First vintage plane

[Assaf Oppenheimer]

Hi all,

I figured I would share a good experience I had with a fellow creeker.
I live in Israel, a country rich in history and poor in decent handplanes. the first one I ever got was a British 4-1/2 from the 80's. I put in about 10 hours of work and was delighted to be taught the definition of blade chatter. I (painfully) stuck to Lie Nielsen planes after that. Of the basic planes I was missing a decent Jack. I was actually planing on saving up for a Lie Nielsen no. 5 but repeated posts on this site as well as an article by Christopher Schwarz convinced me that a L-N is overkill for jack requirements.

After looking over several sites I saw that Jacks are way overpriced - the ones I saw were rusted and cracked and still well over $100 (not including shipping, handling and tax)!

after a while I stumbled across a post by James Spangler on a restoration he did. I reached out and he agreed to search for a Stanley type 11 no.5 for me and restore it.
well, I just got it and I couldn't be happier.

throughout the process Jim has kept me updated and accommodated my nitpicky requests graciously. the way he packed it it could have been made out of glass and still arrived in pristine condition. Ill share some pics of the process he gracefully provided along the way.

I highly recommend seeking him out if anyone needs help finding a quality benchplane.

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P.S. not sure if I'm violating anything by posting this. I was not asked to do so (in fact, at the time of writing James has no idea I am writing this at all) I received absolutely no benefit from this post other than the pleasure of promoting a decent man and his craft.

[David Publicover]

Congratulations! It’s a nice looking tool and looks like a worthy addition to your fleet.
Did you try it out yet?

[Assaf Oppenheimer]

No not yet. I have a PMV blade I ordered. tomorrow I'm going to grind a camber and test it on some maple I need to work

[steven c newman]

I guess I had better get mine spiffied up?
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Stanley No. 5....Type 11...after-market Tall knob?
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Rear handle had been repaired.....May put it into the "To be cleaned" row...

[Stephen Rosenthal]

That’s a really nice plane, Assaf. I’ve admired James’s restorations for quite a while.

[Rafael Herrera]

Is there something wrong with the original iron? those are really good and should work fine. The LV irons are 0.1" thick and you may need to screw around with the mouth to get clearance for the shavings.

[scott lipscomb]

Agreed with Rafael. Thats probably a really nice vintage iron to go along with your nice vintage plane. I'd give it a go...
Looks great Assaf!

[James Spangler]

Thank you Assaf for the kind words!
I was fortunate to find that plane which had lots of surface rust but very little serious corrosion.
Assaf was very understanding with allowing me to take my time to restore this plane and get it right.
And yes, the original Stanley iron that came with that plane did clean up fairly well, had about a inch of excellent, no corrosion steel at the bottom, honed to a nice sharp edge, and generated nice wispy shavings.

I admit I was a bit nervous shipping a plane from Illinois to Israel. I sent a plane to Australia last year via USPS "Priority Mail" which arrived at its destination 2 months later(!) intact, but in a very mangled box. Assaf ask me to send this one via UPS and it arrived at its Israel destination in 6 days!!! I am impressed with UPS!

And thanks to everyone for the compliments on the plane.

[Richard Hutchings]

James, that is some fine work. I need to know your secrets :-) I'm guessing there was a buffing wheel involved.

[Rafael Herrera]

This is a no. 3 type 11 with a PM-V11 iron and original chip breaker, unmodified. I was trying it last night and was getting clogging due to trying to get fine shavings. I backed the frog some, I may be close to touching the back of the mouth with the iron bevel. The chipbreaker, being close to the edge, was not allowing enough clearance for the shavings to pass through. Of course, backing the chipbreaker up would make the plane work, but that would negate the function of the chipbreaker. There's something about filing the mouth that makes me reluctant to do it.

If it has to be done, one could file the front of the mouth at a slight angle, so that material is removed in the inside of the mouth, not enlarging the mouth. I've already done this on a no. 6 fitted with an iron I made, but this one is 0.125", it definitely needed to have the mouth worked on.

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[Richard Hutchings]

I haver yet to have any luck with closed mouth and close breaker. I keep trying.

[Rafael Herrera]

I have yet to have any luck with closed mouth and close breaker. I keep trying.

It doesn't work very well from what you can see. You don't need to close the mouth to take advantage of a close set chipbreaker. But if you must, file the mouth as shown in the picture.

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P.S. I got this tip from David Weaver, I didn't come up with it.

[Jim Koepke]

I backed the frog some, I may be close to touching the back of the mouth with the iron bevel.

Many of my planes are purposely set with the blade resting on the back of the mouth. Not enough for the blade to be lifted off the bed of the frog.

jtk

[Richard Hutchings]

It doesn't work very well from what you can see. You don't need to close the mouth to take advantage of a close set chipbreaker. But if you must, file the mouth as shown in the picture.

474942

P.S. I got this tip from David Weaver, I didn't come up with it.

Well that's good news. I've been trying to get that to work for years.

[Rafael Herrera]

Many of my planes are purposely set with the blade resting on the back of the mouth. Not enough for the blade to be lifted off the bed of the frog.

I usually seat the frog by sighting down the bed and adjusting it until that plane clears the back of the mouth. The frog can be backed some more after that. I've needed to do that to fit thicker irons. I'm not sure how you accomplish what you're saying; by backing the frog, until the iron touches the back of the mouth, it's more likely that the contact will be on the bevel. Despite the drawing I made, the height of the bevel of the mounted iron is larger than the thickness of the plane sole. Advancing the iron will cause deflexion and slight lifting, but not by much, and the plane will still work.

These three planes have non-OEM irons. The one on the right has an O1 iron I made from 3/32" (0.094") thick stock, the middle one has a Veritas PM-V11, 0.100" thick, the one on the left, a no.6, has an O1 1/8" (0.125") thick iron I also made. You can see how much the frog had to be backed to fit the iron. Also, you can see the way the front of the mouth had to filed to get clearance for the shavings.

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[Jim Koepke]

I usually seat the frog by sighting down the bed and adjusting it until that plane clears the back of the mouth. The frog can be backed some more after that. I've needed to do that to fit thicker irons. I'm not sure how you accomplish what you're saying; by backing the frog, until the iron touches the back of the mouth, it's more likely that the contact will be on the bevel.

Sorry for the confusion.

If the blade is on the frog with the back side against the frog, the contact with the edge of the mouth will not be against the bevel.

Sometimes a 6" metal rule has been used to perform the task.

Think about this, if having the frog a hair back from from the mouth will cause "Advancing the iron will cause deflexion and slight lifting" then some of the blade will be resting on the mouth if the mouth and the frog bed are in alignment. This will add support to the blade.

jtk

[Scott Winners]

Many of my planes are purposely set with the blade resting on the back of the mouth. Not enough for the blade to be lifted off the bed of the frog.

jtk

I have all my Baileys set up this way, partly at your (Jim's) instigation if I recall . The back of the mouth and the slanted front of the frog laying in one plane. I have to set the frog with a steel rule since I can't see if there is a gap when the iron is installed.

Local to me a vintage Bailey either has a usable iron, or is a pitted mess. I am not fussy enough to go shopping for vintage irons, so I personally have no regrets buying a new iron and opening the mouth to put the plane back in service with the frog/mouth set for maximum blade support and the mouth opened up enough to be useful.

The one place I would be nervous about this is the #5. If memory serves Chris Schwarz has three different irons for his #5. One is ground straight across with rounded corners for smoothing, one is a scrubbish type radius up around 8-10 inches, and I don't recall what the third iron is ground to. As a relative n00b to woodworking I have moved away from Paul Sellers "I can do everything with a #4 Bailey" towards Chris Schwarz "I can do everything with a Bailey #3, #5 and #8, but I have three different irons for my #5."

If I was going all in on the CS method, I would put the scrub radius on the thinnest blade and hope the mouth opening worked for both scrubbing with a thin iron and smoothing with a thicker iron. FWIW I have ten Baileys on the shelf under my bench right now, smallest is a #3. As a generalist I don't feel like I need any more, but I am not itching to thin the herd either.

[Rafael Herrera]

Think about this, if having the frog a hair back from from the mouth will cause "Advancing the iron will cause deflexion and slight lifting" then some of the blade will be resting on the mouth if the mouth and the frog bed are in alignment. This will add support to the blade.


The plane in the middle of my picture above is setup so that the iron is definitely resting on the back of the mouth, I checked again. It's lifted above the bed of the frog when assembled.

On thing to be cautious about is a comment a friend of mine made, the back of the mouth is the thinnest part of the sole of the plane. Doing what I'm doing, exerting pressure on the back of the mouth may cause it to crack over time due to fatigue.

Setting the plane so the iron rests on the back of the mouth is not necessarily a performance improvement, when one advances the frog to close the mouth to take fine shavings or supposedly mitigate tear out, the iron is only supported by the frog. The plane doesn't suffer when setup this way.

[steven c newman]

Just chatters...

[Rafael Herrera]

Just chatters...

Are you sure? You're saying the moveable frog feature results in chatter.

[steven c newman]

When you lose the support behind the edge of the iron....and leave it just hanging out there by itself...it WILL vibrate...and THAT is the chattering.



When you slide the frog too far to the rear, it will bend the edge up a bit...exposing the wear bevel to the surface of the wood...making the iron feel like it is dull.

[Gary Focht]

When I bought some Sargent planes (cheaper on EBay than the Stanley’s) and refurbished them, I initially carefully lined up the frog in line with the mouth of the plane to attempt to get a straight line between the frog and the angle of the bed at the mouth. (The two angles don’t seem to match exactly.) I was getting significant chatter until I moved the frog back to have the bevel of the plane iron just touch the sole of the plane.

[Richard Hutchings]

I have found this to true for a fact when I was trying to shoot endgrain. I though closing the mouth would help but I got ridiculous chatter. Moved the frog back in line with the sole opening and it cut nice and smooth.