Finally got my Stanley 55 combination plane done.

[Eric Brown]

During the last week I finished plating the last of the plane parts and then I started cleaning the 52 cutters. Took a while but I'm done with that. Now I can get back to my Bishop adjustable saw study.

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[Tom M King]

Looks fantastic! One of mine doesn't have a spec of nickel plating left on it, but still shapes wood when I need it.

edited to add: That is probably the nicest looking one I've ever seen.

[stephen thomas]

That is spectacular!
It is hard for me to grasp the effort and time to clean and polish well enough to re-electroplate.
Do you reverse plate to clean/strip it first or is there a link to the process?

smt

[Jim Koepke]

That plane's so bright I'd have to wear shades. :D

jtk

[Eric Brown]

That is spectacular!
It is hard for me to grasp the effort and time to clean and polish well enough to re-electroplate.
Do you reverse plate to clean/strip it first or is there a link to the process?

smt

Acid. Ok, that is the simple explanation. First, I remove the rust and any loose (peeling) nickel. Then I sand and polish until everything is smooth and shiny. Next the part goes into a 200 degree degreasing tank for about 20 minutes. No touching with fingers after that. If the part was not plated, then it goes into a pickle tank for about 10 minutes. if the part was nickel plated before, I then wipe down with an acid, which activates the surface. Then it goes into the 110 degree plating tank for an hour. Each time the part is removed from a tank it is washed with distilled water back into that tank. It is also washed down after the acid. After all that it is final polished and assembled. If for some reason the plating is interrupted even for a few seconds.it has to be re-activated before plating can resume.

I get many of my plating supplies from Caswell Plating.

[Eric Brown]

That plane's so bright I'd have to wear shades. :D

jtk

I like beautiful tools that work. Good thing about nickel is that if it's too shiny a grey scotch pad will dull it without much effort.

[stephen thomas]

I'm even more impressed.
I know about the cleaning-sanding-polishing from (half a century ago) work on motorcycle parts to send out for plating.
Did not know about the acid.
The level of detail on a plane like that to get ready would be daunting enough that i'd have to keep going back in the house for a nap (or waste time on an online forum) before actually getting started.

Beautiful work!
smt

[Eric Brown]

I'm even more impressed.
I know about the cleaning-sanding-polishing from (half a century ago) work on motorcycle parts to send out for plating.
Did not know about the acid.
The level of detail on a plane like that to get ready would be daunting enough that i'd have to keep going back in the house for a nap (or waste time on an online forum) before actually getting started.

Beautiful work!
smt

It really is a lot of work. So I did it in small groups. Usually when I plate I make it a whole day affair. It takes energy to heat the chemicals and a little to actually do the plating. So I start early in the morning and plate until evening. Depending on the quality I am looking for, I typically plate each part(s) for one hour. So I do about eight a day. Smaller parts can be grouped together. One tricky part is calculating the current. You need .07 amps per square inch. So total it up and then multiply. Usually I'm in the 1 to 3 amp range. Can go to 10 with my power supply. Another issue is how the parts are hung in the tanks. Need to make sure air pockets don't exist. (Air doesn't plate). During the plating hydrogen is formed and can fill areas. There is a circulating pump to help with plating distribution. With all the effort to clean, polish, plate, polish I am not making any money on my labor. That's ok though, as I enjoy making the tools look good again and should give them another 100 years of protection.

[Rob Luter]

Very nice work. These are from an era where the tools were art.

[stephen thomas]

These are from an era where the tools were art.

They still are - if you spend a similar amount in purchasing power per item.

The closest thing i found googling quickly, is a Stanley #45 in the 1906 Hammacher - Schlemmer catalog for $9.00 with 20 cutters.
A Bedrock 605 is reported to have cost $3.20.
So maybe, round numbers, a #55 would have cost aprox $12?

That would be very much toward the high end of an average skilled tradesman's income for an "average" week in that time period. Carpenters made about 30cents/hr for a 54 hr week, when they were working. Just like non-union trades today, it was weather dependent, not always work all year simply due to completing projects before finding another, and sometimes there being no work (projects) in a given area for months at a time. Everything i've read seems to indicate that $500 - $600 per year was a pretty good income for a skilled woodworking tradesman in the times from the 1890's until WW1 - ish.

Today, committing to spend, say $1,000? on a single tool, many available options are quite artistic. Albeit perhaps less range of available options.

We are (mostly) lucky to live in an interesting era of price inflections where a range of old, but still intrinsically valuable/useful goods of great attractiveness are assumed to be redundant or are actually becoming so. Since the number of us who value and utilize them is small in proportion to the vast historical lode of remaining artifacts, economics makes them inexpensive for us.

[Jim Koepke]

Carpenters made about 30cents/hr for a 54 hr week, when they were working. Just like non-union trades today, it was weather dependent, not always work all year simply due to completing projects before finding another, and sometimes there being no work (projects) in a given area for months at a time.

One time when talking to my father about how things were when he became of "working age" he told me most people when he was young worked in multiple trades due to work being more seasonal back in the early part of the century.

jtk