Stanley #50 questions

I too picked up a #50 lately. Depending on how old your model is, there were a lot of design tweaks through its history. I believe I have one of the first ones (all metal handle with some design work)–the way it is designed, I do not believe it can hold any cutters under 3/8″–the mechanism just doesn’t clamp down that tightly/can’t close that gap.

I also picked up a newer one with a wooden handle and it has the 2nd depth gauge included. Frankly, I don’t know what the 2nd one does–I think it may have some additional functionality for rabbets perhaps?

In any event, after sharpening the hell out of the cutters and bringing them back to good condition I found the plane works quite well. Make sure you hold it in a way that you can keep the fence firmly positioned against your reference face and make sure to start planing at the front of the wood and work your way back.

There is some interesting historical information here (someone shared this link on a post I made about the #50). http://www.supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan7.htm

My original thread: https://woodworkingmasterclasses.com/discussions/topic/stanley-50-combination-plane/

I believe I answered it (or provided an information source on it). So I can’t speak to the 1/4″ issue–the article I posted said only the 1/8″ and 3/16″ cutters couldn’t be secured in the early model. Maybe you just need to sharpen it a bit more and really tighten the wing nut and see how it works? Obviously the sharper the cutter the less resistance you’ll get from the wood and the less likely you are to have an issue with the cutter moving.

From the article I posted (that was generously shared with me): There is one slight problem with this design of sandwiching the cutter between two castings to hold the cutter in place, and that is that the narrowest two ploughing cutters (1/8″ and 3/16″) aren’t wide enough to be secured in this manner. A holding screw was added when these two cutters were provided starting ca. 1936. The holding screw has a head that measures 3/4″ in diameter, and it’s this wide head that holds the cutter in place; the sliding section is removed, and the holding screw is substituted. The same wing nut that pulls the sliding section up against the left edge of the cutter also pulls the holding screw’s head against the left edge of the cutter. The holding screw is normally MIA.

btw, I know a Joe Monahan but I’m guessing you’re not him (unless you are/were once a trader)…