The aesthetics of Stanley hand planes

[Alex Liebert]

I've been bitten by the "buying old rusty tools" bug. I'm going to try not to feel bad about it and assume many of you can relate!

I also just like restoring things. Restoring furniture is what sparked my interest in woodworking. And restoring old planes is pleasing in the same ways.

Now that I've got a few, in various stages of rehabilitation, I've definitely developed some opinions on which ones are the nicest aesthetically.

I have types 9, 13, and 16 in front of me right now. The appearance of the knob and tote get uglier as the planes get newer. The low knob fits the lines of a plane much more nicely than a high one (high knob works okay on the smaller planes, but the larger they are the more it makes them visually unbalanced). The shape of the tote gets less appealing and organic along the line- gentler curves on the sides of the 9 and 13, starting to be real flat and bulky on the type 16 (less ergonomic too, at least to my fingers.) The finish on the type 9 handle is thin and satin and highlights the rosewood grain. On the type 16 it's so thick and shiny it feels like waste of the nice wood. (I suppose the older ones could just be more worn with age though.)

The all iron lever cap on the 9 looks industrial but high quality. The 13 (at least mine) has the Stanley logo on it, but it's not japanned or plated, this looks nice too but a little busier. The 16 has a nickel plated lever cap with orange paint around the Stanley logo- the nickel plating, and the painted logo, really make the plane look cheap to me.

As the planes get newer I see more deep machining marks in the cheeks. The older ones just needed to be derusted and lightly polished to look nice, the 16 needed a whole lot sanding.

I actually think the smaller adjuster wheel is more visually appealing, I haven't noticed a difference in ergonomics to the bigger one personally yet.

Finally, on the type 16, they couldn't be bothered to stamp the logo on the iron in anything even resembling straight. (But maybe that's an anomaly.)

One day if I find some type 11s I'll probably make that "my plane" and sell these other guys off.

Agree? Disagree? What do you all like the looks of?

[Kees Heiden]

I so agree! It took me a while to assemble my set of low knob Stanleys, but I am very happy with them. With a decent amount of patina they look ten times better then the postwar UK made models I had before.

[Don Dorn]

I have very old and new (19)and while we agree on the aesthetics, mine all work equally well. It's not that I'm very good at fetteling, it's more that I purchased very usable planes to begin with, then just spent some time tuning.

[Phil Mueller]

I don’t have many older planes to compare, but I agree with your sense of design...prefering the lower knob and dislike for the painted Stanley logo. They are sort of like a motorcycle...all the guts on display, and the combination of bright metal, wood, and black is appealing in an industrial art form kind of way. New planes are nice looking in their own right, but there’s something about the vintage look and age that makes them stand apart to my eye.

[steven c newman]

Seems the larger my Stanleys get, the lower the knob is....#6, # 7 and the #8 I have are low knob. The smaller they get, the taller the knobs. More about they way I hold onto them......

[Alex Liebert]

I have very old and new (19)and while we agree on the aesthetics, mine all work equally well. It's not that I'm very good at fetteling, it's more that I purchased very usable planes to begin with, then just spent some time tuning.

I haven't yet detected major differences in performance (but as you say I'm also not a master fettler). The biggest difference I find in the setup process is it bugs me that the groove on the underside of the newer frogs is not the same width as the hump they ride on. There's never a reason for the frog to be anything be straight and centered laterally, so I don't understand why they chose to eliminate the extra couple millimeters of metal that guarantee that would be so.

[Alex Liebert]

I so agree! It took me a while to assemble my set of low knob Stanleys, but I am very happy with them. With a decent amount of patina they look ten times better then the postwar UK made models I had before.

Patina is interesting. Often times I feel like this is a code word for "rusty and pitted", but I've seen a few that were old and really well cared for where there's no rust and the iron has an even, grey oxidation that looks great in its own with no rust. Rarer find though.

[Kees Heiden]

Here is my "fleet". #3, #4, #5, #6 and #7. They are in great condition luckilly. Only the #3 has a right hand thread on the adjuster which is a bit iffy when you are used to left hand threads.

387947

[Alex Liebert]

Here is my "fleet". #3, #4, #5, #6 and #7. They are in great condition luckilly. Only the #3 has a right hand thread on the adjuster which is a bit iffy when you are used to left hand threads.

387947

Very nice! What's the iron in the #4?

[Ben Bowie]

Kees, what did you finish your knobs with?

[steven c newman]

Planes...just planes..
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Just planes...

[Stew Denton]

Hi All,

I think it isn't just planes. You see the same thing in saws I think. To me the older ones look much nicer, and the handles are more rounded at the grip....much more user friendly. To me, many of the new saws are ugly.

Stew

[Jim Koepke]

The finish on the type 9 handle is thin and satin and highlights the rosewood grain. On the type 16 it's so thick and shiny it feels like waste of the nice wood. (I suppose the older ones could just be more worn with age though.)

Others have written about this and the later totes do have a thicker covering obscuring the natural beauty of the rosewood. Some of my totes have been stripped of any finish and are used with the wood bare.


so I don't understand why they chose to eliminate the extra couple millimeters of metal that guarantee that would be so.

They were attempting to lower the cost of the casting process. Making it as described in the quote above would have increased the cost.

My preference is also for a low knob. Though when it comes to the depth adjuster most of my small adjusters have been replaced with the large version when possible. This doesn't work with my type 4 or type 6 planes since there are no larger adjusters with the right hand threads.

My preference is for type 13 or earlier.

Many or my planes are type 9. These have an improved frog seating but do not have a frog adjustment. In my experience the frog doesn't get adjusted once it is set. My other discovery on this was that it used to be easier to find another plane and then set one with a closed mouth and one with an open mouth.

jtk

[Kees Heiden]

Alex, the iron in my #4 is an Ray Iles replacement iron, O1. The original one was in bad shape. This one I have used for some 8 years now and performs fine.

Ben, I didn't do much to the finish of the knobs and handles, just polished them up a bit with some wax. Only one needed to be stripped and I used shellack to refinish it.

[Doug Dawson]

Agree? Disagree? What do you all like the looks of?

I like the looks of a plane that's been used. And I will continue to use them. I'm not a collector. I like the the Stanley's because it's the devil I know.

[Bill McNiel]

Alex,
This is a rather insightful and articulate post. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and observations.
Regards - Bill

[Jim Koepke]

I like the looks of a plane that's been used. And I will continue to use them. I'm not a collector. I like the the Stanley's because it's the devil I know.

To me the Bailey rounded sides look so much better than the flat top Bedrock style.

Usually when a tool with collector value pops into my shop, it is sold. The exception is if there aren't any good users available at reasonable prices. Heck, even a good clean user might get sold off over one of my rag tag broken down fleet. They mostly look a bit funky, but they do work well.

One recent example is a scrub plane purchased for a good price. It would be hard to find a beat up one at the same price. Though it may be on the low end of collectability, it will be used unless some collector thinks it is better than the one he has and proposes a trade. Especially if the trade includes a six pack of my favorite brew.

jtk

[Jerry Olexa]

Generally, the older the better in my opinion.

[Alex Liebert]

To me the Bailey rounded sides look so much better than the flat top Bedrock style.

jtk

I totally agree. Not sure if it's blasphemous to say here but this is a big contributor to why I find the Lie Nielsen plane quite ugly and awkward looking.