flattening a vintage wooden hand plane

[Bill Winter]

I acquired (free) a wooden hand plane. It is approx. 8" long. I don't know anything about it except is has a Stanley iron and chip breaker. The sole is not flat front to back. The gap is +/- .005" at most. Does anyone know what brand this is? Do I need to flatten the sole? If I do flatten the sole with what do I refinish it?439810439811439812439809

[Mike Henderson]

That's called a transitional plane. Metal top with blade and depth adjuster and wooden bottom. You can flatten the bottom same way you'd flatten the bottom of a metal plane (but it will be faster). The more you flatten, the wider the mouth usually gets.

They work okay but are generally not that popular.

Mike

[Bill Winter]

With what do I refinish the sole? Is this plane worth the investment of a Hock blade/chip breaker?

[Mike Henderson]

With what do I refinish the sole? Is this plane worth the investment of a Hock blade/chip breaker?

Each person has to make their own decision on something like that. I would prefer to find an all metal plane before investing in a modern iron and chip breaker. You can use the plane with the existing iron and chip breaker and see how it performs before spending a lot of money to upgrade it.

Mike

[steven c newman]

Usually flatten a wood sole with another plane.

Stanley No. 22 SHOULD be stamped into the "nose" of the plane.
Sometimes, those irons were tapered.....others were laminated....plane IS a bevel down plane.

Use it as a small smooth plane( think coffin smoother with adjusters!) or even an oversized block plane.

[Stephen Rosenthal]

With what do I refinish the sole? Is this plane worth the investment of a Hock blade/chip breaker?

Patrick Leach suggests using these for firewood. 😂

[Rafael Herrera]

With a little bit of effort this plane can be made to smooth rather well. The iron it comes with is perfectly adequate, besides, the Hock iron won't probably fit. You don't need to refinish the sole, you may apply some wax on the sole to help reduce friction. The rest of the wooden body can be waxed or coated with boiled linseed oil.

439813

[Jim Matthews]

I acquired (free) a wooden hand plane. It is approx. 8" long. I don't know anything about it except is has a Stanley iron and chip breaker. The sole is not flat front to back. The gap is +/- .005" at most. Does anyone know what brand this is? Do I need to flatten the sole? If I do flatten the sole with what do I refinish it?439810439811439812439809

How wide is the mouth (side to side)?

[Robert Hazelwood]

You can flatten it with a handplane or with a sandpaper lap. Much easier than a cast iron plane, obviously.

One of the most important things to do with these is to bed the iron on the sole properly. The metal portion of the frog only goes down to maybe 1" above the sole...if the iron is not also bedded solidly against the wooden portion of the body below the frog, then the blade will be unsupported and will chatter.

To check this you can remove the lever cap and just set the iron on the frog, and visually see if the iron touching at the bottom of the bed. If not then see if you can adjust the frog back until it is. If you can't adjust the frog enough then you need to glue on a wooden shim to the bed.

Once you are close you can rub a bit of oil and pencil graphite on iron and place it in the plane and tighten the lever cap. That will leave dark marks on the bed where the iron is touching. You want to see contact right at the bottom, where the heel of the irons bevel would be. If there is contact in other spaces but not there, take a dull chisel and scrape away. Repeat process until you see good contact.

I think most of the bad rep these planes get is due to this bedding issue.

[chris carter]

Leave the sole unfinished and apply a healthy rubdown of wax. Wax doesn’t rub off anywhere near as fast as on a metal plane (it lasts like 1000x longer, once every few weekends you can do a quick scribble to keep it up). I keep a bar of Gulf Wax (canning wax) in my tool tray for plane soles and saw plates and that’s also what I use for my wooden plane soles. Wooden soles have very little friction compared to a metal sole, and wax will basically turn it into ice skates. Ensuring that there is always some wax on the sole also helps to keep wear to a minimum.

Assuming everything else on the plane functions as required, the mouth being too wide is the most common problem with an old wood soled plane. Every time the sold gets resurfaced, the mouth (in most designs) gets a little wider. If it’s too wide for practical smoothing use, then you have two options. Option 1 is to laminate a thin piece of wood to the sole to replace what has worn away over the past century+ and drill/chop out the new tighter mouth. Option 2) is to leave it wide, or widen it further, put a heavy camber on the iron, and use it as a scrub plane.

To flatten the sole, use a smoothing plane and go slow. You can also lap the sole fairly easily on sandpaper.

I greatly prefer wood soled planes over metal planes. Metal planes are just too heavy, too much friction, and they tire you out too fast!

[Bill Winter]

How wide is the mouth (side to side)?

the width of the mouth is 2 1/16"

[Bill Winter]

Usually flatten a wood sole with another plane.

Stanley No. 22 SHOULD be stamped into the "nose" of the plane.
Sometimes, those irons were tapered.....others were laminated....plane IS a bevel down plane.

Use it as a small smooth plane( think coffin smoother with adjusters!) or even an oversized block plane.

The stamping on the toe appears to be DHSP 8 00

[Zach Dillinger]

When you measured the sole for flatness, was the plane assembled with the blade retracted? Wooden planes, especially transitionals, are prone to flexing. For the same reason, flatten the plane with the iron and lever cap in the plane. It can easily be flattened just like any other chunk of wood with planes, winding sticks, and straightedge.
439829

As for fitting with a Hock iron, I actually did this once with a Hock that someone gave me. You'll likely need to use the transitional cap iron in order to make it work but the nose of the depth adjuster which interacts with the cap iron may be too short to accommodate the extra thickness of the iron. Unless you have a Hock laying around that you can try, or will use it in another plane, I wouldn't go out and buy one for this until you're sure it will work.

439830

[Sanford Imhoff]

Could it be Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett & Company (HSBC)? That was a popular transitional brand.

[Jim Matthews]

the width of the mouth is 2 1/16"

I'll need your address.
Check your PM box.

https://i.imgur.com/aP1rBbB.jpg

[Bill Winter]

Could it be Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett & Company (HSBC)? That was a popular transitional brand.
It definitely doesn't start with H. It starts with B or R or D