Woden W78 Rebate/Fillister Fence Out of Square

Larry has just about summed it up. Just to add a little more:

The Woden brand was a Record/C & J Hampton hybrid dating from the 1950s/60s, sharing the much same casting facilities and as usual in those days, relying on a degree of hand-finishing; it’s was not unknown, therefore, to see occasional ‘quality variations’ from time to time.
In the UK at that period most large towns had well established ironmongers and tool retailers; it was customary for knowledgeable users to personally select tools from a line-up of products in stock on the retailer’s counter for this reason.

If the misalignment of the fence is a problem, adding a wooden fence (even though holes are not provided) can be aligned to the sole of the tool at a right angle, correct any sideways error and in my view, will contribute to the stability of movement on larger pieces. They can be to any size practicable and I like wooden side fences for this reason. They can be removed temporarily if they get in the way.

When sharpening, it is important that the right-hand forward going corner of the blade is an exact pin-sharp right angle and the immediate portion of the side above it has a clean edge – failure here will not allow the plane to cut a vertical side descending, as each stroke of a rounded corner, however minute in size, will force the blade sideways. You’ll get a gradually curving side-wall.

If you need to work to an accurate line – rather than rough removal of wood for a basic rebate shape – a good and quick technique is to scribe the position of your side wall with a cutting gauge to avoid surface tear-out on wavy-grained wood, then to align the blade of a plough plane to it and drop a pilot slot close to it. The rebate plane blade can then be set coarse to hog out the remaining wood down to depth. This way, the exact position and alignment of the fence is then unimportant. After this, clean the edges back to the scribe lines.

good luck – it’s a good tool for its intended purpose.

If it’s upsetting you, can you not return it for a refund?

What you have there is as I suspected, a quality-control aberration from 60-odd years ago and probably why it is still in relatively unused condition……. the engineering technical term in UK English is an F.A.J. (‘Friday Afternoon Job’).

However, it is a good, usable plane with this single small defect.

Quite seriously, you have already alighted, in my opinion on the solution. Fix a wooden fence, about 1/2 inch thick, about the length of the bed and about 1 to 1-1/4 inch deep and use it to disguise the error. There are as many opinions on the type of wood for fences as weeks in the year, but the wood can be anything you wish provided that it is dry, solid and stable. Of what you have mentioned, I would choose Apple immediately. Best wood of all for stress. (All my bench-dogs are made of Apple, still going after 30 years).
Fixing it with glues and tapes will work loose in time and provide you with more blood-pressure and grief when it comes off in mid stroke, half-way down a prize plank….. the best solution is to drill two small holes near each end of the metal fence, fix the fence then plane it to a resulting right angle with the sole.

or……. put it up for sale on a well-known auction site.

Good luck

Adding the wood fence and planing it square is still your easiest solution. I like wood fence anyway, and add them to all my fenced planes. You can get a longer and wider fence and it’s easier to push the fence.

However, if you have a steady hand and reasonable metal working skills, a solution is quite easy. Use a round file around the diameter of the fence rod hole ( I find chain saw files are good for this sort of task) and file bottom of the rod hole square on the side opposite the holding screw. It will only take a couple strokes in all likelihood. Just be sure the bottom of the hole is flat in the direction of the rodar the fence will rock. A small correction here yields big results at the fence.

Either way, you aren’t far from having a good plane.

Good job.

You might find you won’t have to go through the trouble to thin the fence. It’s not often you need a rebate at full width.

There in a bit of a learning curve. Main points are : sharpen the plane dead flat – don’t ease or crown any edges.

The plane should protrude maybe the thickness of a business card with the grain.

Cross grain work that needs the nicker should have the iron aligned with it. Take a couple back strokes first so the nicker scores the cut line. And sharpen iron and nicker.
And I avoid spelching cross grain by removing wood down to depth at the end of the cut with a chisel

Paul has more: https://paulsellers.com/2016/05/rebate-plane-no1-78-filletster-plane/