Restoring a plane for an old timer

[Mark Almeidus]

Recently I met an old person who once was a woodworker. He brought me an old plane which had a big mouth opening and he said its useless like that, so if I can repair it for him. He was telling back in the days how they were sharpening the blades and chisels using natural stones collected from the rivers, how they made joints like dovetails and that he had one plane that was realy good and produced fine shavings and noice but someone stollen it from him and he still regret it. Even I knew all the things he was saying, out of respect and the way he was telling me all of it it was interesting to listen to him ;).
I took his plane and I told him I will try to repair it.
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Realy big mouth. Dont think it is scrub plane mostly because it has cheapbreaker.
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I have done this type of reparing few times, but probably in a hurry I made a mistake. Instead to cut in fron of the blade I did the back. And took sime time to figure out why the size of the mouth is still the same :D

[Mark Almeidus]

So I had to make another cut.
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Because he wont use it as a smoother, just for some rough projects, I thought there is no need to go extreme with small mouth and flat blade.
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[Mark Almeidus]

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Glad he was happy with the end result :).

[Joe Tilson]

Nice work Mark, very nice of you to make the man so happy.
Thank you for posting such a good story.
This is what we all should be about.

[Chris Hachet]

We have a master carpenter from Macedonia at the University I work at....he is a great guy!

[Chris Hachet]

Oh, and fantastic work on the plane!

[george wilson]

Yasso!!! Sis caminatae plane calo!!(half baked as my Greek Cypriot dialect is!

[Allan Speers]

Hey, Mark.

I have a few keeper planes that could use a similar treatment, but I never got around to it. The part that perplexes me is how to get the mating surface even. I always figured a router would be the way to go, but you sawed the front line. So, how did you excavate? With chisels?

If so, did you actually get a clean mate, or did you use Gorilla glue to fill-in the (internal) gaps? Is there a trick to doing this?

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I also think, if one is going to take this much trouble, why not excavate a rectangle from the entire bottom-front, then make a movable mouth? That seems like it would actually be easier, though I guess it changes the "historical value" of the plane. (such as it is)

[george wilson]

Gorilla glue is as strong as a foam coffee cup. Try cutting the foam it makes off. That is how strong the glue is. Good for outdoor furniture. That's about it.

[Chris Hachet]

Gorilla glue is as strong as a foam coffee cup. Try cutting the foam it makes off. That is how strong the glue is. Good for outdoor furniture. That's about it.

I always use Marine Epoxy for outdoor furniture.

[Mark Almeidus]

Thanks guys.
Chris, nice to hear that. Next time when you meet him, send him regards .
George, even I dont understand Greek or Cypriot , but looks like a critic that only you know how to give in positive way (google translate says furnaces good error):).
Hmm, whats the error for? :)

[Jim Koepke]

Great work Mark.

It is good to see someone taking time to make our elders happy.

jtk

[Mark Almeidus]

Hi, Allan
Here is a video that shows full threatman for that type of process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDHqMEAaRSc
That job was done with chisels only, I dont own router plane. When you get closer to the line you try to hold the chisel as parallel as you can. With practice I got better with this. yes there was a realy small gap on one side. I put first the piece in and see where is a gap. If so, you just remove a little material with chisel on the side where is a gap but the oposite side of it. Even that is maybe necesary for small gaps because the glue will fill it anywas. But it will be fun to try it on yours. Good think with this is If you make a mistake you can try it over again.

[Bill McNiel]

Mark,
You are a good man with the right kind of heart. Thank you for sharing and for having a set of values that this planet needs.

[Brian Holcombe]

Nice work!

[george wilson]

google must be wrong on this!. It means you made the plane(which I don't know the name for) good.

The foirst 2 years I taught,I had 2 brothers. Off the boat Greek Cypriots. No English at all. I learned Greek while they learned English. We became close friends. We went to their house often. They lived around the table,offering their guests food.

On Saturdays,I'd often get George(Yourios),take him to the shop and he'd help me repair guitars for the music store across the street. His only way of earning money,and I paid him better than He would have if he had a young kid's job.

Those boys were made to study. They were soon making A's in my wife's English class while the Americans were mostly making C's and D's. I don't know how they did it!

[Mark Almeidus]

google must be wrong on this!. It means you made the plane(which I don't know the name for) good.

The foirst 2 years I taught,I had 2 brothers. Off the boat Greek Cypriots. No English at all. I learned Greek while they learned English. We became close friends. We went to their house often. They lived around the table,offering their guests food.

On Saturdays,I'd often get George(Yourios),take him to the shop and he'd help me repair guitars for the music store across the street. His only way of earning money,and I paid him better than He would have if he had a young kid's job.

Those boys were made to study. They were soon making A's in my wife's English class while the Americans were mostly making C's and D's. I don't know how they did it!

Interesting story George.
Greece is beautiful country.I leave close to the boarder, its 3 or 4 hours drive to Thessaloniki. But I never been there. Few years ago you needed a visa to visit Greece, now they reopened it with passport only. Common religion for Macedonians and Greeks is orthodox. But there has been conflict throughout the history between us, and its still present to some extent.

[george wilson]

George made a ukulele. His brother Louis made a violin. I can't recall what else they made in he shop class I taught. George learned how to rub lacquer finishes helping me on Saturdays. He came to see me many years later. Not surprisingly he was in some kind of restaurant supply business. His father had been a cook.