ECE Primus planes

[Thomas Wilson]

I have had a Primus smoothing plane and a block plane from the 1980’s. On a whim, I recently bought a Primus jack plane companion because it has a lignum vitae sole. It must be new-old-stock. The bodies of the smoother and block are pear I think. The new jack is beech. The fit of the new plane is excellent and it arrived, as all Primus planes do, very sharp and ready to use. The difference is the finish. The finish is a bit rough. I want it to feel as smooth to the hand as its older siblings. What treatment would you recommend? Steel wool and Johnsons paste wax? Pumice and linseed oil? Wet sand with auto body paper and rattle can lacquer? I suppose the finish on the jack plane is lacquer but haven’t tested with solvent.

[Rafael Herrera]

I'd use steel wool and wax to soften the roughness of the finish. The wear from use will do the rest.

[Rob Luter]

I've grown fond of Scotch Brite abrasive pads for this sort of thing. I use Maroon (fine) and Grey (Extra Fine)They cut better than steel wool and conform well to contoured surfaces. Steel wood is a great applicator for the paste wax as a last step.

[Dave Anderson NH]

I would start with a piece of brown paper bag. Paper bags are great for smoothing out between coats of finish to remove little dust nubs and such. They are less harsh than almost any of the normal true abrasives. I have my wife save paper bags and I cut them up into squares and keep a stack of them in the shop. Cheap and effective.

[chris carter]

Brown paper. A paper bag will work. Builder's paper from the home center (what I use to cover my bench for glue-ups and applying finish) will work - it's the same stuff just heavy duty. Masking paper from the home center is also the same stuff, just between the two. You probably have one of those three and they will all work. The best thing is that, aside from it being easy and cheap, you simply cannot screw it up no matter how hard you try.

[lou Brava]

[QUOTE=chris carter;3190802]Brown paper. A paper bag will work. Builder's paper from the home center (what I use to cover my bench for glue-ups and applying finish)

Sheer genius ! I just built a new work bench and protecting the top from glue or finish never crossed my mind.
Thanks

[Thomas Wilson]

Thanks everybody. I had not thought of brown paper or Scotch Brite. I started with brown paper but it did not smooth the bumps very much. I found a gray Scotch brite pad on the shelf. That worked quickly. I finished with brown paper and wiped the dust off with naphtha. It feels about right but is duller than the older planes.

To complete the set, I got a try plane on eBay at a reasonable price. Nice looking family.
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[Richard Hutchings]

That's a beautiful set. I would box up all my metal planes if I had those, just to make sure they got used the most.

[Thomas Wilson]

That's a beautiful set. I would box up all my metal planes if I had those, just to make sure they got used the most.

It is a good working set. The spring tension holding mechanism is a joy because the backlash is zero. The smoother, jack and try plane are 50 degree bed angle so they best for hard squirrelly wood. They are unnecessarily hard to push in softwoods, but the light weight wood body and high angle can make taking fine perfect shavings on difficult wood a pleasure.

[Tom M King]

I have several, and they work wonderfully if you plane slowly, but since I almost always plane fast, the spring mechanism allows it to chatter terribly, regardless of how I set it, so it doesn't get used here. I really like the hammer set Scrub plane, and would trade the fancy mechanism fitted smoother for a hammer set one.

There is a plow plane on ebay that I've been really tempted to bid on, but I don't really need it. I didn't know of the existence of that until I saw it there.

[Eric Rathhaus]

I still find my ECE jointer finicky. I struggle to get the blade parallel so it's not taking more off on one side. Even after I set it up, it quickly goes lopsided again. Any tips?