Fitted a new yoke to Stanley 4 1/2
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15 February 2015 at 6:40 pm #124664
I got this Stanley 4 1/2 on eBay quite some time ago.
I was never able to make it work properly in cut and adjustment.
I mucked about with the position of frog position of cap iron and I bought a brand new Stanley iron as the old iron was rather short.
All the above just did not work.
So a while ago I bought some spare yokes from http://www.workshopheaven.com/tools/Steel-Y-Lever.html#SID=5 made by Quensheng.
These yokes are a little longer than Stanley originals so if you want retro fit a thicker iron this will yoke will work and engage in the cap iron.
Well today got a fit in my head and I was going to get this old plane working.
I disassembled plane and took frog out noticed the end nearer the mouth was not very flat. I took file to frog and flatend these points re sat in plane body. The frog felt a lot better.
I then turned to the yoke , I got a small nail punch/ set and punched the pin out of hole to release old yoke. With the new yoke you may have to make hole in it slightly bigger. I Re punched the pin through holes to affix the yoke in place.
I placed the iron and cap in place on frog. The iron did not want to sit flat on the frog. I looked at the old yoke and a new one the new yoke was a lot thicker at the point where it came through the frog than the old yoke. So Iron did not sit on frog properly.
The solution was quite easy I just filled few strokes top side of the hole on the cap iron.
I refitted and it was perfect 🙂
I Then reassembled plane then took a look at the sole with engineers straight edge.
Well this had big gap just behind mouth to heel of plane of at least 1 mm . Out come plate glass and 60 grit paper worked on this for a while checking as I went was not making much head way.
Well I got brave and just took a course file to sole. I Worked file from front to middle of sole checking as I went with straight edge. Even this still took a while but I eventually worked down from front to heel. Got it so it looked pretty good with straight edge.
I then put marks on sole using a marker pen and proceeded on the glass and 60 grit paper. I Took a look at the sole and marks were being removed quite evenly. I Then moved up to 80 grit paper put marks back on sole with marker pen and worked until they had disappeared. I checked with straight edge and hardly any light was showing through 😉
At this point I felt I wanted to plane some wood and thought I would go through finer grits on sole another day.
I took iron out of plane and gave a little rub on my oil stone. I did not even use my leather strop and polishing compound.
Place iron back in plane and found small piece of cherry .
Oh deep joy working plane and able to take fine shavings and adjustable. 😀Attachments:
You must be logged in to view attached files.16 February 2015 at 10:18 am #124705I got an old cast yoke for my 5 1/2, replacing it was a very easy operation and only took a couple of minutes. I didn’t have to replace it, but it is nicer than the pressed steel one 🙂 I also got a brass adjustment wheel and some other brass parts to replace steel parts, again not really needed, but it feels and looks better 🙂
16 February 2015 at 6:14 pm #124707Good result Mark, was it the new yoke or the other repairs you did that produced the final result. Good resource for yokes if thicker blades were fitted
16 February 2015 at 8:16 pm #124709@daveg the Iron was not being adjusted by the old yoke in place so it did need a new yoke.
I would say yes as well to playing with frog a little. Also flattening of sole helped a lot.
Even when I did get to take shaving before work I done on plane. I could never get it to where I wanted it to be.
I do have Some quangsheng 3mm thick iron fitted in a Stanley No.4 and No.3 Also have a
2 3/8′ quangsheng iron as well which I thick will be going in this plane above.
Extra thick iron just adds a little bit more stability and the T 10 steel on quangsheng irons holds an edge very nicely.
When you think of the older wooden bench planes they had great hunks of steel in them and they work very well indeed.
Stanley must thought what can we get away with so there irons only about 2mm what an ingenious saving that was. Just think how many millions of plane irons they have made and how much steel they saved.
I have a few planes fitted with standard irons and they work perfectly well. Thicker irons just do something for me probably just a feeling or a state of mind just seem to work a little better for me. -
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