Resurrecting a Stanley #65

[Steve Sawyer]

Made a bad purchase last year - a beautiful Stanley #65 block plane with the knuckle. Beatiful except for the cracks on either side of the mouth that I understand were common on these.

A friend found me a new body for this - one of the later models that are blue-painted. This should work good, except for the fact that the opening for the adjustable mouth is a tad deeper than the one on my original. I was able to shim it up using a couple of pieces of shim stock on each side (actually a couple of blades from an old set of feeler gauges). As far as I can tell the adjustable mouth plate is now proud of the surface by a scrunch - maybe one or two thousandths.

The question is on how to fettle this mouth plate and secure the shims. I figure that lapping on a granite plate (which I have) with 220 grit wet-or-dry sandpaper and some mineral spirits might do the trick on the mouth plate. Not sure about the shims. They don't go anywhere when the mouth is tightened, but they do tend to shift and fall out easily when adjusting the mouth. I was thinking maybe just a couple drops of CA glue might be all that would be needed.

Anyone see any better way to deal with these issues?

Thanks.

[Tony Zaffuto]

Maybe you can epoxy the shim stock to the back side of the adjustable mouth piece and then flatten the mouthpiece when installed in the body with the body?

T.Z.

[Steve Sawyer]

Maybe you can epoxy the shim stock to the back side of the adjustable mouth piece and then flatten the mouthpiece when installed in the body with the body?

I was planning on working the mouth piece while installed in the body - I think I'd be asking for trouble otherwise.

As to epoxy, that was my first thought, but that's thick enough that I think it'll add to the shim height, hence my thought of cleaning the surfaces real well and using CA glue instead. Just need something to keep the shims from sliding around.