Sargent hand plane
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I recently bought a sargent vbm no.410, same size as stanley 4 1/2, and restored it. The depth adjuster on this plane is backwards. Looking from the back of plane, you turn the adjuster counter clockwise to extend the blade. I could not find much information on it except one post on another forum that said early sargents did have the backwards adjuster but not during the vbm Era. Does anyone have any additional information on this? Can it be switched? Do I not have the original frog that came with the plane? I made my own knob and tote following Paul’s videos and I really like the plane but I keep adjusting it the wrong way out of habit. Thank you for any information
Hi Dave, I do not know anything about this except that I also have a Sargent, and yes, it is reversed. I always assumed it was like coke versus pepsi: if one is red the other has to be blue. If Stanley adjust this way, Sargent will adjust that way. If anyone knows anything I would be interested, but I do not think there is any real reason that the adjuster ought to work one way rather than the other, other than tradition. In any event, I like my Sargent (though may favorite is a particular Stanley #4) and just put up with constantly being confused about about which way to turn the knob, or, for that matter, which way to turn the Stanley knob after I have used the Sargent a bit. No big deal, especially since at my age, I tend to be confused about most everything.
Oh, my frog is a replacement. I bought it years ago just for the heck of it, before I really did any woodworking. I knocked it to the garage floor and shattered the frog. Oh well. I saved it in the corner of a drawer somewhere until some clever people invented ebay, and surprise, I was able to find a perfect replacement frog at a not too horrific price.
Hi Sanford, thanks for the reply. This is the first sargent I’ve owned so I wasn’t sure if they were all like that or not. I like the plane other than the reverse adjuster, just gets me turned around when using it, especially changing back and forth between that and my other planes
Could it be switched? Yes, but not easily. It would entail replacing the right-hand threaded adjustment nut and the screw it travels on with a left-hand threaded pair
Your friendly neighbor machinist could do that for you ,for a (phe)nominal sum. Or you might be able to cannibalize a nut/screw pair from another plane, but that would entail fitting the LH screw to the frog’s RH hole. Do-able, but would be easier to just replace the plane.
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