Repairing a Tote

[Jim Koepke]

An old #8 has been sitting around my shop for quite a while waiting to be put back together. Part of the delay was due to missing some parts and a broken frog. It fits between a type 7 & 8 since the frog has a B mark and the lever cap has an S. To the best of my recollection the base is absent any foundry mark. The blade has the type 11 or the V trade mark. The tote was missing. A broken tote from a donor plane filled in.

This tote had a nasty break. The mangled area was sawn off. A shim from a scrap of rosewood was made. The parts were put together to check the fit:

Getting Ready.jpg

This all set inside the house for ~12 hours to warm up a little. My preference for gluing totes is epoxy because it can fill small gaps. The surfaces to be glued were wiped with a cotton swab, slightly dampened with denatured alcohol. There is a tapered wooden shim in the image, under the hardener. This is to allow for any difference in the tote and fixture angles. If there are any visible cracks when the tote is being glued, epoxy can be forced into them with a small spatula like the one at the bottom of the image. This spatulay was also used for mixing the epoxy.

A manager at one of my jobs many years ago told me to always save some of the epoxy mix. This is so it can be checked for proper drying. The gluing was done with a bit of purposeful sloppiness so anyone trying this for the first time can see if you make a mess of the glue, all is not lost.

Epoxy is Set.jpg

The test epoxy is in the upper right corner.

The 1/2" Stanley Handyman chisel is my very first chisel, purchased at a flea market in Berkeley for 50¢. The partial plane base is from a broken #5 and comes in handy when working on a tote.

The first order of business is removing any extra wood and glue:

Trimming the Excess.jpg

Ride the high spots and carefully take it down. After most of the excess is gone files and rasps come into play. The inside curve of the handle needs either a rat tail rasp or file or a small half round. Use the coarser rasps and files sparingly:

Rasping & Filing.jpg

A little wax and oil and it is ready to go:

Ready for Service.jpg

A little bit of lapping the sole to remove rust and this plane is ready to work:

All Together Now.jpg

It makes nice shavings.

Hope this is helpful to anyone with a broken tote to repair.

Note: My estimation was off on how thick to make the inserted piece of rosewood to make up for the missing part of the handle. This left the rod holding the tote a few threads long. This could have been the hole in the tote was also a bit deep. To compensate a couple of washers were used under the top nut. They had to be drilled out to fit the #12 size rod holding the tote.

jtk

[Robert Flowers]

Jim the repair looks great, i have two questions Where did you get the rosewood? and have you ever repaired the handle on a Stanley 45? i have two that need to be fixed one has a crack were the top pin goes thru and the other is missing a large chunk at the bottom.
Robert

[Jim Koepke]

Howdy Robert,

The rosewood came to me from a friend's estate. He obtained it from an 'eastern style' restaurant's broken table. This piece was some scrap left over from making a saw handle:

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?249983

Some lumber yards still have rosewood to sell. Some species of rosewood are on the CITES list (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) of prohibited exports. In the future one may have to resort to getting pieces from other broken totes. In the past one of my totes was repaired with a piece of red heart. It made a red band around the tote. Over time the red heart has darkened. A person could even make a lamination of light and dark woods for a racing stripe effect.

Oops, forgot to answer about repairing a tote on a Stanley #45. None of mine have needed repair. Though, my Stanley #55 came with a replacement tote. From the best of my guessing of how these were done at the factory, The handles were set in place and the pins to hold them on were then inserted and may have been electro-welded. MIG welding has been used since early in the 19th century.

The previous owner of the #55 had removed these pins and the metal mount for the handle was tapped to accept machine screws. If any of my time is spent in the shop today an image will be posted later. We have plans to head into town today which usually means very little shop time.

jtk

[Bob Glenn]

Jim, did you mean early 1900's for MIG welding?

[Jim Koepke]

Jim, did you mean early 1900's for MIG welding?

This may be my misunderstanding of an article:

Mig Welding History Timeline

19th Century

The principles of Mig Welding History began to be developed around the turn of the 19th century, with Humphry Davy's discovery of the electric arc in 1800.

http://weldguru.com/OLDSITE/mig-welding-history.html

Though the article seems to indicate inert gasses may not have been used until the 20th century. My previous statement:

From the best of my guessing of how these were done at the factory, The handles were set in place and the pins to hold them on were then inserted and may have been electro-welded. MIG welding has been used since early in the 19th century.

… is my best guess. Maybe someone somewhere knows the actual process of how securing handles on Stanley combination planes was done. They may have been done with an interference fit or some other method.

As with many things, there were likely a dozen or two different methods to do this part of the manufacturing process.

A quick search turned up a way to remove the pins:

https://www.timetestedtools.net/2016...ld-stanley-45/

The way the pin is removed may indicate it isn't welded.

This has never been noticed in my reading in the past. Without needing to duplicate the method there was no reason to search for it.

jtk

[Bob Glenn]

Boy, that's news to me! Sorry if I over stepped my bounds, it just didn't ring right. Who knew?

[Kris Cook]

Thanks Jim for posting this helpful information. I have several planes that need varying degrees of tote repair. Also thanks to Robert for asking, as Jim's link above will be helpful on a couple of combination planes I have as well.

[Jim Koepke]

Boy, that's news to me! Sorry if I over stepped my bounds, it just didn't ring right. Who knew?

Questioning one's information shouldn't be thought of as stepping beyond one's bounds. It likely caused both of us to look deeper into a subject and increased our knowledge of the world before us.

One of these days maybe someone will come forward with knowledge of how it was actually done.

There is an old combination plane body, suffered through a fire, in my junk pile. Maybe a closer inspection of that may lend a clue. My recollection is the pin is not in the handle.

Some images were taken of my Stanley #55 with a tote replacement:

Stanley #55 Right Side View.jpg

The handle replacement was done by a previous owner. They used wood screws with round heads. It was a little uncomfortable.

Here it is with the handle removed:

Stanley #55 - Handle Removed.jpg

The holes in the metal were drilled and tapped for 10-32, to the best of my recollection.

Once or twice there have been factory replacement totes for the Stanley #45 or #55. Maybe somewhere on the internet there is the instructions for replacing the handle.

jtk

[Phil Mueller]

Very nice repair, Jim.

[lowell holmes]

Jim,
I have a number 4 Stanley that came with broken tote. It has a corrugated sole. I cut the break out the tote and put a piece of maple in it. I now have a plane with a racing stripe.
The mass of that plane is incredible. It has a Hock iron and breaker on it.
It is as good as the Bedrock planes I have.
The plane was rusty so I painted it with black automotive paint. The japanning was gone.
Actually, I went to the shop and all of my planes have rust, so they all got sanded with a pad sander and coated with
Johnson Floor Wax. I have to do that every year.

[Jim Koepke]

My plane for the future of keeping rust at bay is to make a closed cabinet and have something like a 'Golden Rod' heater at the bottom:

https://www.amazon.com/GoldenRod-inc.../dp/B005FRG03O

The theory is they will keep things in a cabinet warm enough so moisture in the air will not condensate on the items in the cabinet.

For now my tools seem to be well served by coating with Johnsons' wax.

jtk

[lowell holmes]

I wonder if new woodworkers know about Johnson wax. A can will last for years.

[Jim Koepke]

I wonder if new woodworkers know about Johnson wax. A can will last for years.

Tell me about it. My can is from the years when it was still the tan opaque formula instead of the clear formula that has been around for years. Besides, it is still more than 3/4 full.

jtk

[Jerry Olexa]

Good repair, Jim!!!! Well done.

[Kevin Hampshire]

Jim, From my memory back when I routinely did these repairs, I think you follow the best practices.

It could be photo angle, but does the repaired tote lean further forward and block the forward screw.

I tried to compare with one of my home made (based on a Stanley No. 5) totes, but my photo shows almost identical.