Is this a shoulder plane?

[Mike Baker 2]

A friend of mine gave me this yesterday. Said it ended up in his tool box and he did not know what it was or where it came from. He's had it a while. Has paint on the sole; pretty sure it was used in construction or drywall by the looks of it.
Blade says Craftsman, body is stamped Made in USA. The blade was installed bevel down, but it does not clear the front of the mouth unless you load it bevel up.
Is this a shoulder plane? Does it look like it is all there, and finally, any tips or things I should look out for during clean up/refurbish?
Thanks.
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[Bruce Haugen]

It’s a rabbet plane, a little too coarse to function as a shoulder plane.

[Jim Koepke]

Bruce is spot on, it is a rabbet plane. Shoulder planes are usually low angle with the bevel up.

Your plane is of a design with the bevel down plane. Is there paint blocking the front of the mouth?

The blade will not sit properly if it is installed the wrong way.

It is also missing the parts for its fence.

jtk

[Mike Baker 2]

Thanks, gentlemen.
Jim, I expect there is paint at the mouth. Pity it is missing it's fence. I might try to make one, if I can figure out how, and find a picture of one to go by.
Bruce, thanks. Can you expand on what you mean by "too coarse"? Do you mean poorly built?

[Phil Mueller]

Mike,
Here’s a couple of pictures for reference...this is a Craftsman...not exactly the same as yours, but gives you an idea of the fence...

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[Bruce Haugen]

. Snippage happened here...
Bruce, thanks. Can you expand on what you mean by "too coarse"? Do you mean poorly built?

That looks very similar to the Stanley 78 that I have. It doesn’t have a tight mouth or very fine adjustment, both of which are necessary on a shoulder plane.

[Bill Houghton]

For what it's worth, if you're going to try to complete this, it was made for Sears by Sargent (the Sargent planes are easy to spot: that "rhino horn" handle on the front is the clue). The fence rod uses a different thread from the Stanley version (can't recall the exact thread pitch).

Shoulder planes tend to have a low-angle cutting iron, like a block plane, because they were intended to trim the shoulders of tenons (thus the name), which is an end-grain cut. They're handy for lots more than that, though.

The duplex rabbet plane, like yours, was designed as a carpenter's plane, for cutting rabbets for joinery/house trim. Well-tuned, with a sharp iron, it's actually quite a useful plane, and will cut perfectly serviceable rabbets for furniture work. The lack of adjustment by any means other than fine fiddling on your Craftsman/Sargent makes it harder, but not impossible, to do delicate cuts; but, with practice, you can do so.

[steven c newman]

However, you can remove the depth stop, and lay the plane over onto the milled side, where the stop used to be....

Both the #78 (Stanley), and the #79 (Sargent) also came with a spur/nicker on the side of the depth stop....for cutting cross grain rebates

Both had a "wide" mouth,,, to allow shavings to exit...otherwise, they will jamb up ( BTDT, keep a scratch awl handy, to clear it) Later ones DID have a depth adjuster....mine does. Back of the iron has notches, the adjuster engages to advance or withdraw to iron.
Keep an eye out for one of these, or it's bigger brothers..
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[Mike Baker 2]

Thanks for the wealth of information, gentlemen.
I will clean it up and get it working as best I can, and think about how to best use it or build a fence for it. Need to figure out what thread it takes for that.

[Stew Denton]

Mike,

The English would call your plane a rebate/moving fillister plane, or used to back when my Record 778 was made.

Check the diameter of the hole for the rod for the fence. I don't know about the threads that hold the rod, or if it even mounts the same way. Stanley used some odd thread sizes. If it happens to be the same diameter/thread as the Stanley 78, the fence from a Stanley 78 might work, and I think you can find a Stanley 78 fence on that auction site, but as a word of warning, it probably will not be cheap.

If one of the guys here has both types, the Stanley and the Sargent, maybe they can check it out for you.

Mike, I just looked on the auction site. There are fences for the Sargent 79 on it. You may have to wait a bit for a threaded rod that the fence mounts on to show up, but sooner or later one will show up.

Stew

[Mike Baker 2]

Thanks, Stew!

[lowell holmes]

I had a rabbet plane, but I do not know there it is since Hurricane Harvey came through. Maybe it is shoe up in one of the plastic tubs
that are holding much of my stuff temporarily.