Stanley 112 Scraper

[Mark Wyatt]

I just picked up an old but nice Stanley 112 scraper plane at auction. The blade has been sharpened to a 45 degree bevel with a slight u-shaped curve along the bottom of the iron. Is this a typical setup?

I'm thinking that the curve and bevel should be removed and the iron prepared with a normal scraper setup. Can any many experienced plane users tell me what the typical setup for this plane is?

[Casey Gooding]

Mine came the same way. A slight camber can be helpful. It keeps the corners from digging in and leaving track marks. For me, I found it best to sharpen it without turning a burr. The burr tended to dig into the wood and chatter a lot. Others may not have had this problem.

[Mike K Wenzloff]

Hi Mark,

If the camber--the u-shape--isn't very large, that is fine. Like Casey mentioned, if can be useful to prevent the corners from digging in.

The bevel should remain. 45 degrees is a little excessive as it creates a weak edge if you plan on using the plane without putting a hook on the blade like a hand-held scraper. Mine I use about a 30 degree bevel or little less on. You do not need to turn a hook on the blade.

But if you do want to use a hook, the 45 degree angle is great. After turning the hook, first hold the blade in your hand, scrape some scrap wood and find the angle the blade cuts most efficiently and set the plane to hold it approximately at that angle and fine tune it with the adjustment.

If you do not place a hook on the blade, the blade's angle in the plane is less critical. However, without a hook is when you would want to have a higher bevel angle.

Take care, Mike

[Mark Wyatt]

Thanks for your help. Once I get it the plane cleaned up I'll try a couple of blade options.

[Mark Wyatt]

An update.

I cleaned and tuned the plane and dressed the blade with a 35 degree bevel. I created a very slight camber. After some initial use in setting the blade angle and depth, I was able to get a pretty nice cut but the plane had more chatter than I would like.

I decided to add a burr to the blade and this really made it sing. You can take an incredibly thin and consistent shaving with the plane. I was practicing on a large figured walnut panel and it worked great to tame tearout.