First vintage plane

[Jim Koepke]

I usually seat the frog by sighting down the bed and adjusting it until that plane clears the back of the mouth. The frog can be backed some more after that. I've needed to do that to fit thicker irons. I'm not sure how you accomplish what you're saying; by backing the frog, until the iron touches the back of the mouth, it's more likely that the contact will be on the bevel.

Sorry for the confusion.

If the blade is on the frog with the back side against the frog, the contact with the edge of the mouth will not be against the bevel.

Sometimes a 6" metal rule has been used to perform the task.

Think about this, if having the frog a hair back from from the mouth will cause "Advancing the iron will cause deflexion and slight lifting" then some of the blade will be resting on the mouth if the mouth and the frog bed are in alignment. This will add support to the blade.

jtk

[Scott Winners]

Many of my planes are purposely set with the blade resting on the back of the mouth. Not enough for the blade to be lifted off the bed of the frog.

jtk

I have all my Baileys set up this way, partly at your (Jim's) instigation if I recall . The back of the mouth and the slanted front of the frog laying in one plane. I have to set the frog with a steel rule since I can't see if there is a gap when the iron is installed.

Local to me a vintage Bailey either has a usable iron, or is a pitted mess. I am not fussy enough to go shopping for vintage irons, so I personally have no regrets buying a new iron and opening the mouth to put the plane back in service with the frog/mouth set for maximum blade support and the mouth opened up enough to be useful.

The one place I would be nervous about this is the #5. If memory serves Chris Schwarz has three different irons for his #5. One is ground straight across with rounded corners for smoothing, one is a scrubbish type radius up around 8-10 inches, and I don't recall what the third iron is ground to. As a relative n00b to woodworking I have moved away from Paul Sellers "I can do everything with a #4 Bailey" towards Chris Schwarz "I can do everything with a Bailey #3, #5 and #8, but I have three different irons for my #5."

If I was going all in on the CS method, I would put the scrub radius on the thinnest blade and hope the mouth opening worked for both scrubbing with a thin iron and smoothing with a thicker iron. FWIW I have ten Baileys on the shelf under my bench right now, smallest is a #3. As a generalist I don't feel like I need any more, but I am not itching to thin the herd either.

[Rafael Herrera]

Think about this, if having the frog a hair back from from the mouth will cause "Advancing the iron will cause deflexion and slight lifting" then some of the blade will be resting on the mouth if the mouth and the frog bed are in alignment. This will add support to the blade.

The plane in the middle of my picture above is setup so that the iron is definitely resting on the back of the mouth, I checked again. It's lifted above the bed of the frog when assembled.

On thing to be cautious about is a comment a friend of mine made, the back of the mouth is the thinnest part of the sole of the plane. Doing what I'm doing, exerting pressure on the back of the mouth may cause it to crack over time due to fatigue.

Setting the plane so the iron rests on the back of the mouth is not necessarily a performance improvement, when one advances the frog to close the mouth to take fine shavings or supposedly mitigate tear out, the iron is only supported by the frog. The plane doesn't suffer when setup this way.

[steven c newman]

Just chatters...

[Rafael Herrera]

Just chatters...

Are you sure? You're saying the moveable frog feature results in chatter.

[steven c newman]

When you lose the support behind the edge of the iron....and leave it just hanging out there by itself...it WILL vibrate...and THAT is the chattering.



When you slide the frog too far to the rear, it will bend the edge up a bit...exposing the wear bevel to the surface of the wood...making the iron feel like it is dull.

[Gary Focht]

When I bought some Sargent planes (cheaper on EBay than the Stanley’s) and refurbished them, I initially carefully lined up the frog in line with the mouth of the plane to attempt to get a straight line between the frog and the angle of the bed at the mouth. (The two angles don’t seem to match exactly.) I was getting significant chatter until I moved the frog back to have the bevel of the plane iron just touch the sole of the plane.

[Richard Hutchings]

I have found this to true for a fact when I was trying to shoot endgrain. I though closing the mouth would help but I got ridiculous chatter. Moved the frog back in line with the sole opening and it cut nice and smooth.