Black tarnish (?) on wood after using router plane

[Brian Eaton]

I’m working on a piece of cherry right now routing out some recessed for a baton case and after using my router plane there was a bit of black tarnish on the surface of the wood. I lightly oiled the router plane over a week ago after some sharpening but I would say for all intents and purposes it is dry. Is this normal? Will it sand out easily?

[Brian Hale]

That's happened to me many times; sand, plane or scrape and it goes away

[Jim Koepke]

This happened to me after lapping the sole. My solution was to attach a thin wooden base.

Works great.

jtk

[alan west]

I use a Stanley router plane with the nickel body. Whenever I wipe down the sole down with oil I have this problem for months afterwards. Sometimes Simple Green cleans it off sometimes not. I learned the nickel does not rust and try to remember to not oil it like I do all my other tools. The marks to come off easy with my smooth plane

[Ted Phillips]

I had this problem and you guys are right - it cleans off easily with a scraper or smoother. However, after mounting a wooden plate to the bottom of my router plane, I find it very useful - and it gets rid of the dark marks too. I've got three differently shaped plates for a variety of circumstances.

[Alexander Zagubny]

I've shellaced the sole of mine to prevent marks. Not sure if it applies to yours. Mine is old one with caverns from rust too deep to remove while flattening the sole.

[Tom Bender]

I use car wax on some surfaces. May work on planes.

[Brian Hale]

I use car wax on some surfaces. May work on planes.

Be careful with that, Many car waxs contain silicon which can cause finishing problems.