Shopsmith Forums

Like many around here, I can't pass up a good cheap used handplane. Lately I had got a German block-plane (50 degree bedding angle) which some prior owner had gouged-up the sole on, and nicked the blade heavily.

For rework, I wanted not only to fix it, but also to tighten the mouth and try to match the performance of my best personal plane, the HNT Gordon block-plane (55 degree bedding angle), shown in the link smoothing tiger-maple like nothing else:
http://www.shopsmith.net/forums/showpos ... stcount=28

I got it to work!
- Used the horizontal boring mode to chain-drill a slot in front of the mouth.
- Strip-sanded a piece of brass to fit, affixed with JB-Weld epoxy.
- Evened up the whole sole, removed the gouges with the 12" disc sander. Also hand-filed the brass opening to an extremely fine gap.

Here's the result, next to a piece of maple which is glass-smooth right off the plane.

[ATTACH]22901[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]22902[/ATTACH]

My brother is going to get this one.

Well done!

Can I be yer brother!?:D

That is just plain fantastic!

Here's another one. The late-model Stanley SW planes have a number of "slam" reviews on the web, particularly when some folks had problems with the cap-retainer screw breaking.

I found such a one quite cheap on the *bay site, and eagerly went to work when it arrived yesterday.

I used the SS and a Hole-Plug Cutter to make a little 3/8" disk of very hard persimmon wood:

[ATTACH]26897[/ATTACH]


After a night of letting the JB-Weld epoxy dry, I cut loose the plug and that only correct-sized, correct-headed screw I had in my whole shop -- steel rather than brass. I used the Strip Sander to refine the final length of the threaded shank, and used the drill chuck to trim up the head and smooth it a bit:

[ATTACH]26898[/ATTACH]


After all that, I sharpened the blade, re-installed the hardware, and had myself a very nice, thick-A2-blade low-angle block plane on the cheap!

[ATTACH]26899[/ATTACH]

Bob, thanks! I saw no need for a tune-up beyond sharpening the blade. It's a pretty well-made plane. My favorites tend to be 'non perfect' planes which I have to fix in some way. Once they're ready, I work them pretty hard.

Solutions both practical and beautiful.
Really nice work.

Nice! Do you have pictures of the entire restoration process?

Hi Paul,

No pictures of my own of the sharpening process, but here's a thread from somebody who 'does it right' :
https://forum.shopsmith.com/viewtopic.php?t=6296

For my own part I have a lower-cost Honing guide. I usually do rough restorative grinding on the strip-sander (only at an approximate angle that removes enough metal to make the subsequent manual steps easier to do), and finer guided honing on a piece of glass with successive grades of sandpaper (80/150/.../ 1500) and lastly a piece of leather with a bit of stropping compound on it. I've been doing them this way for a while and kind of got set in my ways.

If there is a badly shaped blade, I can't overemphasize the point of doing enough initial grinding/sanding to 'raise a burr' at the tip. If the flimsy burr never gets raised, then all the subsequent polishing just produces 2 shiny planes that don't really intersect where you think they are... you'll 'see the edge' where there should be no visible edge.

I think member holsgo also has posted some good postings on sharpening.

There is also a Christopher Schwarz blog entry on the web about the usefulness of a 'back bevel' on high-wear block plane blades (used in the bevel-upward mounting). That is a worthy mention as well, if you don't want to grind away an excessive amount of metal trying to get a pristine flat-side to the blade.

Good luck!

First, Chris that is gorgeous work on your ECE block plane sole! I have never thought of using brass to re-shape the opening, but the lignum vitae sole should be okay with brass. That wood used to be easy to find - most labeled that today is actually True Wood I am told. I have an ECE smoothing plane from years past but it came with a moveable throat-plate.

For grinding the bevel side of a plane blade I use a low speed wheel to grind a hollow that requires much less honing and is easy to re-hone without having to grind again. Much less work to put a small 'flat' on the tip than to flatten the whole bevel side!:)

Those getting into sharpening, remember that the flat side does the cutting on a bevel down plane and it needs to be mirror polished. Really, you need to do the same polish on the flat side no matter the blade orientation.

You might want to check out Ron Hock's website for sharpening videos and tips.

Forrest