Broken plane
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Tagged: plane
- This topic has 9 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 11 months ago by tonyw.
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I recently acquired a broken Stanley no5 plane. It was in a bad way, but I’ve cleaned it up, apart from the handles, the iron is a little on the short side, im guessing well used. What I want to know is, is it still usable?
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You must be logged in to view attached files.30 April 2017 at 8:55 am #311562It looks like it’s complete but the body of the plane has been modified. There’s a section of the side missing on the left, near the mouth where the blade sticks out. This will weaken the plane but probably not enough to affect its performance.
I think it would benefit from a little more work on the sole of the plane to ensure it’s flat and smooth. Lay a sheet of fine emery paper on a flat surface and then gently run the plane backwards and forwards along it (remove the blade first!). This should polish the surface that will rub on the surface of the wood, and improve the performance of the plane.30 April 2017 at 12:20 pm #311566I wouldn’t trust it for accuracy. Metal planes can flex, and this one even more because of the side part missing exactly where toe and heel are connected. And the sole is quite rusty and seems to have a lot of pitting. You will have to remove quite some material to get it flat again. The pits will gather wood dust and then turn into high spots. I think, you could use this plane for some crude work, but that’s it. If you want to use the plane, round off the corners and edges where the side part is missing.
Dieter
I’m with Hugo — I wouldn’t trust it for accuracy just on sight. Missing the entire wing on one side — it’s going to flex much, much more than a “normal” plane.
However, it might make a good scrub plane. In that application, you don’t care so much about accuracy. Really, there’s only one way to be sure if it’s usable, and that’s to use it.
Get a rough piece of the kind of wood you typically use, and not a trivially small piece — something that’ll require real work. Put the plane through it’s paces, and at the end, check the result. If it’s acceptable, you’re GTG. If not, you have to decide if you want to invest more time into it. I think welding might lead to other work needing to be done, but a real welder should address that, not me. However, you could get a piece of scrap metal, shape it to fill the void where the wing should be, and use a steel bonding epoxy to glue the scrap into place. That will stiffen and strengthen that side of the plane, perhaps enough to make the plane serviceable again. It’ll be 10 bucks for the epoxy and scrap, you’ll have to decide if it’s worth the investment.
Sorry,gundoguk, but what you have is a “donor plane”–a potentially useful collection of parts attached to a big cast iron door stop. I’d put all of the loose parts into a box, scrap the main body of the plane, and start hitting the car boot sales. I’m pretty sure that all of these parts can be used on just about any Stanley Bailey or Record #4 or #5 plane made since 1910 (Collectors, please correct me as necessary.)
Alternatively, although I agree with Paul’s hard line against lending tools, this plane would make a perfect loaner. (Better than having your good plane returned in that condition!)
Dave
- This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by Dave Ring.
When I read the original post in this thread a few weeks ago I remembered that I had seen somewhere on the net a note by a collector who had had a rare plane that had had a wing broken off in the post, cosmetically repaired by a specialist welder but until now, I haven’t been able to find the link. This morning I stumbled across it while looking for info on my Record 722 mini router.
The relevant info is from David Lynch’s site http://www.recordhandplanes.com/restoration.html & is about half way down the page under the heading “Restoration of a Record No. 400½”. The picture there shows an undetectable mend although nothing is said about whether it is structurally & mechanically able to withstand either the stresses of normal use or how much such specialist welding would cost.
For the Record (pun intended) it does appear that seamless repairs can be achieved but remember, this was for a relatively rare plane for a collector. For the case of a broken Stanley no5, it probably makes more sense to go the route that has been taken of finding a second body.
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