Stanley Tool paint color?

[John B Dale]

Does anyone know when Stanley used the various color paint on their planes, miter boxes etc.? My planes are all older 1930's -1950's and are black, but I seem to remember seeing blue and possibly red ones in lumber yards or jobsites in the 60's and 70's. My 2358A miter box is black, but I've seen reference to blue on the internet. This is just one of those questions you think of when you have too much time on your hands!

John

[Jim Koepke]

I think the reddish color was called cordovan by Stanley. Not sure when the color changes came about, it may have started in the 1950s. That was the peak of racing to the bottom in cutting costs by woodworking tool makers. For planes my preferences are for planes made befor the 1930s.

Until about 1920, Stanley seemed to make changes to improve their hand plane lines. From about 1910 to the 1930s things were very good. Then cost cutting came in to fashion. It was downhill after that.

jtk

[John B Dale]

The cost cutting and "new and improved" is great. isn't it.

[Stew Denton]

I think the cost cutting started right after the great depression. Thus the early 1930 planes (or late 1929, I don't remember for certain) had the face of the frog no longer milled dead flat, but had depressions cast into them so that less machining time was required to make them. I think they still wanted to make good planes, but people did not have much money, so they had to have a way to make them cheaper and still make them as good as possible for the price.

I think the main thrust of the race to the bottom started in the 40s after WW2, but really took off into a major competition about 1960 when the "new management" craze took over. IMHO MBAs who did not know a woodworking plane from an airplane took over and didn't think any of us would figure out the differences until after they retired and had gotten a bigger pension because of their cost cutting. I think it reflected what really amounted to a lack of integrity by those folks. I would bet that a lot of the old timers and engineers there did not like the changes, so the "new managers" hired new young engineers that instead of working on how to make better planes cheaper only worked on what they were told to do, make them cheaper.....period.

We saw the same thing in Disston saws, only it started earlier. I think it showed up in lots of products and companies, many of which eventually went broke because folks eventually figured out the quality problems and just quit buying from those companies.

Regards,

Stew

[Jim Koepke]

The last few posts makes me think of a quote attributed to John Ruskin though some question the provenance:


There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.

John Ruskin

This used to be posted (may still be) in Baskin Robbins Ice Cream stores.

My employment before retirement involved management hired from outside to run the stockrooms without any understanding of the materials in the stockrooms or the business for which they were used. It caused a lot of chaos.

Another manager decided to use a system that saved their department about $50,000 a year. It ended up costing other departments about $100,000 more a year. Yet someone somewhere got a bonus.

jtk

[Tom M King]

I've never studied it, but I thought the really dark blue came before the Cordovan. I bought a pair of Cordovan block planes in the early 70's off the shelf in a building supply, and later found a pair of the dark blue ones on the shelf in a still open old hardware store that I expected were from the 50's but never really looked them up. They all work just fine.

[Stew Denton]

Tom,

It looks like you are right on this. The Blood and Gore (Superior Works - Patrick's...) site says that they changed the color of their block plane ,#9 1/4, in the early 60s to the dark blue.

I have also read, but can't remember where, that when Stanley sent out the memo to cut the cost of their planes by killing the quality, the block plane department never got the memo, and thus continued to make pretty good block planes in spite of the corporate policy.

Jim, I have a similar story on one department saving money at the cost of much more cost to other departments. Not that uncommon of a situation I think.

Stew

[steven c newman]

So...where does the Stanley Tu-Tone line up come in.

Reading all the above.....posts, reminds me a lot of listening to some Metallica fans...." I was a Metallica BEFORE they "sold out", Bro.." sort of thing....


Seems the Blue Phase started about the same time as the Whale Tail lateral got crimped down...around 1962....Cordovan started about 67-69 era....then Stanley went back to black.


BTW: IF you find a GREEN handplane..that would be by Sargent..as their "Hercules" brand.

Stanley Victor planes from the 1950s....gray base, and lots of red paint.


Baby boom after WW2..Housing market exploded..needed houses built NOW. Ain't got time for hand tools, need a lot of power tools, NOW.....Old style tools weren't selling like they used to, companies HAD to find a way to sell their tools, or go out of business.

[John B Dale]

The sad thing is that what were "cheap" tool in the 50's and 60's are still in many ways better than a lot that are available today.

[Jim Koepke]

…
I have also read, but can't remember where, that when Stanley sent out the memo to cut the cost of their planes by killing the quality, the block plane department never got the memo, and thus continued to make pretty good block planes in spite of the corporate policy.

….

Stew

Some how the memo must have reached the Block Plane Department > https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?123401

That is basically a comparison of three #60 type planes from Stanley. The maroon/cordovan was okay, so was the later made in England model. The one made in the USA was not very good. It was improved after fettling, but never a great plane. The casting was very rough compared to earlier production. Follow the link to read about other problems it had.

Since then two older #60 planes have come my way and they are both better than the maroon/cordovan or the English model. My grandson was given given the English made one. It is a pretty good little block plane that was purchased from Orchard Supply Hardware (OSH) back in the 1980s.

jtk

[Tom M King]

The Dark Blue block planes I bought NOS years ago are a 9-1/2 and a 60-1/2. They're fine users, as are the Cordovan ones.