hand plane Lose lateral setting
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The screw that protrudes through the lever cap could be too loose, try tightening that a little bit that will help.
Also, when you stop using the plane, put it down flat on the bench not on its side. When you put it on its side, the force of putting it down can readjust the lateral setting.11 May 2016 at 11:35 am #137160I had this problem for a very long time on my no.4 stanley. I suspected it was one of two problems… the lever cap screw… or the lateral adjustment lever was too loose. Tightening the lever cap screw solved the problem but made turning the adjustment knob to adjust the blade depth difficult. I accepted this for a while until I worked up the courage to re-peen the rivet that attaches to the lateral adjustment lever. The lateral adjustment lever was loose, which caused it to have too much play even when the lever cap was adjusted correctly. To re-peen the rivet, I placed a hammer in my vise to use as an anvil (Paul has demonstrated this technique) and then used another hammer to re-peen the rivet (placed the backside of the frog on the hammer in the vise, and re-peened the rivet from the front side of the frog… the side that the blade rests). I slowly creeped up to the amount of friction that allowed me to easily adjust the lever, but also eliminated the play I was getting. This has solved the problem without creating any other problems as well. I’m not sure if this is a recommended technique or if the rivet can be replaced if something were to go wrong, but it was the only solution I could think of… other than getting a new frog. Hope this helps.
12 May 2016 at 4:36 pm #137176I will try what Swope has suggested because I have very loose adjustment levers on several Millers Falls planes. (They rattle when I am using them). Thanks for writing up the fix, Chris. I did not know how to approach the re-peening
What if you need to replace the rivet? How would you get the old one out and set the new one.
The rivet can be drilled out from the bottom side, as that is the side that was peened, the top side was machine formed. If you can’t get a stable setup to drill, a dremel tool/grinder can be used.
You may have to look about online or at a real hardware store to find a rivet. In a pinch, you could use a pop rivet, remove the innards and manually peen it over. You would set a new rivet the same way you would tighten one. Place the machine made cap side on the top of the frog and hammer it over an anvil (hammer, punch, 3/8″ socket extension).
I’ve used essentially the same technique that Chris described but using a 10 pound bench anvil and a center punch driven by a hammer. This lessens the risk of breaking the brittle cast iron frog with a stray hammer blow. Chris’s hammering skills are probably a lot better than mine.
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