I'm about 5 hours into restoring a Bailey #7 plane (three patent version). This plane looked like it sat out in the rain for at least a few of its many years. It took a lot of effort to disassemble it, broke a really nice screw driver, broke out the vice grips to remove some screws,...
I am trying to get the plane into usable condition, I don't care about resale value, original parts,...
My 2 questions: Are the following defects going to make this plane unusable?
1) Broken lever cap
2) rounding on edge of chip breaker
I hate to keep working on this if I am wasting my time. There was a lever cap on sale on eBay last week, but it went for almost as much money as I spent on the rusty old plane. Maybe I should just find one in better condition, it seems like I can get a usable one for $120 ish.
I have no experience with hand planes, I thought I'd start learning by restoring and tuning up with this one.
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