Keeping lateral adjustment set

[Andrew Homan]

Hi,
I'm wondering if there are some known fixes for loose lateral adjustment on Bailey-style planes (besides replacing entire plane!).
-Andy

[Tyler Howell]

Hey Andy,
Lateral movement of blade is secured by the cap iron when snapped down. Are you saying it is loose against the blade. Too much slop??
You can replace the little rivet that holds it to the frog or peen it titer. Inside hole enlarges over time. Be very careful as the cast frog is quite brittle.
Lateral adjust may be worn on sides. There are a lot of spares out there too.
Hope that helps.

[Jake Darvall]

Rivet idea sounds fine....

Something that may occur as well...
Is the screw that you place the cap iron over got play in it ? ....sometimes the threaded hole that takes this screw wears larger, such that the cap iron moves with the blade when adjusted.

Can fix that by cleaning out whole and filling with a locktite product and letting it set with the screw set at the right hight. Just locks the screw up taking the play out of it.

[Andrew Homan]

Here's my followup:

Thanks for the replies.
I tightened the lever-cap screw and that helped ... mostly.
However, I found that as I planed, the blade kept returning to the same (somewhat skewed) position.
I removed the blade and examined the frog. Sure enough, but barely perceptible, the frog was slightly out of alignment -- one side was pushed slightly farther forward than the other. I straightened it out and resumed planing... voila! Problem solved!
-Andy
P.S. darn it, thought that was going to be the excuse to "upgrade"! ...

[Jake Darvall]

Think I know what you saying.

On some frog designs theres sort of a hill in the plane body right down near the mouth.....sometimes when the frog is set too far back, this hill causes the blade to lift.

Hows the mouth set ? if you've got the mouth set finely then that shouldn't be a problem (if it was the problem to begin with)

Anycase.....good to here you fixed it Andy.