To flatten my LN bronze block plane, or not.

[Kenneth Lawrence]

My well-used LN bronze low-angle block plane needs flattening. I'm wondering what's the best way to do this and whether I will risk enlarging the mouth so that it will be useless.

[Jim Koepke]

Your first option might be giving LN a call and see what they say.

Enlarging a mouth doesn't always make a plane useless, but they might be willing to do it for you. You might have to pay shipping, but that shouldn't be too much.

How bad is the sole on the plane?

jtk

[David Weaver]

Does it need flattening or are you trying to remove wear from it for cosmetic reasons?

A plane that small can be easily flattened as long as you don't allow loose sandpaper to dub it all around the edges.

[Chris Fournier]

That plane has a pretty course mouth as it is and it works beautifully. I'd go for it and remove as little as possible to get it into the condition that you can be happy with.

[Kenneth Lawrence]

Jim,
Thanks for the suggestion to call LN. Seems like the first thing I should do. It is worn in the middle quite noticeably, but I haven't slipped any feelers under it. It seems more difficult to level an edge across the width.

[Chris Fournier]

This will take a moment and tell you what you need to know. Take a sharpie marker and cross hatch the plane sole. Tape a sheet of 320 grit or 400 grit wet dry to a granite inspection plate and figure 8 your plane on the paper. After ten seconds take a look at the sole. This will tell you all you need to know about its condition. You can stop then or move forward.

[Kenneth Lawrence]

Chris,
Thanks for the advice. 'sounds like an excellent diagnostic technique. My initial thought was to just use wet/dry on a granite plate but I hadn't thought about marking the sole and starting with a fine grit to get a better notion of how to proceed.

[James Taglienti]

I have already flattened my bronze block a few years ago and it will need it again soon. I think a lot of the wear came from the cedar exterior trim on our home, seems odd but...

Anyway, the mouth is so large to begin with that i dont think i would notice another 1/64 or 1/32. Aside from the wear its a great pocket plane

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Do the bronze planes just wear more readily in the sole? I've never noticed much wear from my use on the soles of my metal body planes, but the older ones that would have likely shown wear prior to my acquisition were lapped before being put to use; so I may not have noticed wear from use. My jointer didn't get lapped, but it seemed to have seen light service.

[Danny Burns]

Chris,
Thanks for the advice. 'sounds like an excellent diagnostic technique. My initial thought was to just use wet/dry on a granite plate but I hadn't thought about marking the sole and starting with a fine grit to get a better notion of how to proceed.

Just make sure when you run the plane over wet/dry sandpaper, that you have the blade in the plane, retracted, and at proper tension, so the flattening takes the distortion into account.