane? Don't you need to clamp a fence in place or do you saw a kerf to the desired depth and run the plane along that line?

By the way the wedge on mine was installed upside down, probably by me.:o

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I gripe and complain in my above post, but Jeff is right on - if it's the case of useable vs unusable, have at it. Seeing some of the repair done on tools I find in shops sometimes makes me wonder though if they were cleaning for the sake of cleaning vs. making something functional again. Certainly to each their own; I certainly came across as overly adamant in my last post - sorry about that. I think my main gripe with some of the "fixes" I've seen in the wild is that they still don't make the tool useable (it's white and clean, but still isn't flat where it matters!) and the seller thinks their sometimes ham-fisted work means they sell the item now as if it was a rare, pristine tool when it comes to price.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Well Steve, I somehow found a plane hammer or 2 around the shop.:D To use a rabbet, you could clamp a fence on it or saw a kerf in the wood, but that is not the traditional way. I use a cutting or marking gage to scribe a line down the length of the work. I then tilt the plane at an angle so that the exposed corner of the iron sits in the scribed line. With your fingers on the foreward hand acting as a guide gently make a couple of passes to produce a groove. Remember that a rabbet, just like a shoulder plane, has the iron a few thousandths of an inch wider than the body (stock). When I feel that the V groove is deep enough, I tilt the plane back to vertical and have at it. Any fuzziness on the wall of the rabbet can then be cleaned up by laying the plane fully over on its side and planing the vertical wall. It works fine though it certainly isn't as quick or safe for your workpiece as a moving fillester.

As a bonus, one of the planes carries the owner's stamp of JM Anderson though my 19th century woodworking forebearers were JD Anderson. As for mouth opening, I left one at about 1/8" forward of the iron and one at 1/16". Rabbets don't need to have super tight mouths and if you want to take thick shavings a mouth only a few thousandths will jam up and need to be cleared often. I use rabbets for rapid stock removal and do the cleanup (if needed) with something finer.

[Steve Voigt]

Also,what is the procedure for using this plane? Don't you need to clamp a fence in place or do you saw a kerf to the desired depth and run the plane along that line?


Charles,
Dave gives a perfect description of how to do this in his response, but you might also want to check out this excellent video of Matt Bickford (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNibpT33FTI).

[Charles Bjorgen]

Thanks much Dave and Steve. Your descriptions and the video cleared this up for me. I'll let you know how this goes when I try it.

[Jeff Heath]

I gripe and complain in my above post, but Jeff is right on - if it's the case of useable vs unusable, have at it. Seeing some of the repair done on tools I find in shops sometimes makes me wonder though if they were cleaning for the sake of cleaning vs. making something functional again. Certainly to each their own; I certainly came across as overly adamant in my last post - sorry about that. I think my main gripe with some of the "fixes" I've seen in the wild is that they still don't make the tool useable (it's white and clean, but still isn't flat where it matters!) and the seller thinks their sometimes ham-fisted work means they sell the item now as if it was a rare, pristine tool when it comes to price.

Joshua

Just so you know, I completely agree with you with what you said above, and I think I understood completely with what you were talking about in your first post. The so-called collectors should just leave the tools alone. Most of the tools I've seen pass through the hands of antique shops and collectors are either completely left alone (as they should be) or cleaned, baked, sanded and scrubbed, as well as having 'adjustments' made that render the tool practically useless. If the tool is unusable and staying that way, perhaps because of huge checks in a plane, or a crack down the center of the plate of saw (saw that recently....think it was driven over with a bus or something) then who cares. It does bug me when you see them painted, or holes drilled in them, or it looks like they took a grinder and a wire wheel to it.

Oh, well. We can't save them all (but we can certainly try). I just made a new handle for an 1871 Disston #7 that needed rescuing from an antique dealer. The original handle is so broken up it's got 4 screws holding it together, and it still wobbles to and fro. The plate was so full of black "gunk" that I just had to measure it's thickness...... .057! I'm pretty sure Disston didn't make any plates that thick! There's no etch, so I'm giving it a thorough cleaning, and probably an electrolysis bath.

Cheers.