Stanley Bailey #4 castings

[Marco Silva]

I was offered a brand new Stanley #4 which i thought would be a substandard product because I've always read on the internet they are very poorly built, to my surprise the casting on the new plane is much much thicker and consequential heavier.

I'm curious to see how many different castings there was for the Stanley Bailey #4


354979354980

[bridger berdel]

Heavier is not necessarily better, although with a small plane like a #4 a little extra weight isn't too big a deal. Much more important is the quality of the machining. Do all of the parts fit together well? Are adjustments smooth and positive? Run it for a few hours and report back.

[lowell holmes]

Home depot is advertising it at $19.63. I guess I will go look at it.

[ken hatch]

Heavier is not necessarily better, although with a small plane like a #4 a little extra weight isn't too big a deal. Much more important is the quality of the machining. Do all of the parts fit together well? Are adjustments smooth and positive? Run it for a few hours and report back.

Ain't that the truth. I wish someone would make a true Bailey Type 13 clone with a thin O1 iron and cap iron but with ductile iron body and LN or LV production tolerances. I'd buy every model they made.

ken

[Jim Koepke]

I was offered a brand new Stanley #4 which i thought would be a substandard product because I've always read on the internet they are very poorly built, to my surprise the casting on the new plane is much much thicker and consequential heavier.

I'm curious to see how many different castings there was for the Stanley Bailey #4



You can see the casting isn't finished as well. The casting on the older planes is much smoother.

Can you take more pictures of the plane? Perhaps with the blade assembly and lever cap removed we can see a bit more of the manufacturing process.

To compare castings from different times of manufacture look here:

http://www.rexmill.com/planes101/typing/typing.htm

As with most endeavors of trying to piece together history that wasn't done as it happened there are a few disagreements and errors. Also remember that Stanley wasn't building planes to stay in line with a type study.

jtk

[Marco Silva]

Home depot is advertising it at $19.63. I guess I will go look at it.

Nah...this isn't that cheap, this one is part number 12-004, in the US probably the closest you'll get is the 12-904.

I've stripped both hand planes and weighted the bottom casting alone and the vintage weighted 742 grams and the newer model 936 grams.

Machining on this plane is as any other vintage stanley planes that i own...

http://i.imgur.com/mzRjML9.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/G0IY4qg.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Lh1riV0.jpg

[Jim Koepke]

Thanks for the images Marco.

The last one shows a rather minimalist seating for the frog. This of course means less machining is needed an lowers the cost of production. That is how engineers keep their jobs.

jtk

[ken hatch]

At least the frog seating isn't painted:).

ken

[Marco Silva]

Stanley has been using this newer design since the late 70's at least in Europe...


http://i.imgur.com/IgAOaHF.jpg