Auction and Flea Market Planes

[Charles Wilson]

I recently attended an auction and saw some pretty rusted up and beat down old planes. Nothing as far as major as cracks, gouges, or chips but cosmetically not much to look at.

Are these planes worth buying for a couple of bucks? Can they be reconditioned and if so what is the cost, effort, and procedure?

Any help appreciated.

Regards,
Chuck

[Jim Becker]

You'll find that a lot of people pick these planes up and recondition them. It does help to know "what's what" when you are choosing, but if the prices are low, you don't have a lot of risk, IMHO. Unfortunately, around here, the fleas picked up on the "desirability" of planes and the prices are not as low as one would like for bargain hunting.

[Paul Greathouse]

http://www.tooltrip.com/
Charles, the above link may help. I'm more into vintage stanley miter boxes and Disston saws but this website has what appears to be alot of old stanley owners manuals and instructions for planes in adobe acrobat form. It has some detailed disassembly instructions and pictures of old and reconditioned planes.
For comparitive pricing to see what kind of a deal your getting at the flea markets check out ebay. They have a load of old planes of sale.

[Mike Wenzloff]

Hi Charles,

One of the best sources of how to do this [and other things hand tools] is Cian Perez's web site:
http://www.cianperez.com/Wood/WoodDocs/Wood_How_To/INDEX_How_To.htm

Look down the right-hand side of the links...

Take care, Mike

[Jeff Horton]

I am not into collecting so my views are biased toward user planes. Most of the common planes are not that expensive and I would prefer to buy one that needs a little work (tuning) rather than one that needs major work to be usable. I just won't consider a really rusty plane because I think it is too much work compared to what I can buy a decent to good looking user for. Prices are cheap enough it's not worth the effort to me.

If you would enjoy the restoration process than by all means. It might be worth it to you. I like to restore old machines but not interested in restoring planes. Now there are couple of planes that collectors have driven out of sight price wise that I would buy a rusty one to restore. I won't pay the collectors prices and I want them to use, not to collect.

[Wiktor Kuc]

Chuck,

here is the link to a section on restoring old tools:
http://www.wkfinetools.com/restore/index.asp

And this one is specific to restoring Stanley #5:

http://www.wkfinetools.com/restore/planeCleaning/index.asp

Other planes are also shown there and restoration techniquest described and illustrated with photographs.

Have fun!

[Bob Hallowell]

I do not find removing rust a big deal on uncollectable planes. which is mostly what I have. I just use a wire wheel and it removes the rust very quickly. 20 minutes and I have a rust free plane.

Bob