Sole Flattening
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Hey guys, Just doing some work to one of my stanley No.4 planes. Im flattening the sole using pauls method. I’m not having trouble getting the sole flat, but rather taking too much material off one side of the sole in the process. Now, the sole isn’t perpendicular to the tote by a fair margin, but the sole is flat. Is there any reason to correct this problem or is it something that is a non issue. Ive used the plane after flattening the sole, it works well, so maybe I’m answering my own question, just wanted to get some advice from some people that have much more experience than I. Thanks in advance
Cubb
When I flatten souls, I will take twenty or thirty strokes and then flip it end to end to remedy this problem, it has worked well for me. As for using it, it will still work well, but when you grab another plane with a flat and square soul it won’t feel right.
Also, you won’t be able to use it on a shooting board.
Anonymous7 March 2015 at 1:57 am #125318beran is correct. While the plane will function fine for normal use you will not be able to do anything that references the sideds such as “shooting” since they are no longer square to the bottom. Flatting the sole can be a real challenge since it’s not a precision process the way we do it. It’s a shame it happened but some planes are so far off it may be unavoidable. It’s part of learning how to restore an old tool. We have all been there!
7 March 2015 at 11:38 am #125322I think there are quite a few plane maladies that won’t affect the cosmetic function of the plane, i.e. it will produce shavings and a decent surface, but might leave you with some defect that isn’t immediately obvious. Sometimes that can be useful; I have a jack plane that is slightly convex, which I use for most prep and then follow up with a few passes of a dead flat longer plane to leave things straight and therefore almost never have to struggle with convex edges.
The only thing I can think of that your defect might affect is muscle memory, perhaps you’ll find you consistently plane edges out of square with this plane or vice versa. I doubt surfaces would be a problem.
I don’t have any idea really how this sole might affect the plane’s use, but I wanted to post to say that if you could try it out for a while and let us know if we should be paying more attention to sole squareness, it would be really helpful.
Thanks,
Matt
7 March 2015 at 3:12 pm #125326You may be unknowingly pressing down harder, leaning into, one side or the other. I tend to lean in to the left and have the same problem unless I’m mindful of what I am doing. Use light pressure, just enough to push the plane, that should help minimize the problem if you’re doing that.
You must have been doing some work. Getting a sole flat takes some time in the first place, even on a No. 4, for all I know. However, really getting it out of perpendicular with the tote must have taken considerably more work. Can it be that the sole was warped before? If so, I could imagine it being more prone to having taken down one of the high spots more than another in that case. Due to the smaller surface area of a very warped sole in contact with the abrasive, it might also result in a thicker layer of iron being abraded to start with. If that abrasion has for some reason occured to be uneven, that’s what I could imagine.
7 March 2015 at 6:54 pm #125330I’ve found that you can find yourself a thou or so out of square pretty fast on 80 grit.
Thanks for all the replys. Definitely helpful in knowing that I’m not the only one that has struggled with this sort of issue. My main concern, as posted above is muscle memory. I’m still going to use the plane as is and report back to the functionality of it.
It’s funny, as I was checking the sole for square against the wings of the plane, I noticed one side is square to the sole and the other is not. I’m guessing this plane had some sort of twist to it from the start.
And yes it did take considerable work to get it to this point of being flat.
I’m keeping my eyes open for another No.4.
It is such a learning process to fettle these tool properly. An art in itself.Thanks again guys.
8 March 2015 at 6:25 pm #125357Cubb, it may be that somebody dropped it once, too. That could throw one side out of square. Dropping it on concrete will do that once in awhile. I don’t recommend trying it (been there.) 🙂
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