Reply To: Woden W78 Rebate/Fillister Fence Out of Square

If it’s upsetting you, can you not return it for a refund?

What you have there is as I suspected, a quality-control aberration from 60-odd years ago and probably why it is still in relatively unused condition……. the engineering technical term in UK English is an F.A.J. (‘Friday Afternoon Job’).

However, it is a good, usable plane with this single small defect.

Quite seriously, you have already alighted, in my opinion on the solution. Fix a wooden fence, about 1/2 inch thick, about the length of the bed and about 1 to 1-1/4 inch deep and use it to disguise the error. There are as many opinions on the type of wood for fences as weeks in the year, but the wood can be anything you wish provided that it is dry, solid and stable. Of what you have mentioned, I would choose Apple immediately. Best wood of all for stress. (All my bench-dogs are made of Apple, still going after 30 years).
Fixing it with glues and tapes will work loose in time and provide you with more blood-pressure and grief when it comes off in mid stroke, half-way down a prize plank….. the best solution is to drill two small holes near each end of the metal fence, fix the fence then plane it to a resulting right angle with the sole.

or……. put it up for sale on a well-known auction site.

Good luck