1902 Stanley 41/2.

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Sam_Jack

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Against the good sense instilled by Grandpappa; and, for my sins, I bought it. I seemed somehow ‘indecent’ to walk away from the call. Anyway, for weel or woe; I own it. Two days worth of time and effort – until about 4 pm – the old girl took her first shavings. Wow – I’d set the thing on a bit of old, very dry Pine no challenge. Then, cautiously, I took the plane onto a ten inch wide ‘American Oak’ (22 mm tick) board which I have had some trouble getting into wind. Well; the simple pleasure of taking off beautiful shavings with such a nicely balanced instrument – frankly, blew me away. What a pleasure it is to use. ‘Nuff said. So, to my wee problems:-

(i) The back handle is a plywood ‘fix’. Well made but not correct. I have a lump of ‘Rosewood’ (the real deal) from which a new handle could be made – but – I’ve no idea of how to make one – same as the original. I doubt that there is a convenient ‘stockist’ of such things. So, I’m beggared for ideas. Can anyone, even those who make planes assist. I would like to keep it ‘near’ to the original. No intention of selling it on; it is rather lovely to use and it is a ‘timber taker’ from thick to translucent across the wide Oak board.

(ii) There are some ‘hairline’ cracks originating from the ‘back’ of the throat – short and not intrusive’. The bottom is now ‘fettled’ and as said, the thing works beautifully. I would however appreciate any ‘sage’ advice about the ‘cracks’.

Apart fro being ‘oil’ hungry, and needing a fair amount of elbow grease, the old girl seems to be quite happy taking shavings. So, I would like to bring the thing back to ‘first class’ condition.

At present it is clean, serviceable, sharp and working very well; and bar the handle a delight.

For the record – as near as I can tell – the base was made pre 1902 – the low front knob (a little loose) supports this. The ‘Bailey’ name is on the toe and the letters on the lateral are ‘vertical’. Red paint mingles with black and the depth adjuster is about an inch - and very sensitive. There is no ‘frog’ adjustment barring the ‘screws’ the whole thing is ‘simplicity’ itself. Anyway – FWIW, I like the old thing and it does do exactly what it should do; so it has a new home. Any help appreciated.
 
There are "convenient stockists" eg http://www.axminster.co.uk/crown-replac ... set-111073

But also plenty of online advice and videos on how to do it. Basic method is to drill the hole while your plank is square edged, draw round the old one to get the shape, bandsaw, drawknife, spokeshave, rasps, files, abrasive paper, until it looks ok and fits your hand. Don't be tempted to make it from thicker timber unless your hands are exceptionally large - the gap between comfortable and tiring is very small.

With the cracks in the casting, I'd just ignore them and treat the plane carefully - which sounds like what you are planning to do!
 
Cheers Andy - I will try a 'blank' in Oak before I tangle with the 'old' (as in 'old') Rosewood - I've only got a hat full of it - in 'lumps' and it is in very short supply. But, with your indulgence, a question. Just say I start with a billet a bit bigger than needed and drill the 'hole' square the 'square' the bottom to marry the 'angle' (of said hole) and the base? Sure it would waste some wood - but if the 'hole' is the critical element - Just saying.....why drill at the angle?. Inspiration, courage and effort - Sounds about right . We shall see..
 
I expect there's not much to choose between clamping a wedge on before drilling, holding the work clamped at an angle, tilting the drill or cutting a triangle off afterwards - all I really meant was to do the hole first on a bit of rectangular wood, not make a beautifully curved handle and then wonder how to clamp it.

Alf did a classic step by step description here - http://cornishworkshop.co.uk/planetote.html - which includes the tip of drilling big holes to get the internal curves, which I forgot to mention.
 
the rosewood would be my no1 choice for a handle, I've made one before from sapele and it wasn't as difficult as you'd think, I used a template printed from the lee valley/veritas website as my guide.
 
Well; I’ve made a handle (two if you count the one I split) and it works just fine. Made ‘em both from ‘Box Brush’. I took Andy’s advice and paid Alf a visit which gave me some guidelines. But, both Andy and Phil.p were right; the hole rules. I found that once you get it, handles are not difficult; but there are things which require a little thought. I only used a tenon saw, chisel, spoke shave and scraper, the #5 handle was a perfect match for a template. So thank you gentlemen; tomorrow I will make another, as a keeper. The decent one has been reduced to three thin slices, which will serve very well as templates. The next one will be ‘spot-on’ and the ancient 41/2 will rock on for a few more years.

You never stop learning stuff; do ya. Saved a few pennies and had some fun – thanks.

Addendum - forgot to mention 'the drill'; used the Alf method for cutting the tricky curves; works like a charm. Cheers Alf.
 
Bloomin' 'eck that was quick! Well done cracking on Sam.

If you want to read some other guides for some different wrinkles in method before tackling the keeper handle there are two good ones I think are worth looking at. First is this one on Lumberjocks where user terryR made a rake of handles for himself from some wenge. The second is from UKW where our own Sploo made a bunch of handles for his planes from bubinga, here, and did a sterling job on them I must say. The thread eventually ran on to six pages with discussion of finishing options in case that's of help.

For anyone who needs a current link, these and many others of the online tutorials reference the Lee Valley templates which are available to download for free here.
 
Now about the cracks, need to keeping an eye on them to see if they progress. You can't rely on your memory so either take some good photos where you can see the extent of the cracks clearly, or mark the ends of them with a dot or line of permanent marker so that at some future time when you look again if the cracks have gone past the marks you'll know you need to take remedial action, or retire the plane.
 
"the low front knob (a little loose) "
If the steel post is a bit too long and bottoms out before the knob is held tight (the usual suspect), then the easy "fix" is to shorten the steel post by cutting/grinding a little off the end
 
I bought a set of Crown Tools tote+knob for my 1980s #5 (the ones AndyT linked to). They've transformed it - looks the part and no longer hurts my hand after a while. There's an amusing set of pics - I'd have refinished the originals on the 4 1/2 they show being "upgraded", as they look fine bar a bit of fettling - the ones on my #5 were nasty plastic.

I'm sure you can make your own though...
 
Thanks to all.

Advice appreciated; the links ED65 provided were helpful; however. My ‘shop’ is definitely sans router table and many other things. I try to manage with a ‘basic’ though extensive range of hand tools – for instance I have now managed quite well to drill ‘the hole’ using a bit and brace on a total of four totes, although the powered drill comes out for the tight curves. Not a total purist you understand, but neither domestic tyranny, the birds, near neighbours or space will not tolerate such extravagancies of noise.

That said – I’ve been learning; in the end it comes down (IMO) to the wood selected and how you sequence the work. Of the four I made today the last was almost spot on, but I used the timber from the same block, playing about with ‘how’ the grain and finish texture worked in relation to how the plane functioned and felt – to me. For example, I got a beautiful thumb hook and a rough patch were my little finger rest, shaved it out and rounded it a bit, still ended up with stress on the pinky – thumb happy as the proverbial – but – you don’t realise how much load there is on the smallest digit – until it starts nagging. I also learned that using hand tools, one must be careful of how to place the piece in the vice. Too much load at an angle that facilitates ease of access – snap!. Also using the vice helps little as the bench top and the vice sides interfere with ‘smooth’ finishing and accuracy. I ended up with the tote clamped in the saw vice – good visual, room to wriggle and I could place the near finished item to avoid breakout and stress fracture. I am not happy with the ‘Box Brush’ although it works just about right. Beech seems to be a good model timber, impossible to get in Oz; Oak is fractious; Jarrah rock hard and uncooperative; Gum is almost useless, my Rosewood is very, very old and not really suitable.

So, here I sit wondering. I can make a tote, a good one, but which wood will best suit. Perhaps there are lessons I still need to learn about making a tote – but without the right wood, it’s frustrating – if I don’t accept near enough as good enough.

The old plane got a real workout today; I had liberated from a skip some thirty meters of Celery Top Pine. Tongue and groove (destroyed during removal) used to panel walls and things back in the day. Very old, very dry and very, very filthy. The original was varnished, thick and tough, then someone had painted layers of a dreadful yellow enamel over a strange shade of blue, then covered it all with a white acrylic confection. Both sides. Yuk. I am pleased to report that the 1902 took to the task like a champion, worked half a day and retired, undefeated to a well deserved wipe down and some oil, which seems to be a favourite staple. No matter, we had fun, got it all done (well three meters of it at least). The old girl is tucked away, dry, happy and probably a little weary. Guinness all around seemed appropriate. Cheers to all.

PS. ED65 I know a chap who knows a fellah, aviation engineer, they will take a long look at said cracks and will do the necessary – should it need to be done; more beer. I could probably buy some expensive, brand new gadget for the same – but what option do I have? I could not possibly bin the old thing. Heigh Ho.
 
Sam_Jack":2oxoa9pu said:
My ‘shop’ is definitely sans router table and many other things.
Mine too. FWIW after any chisel or spokeshave work I'd complete shaping using rasps and files myself. Both are widely underrated for accurate shaping. If you don't have any, very serviceable substitutes can be made by sticking strong abrasive paper or cloth to wooden sticks or dowels. I recently made myself some intermediate 'rasps' to cover the jump between coarse rasps and my double-cut files and once I got to using them I immediately ditched the idea of getting any Corradi rasps that I'd been drooling over for a few years!

Final smoothing on something round like this I'd scrape as much as I could, but where sanding is required I'd use strips of the same strong abrasive backed with duct tape (helps prevent snapping) used shoeshine-fashion, which really helps smoothing fair curves.
 
Re the loose front knob. I have not, as yet, paid a great deal of attention to the front knob. I will get some plasticine and make a mould of the internals of the knob. Seems to me there is some wood missing – doughnut shaped. I cleaned up the rod and the brass screw, tried it each way up as the thread lengths are different; alas, it changed little. The top screw still sits about 3/8 below the knob surface. I packed it up from below with a ‘fat’ leather washer, but that worked its way loose in short order. I have much to occupy my time this week, but I will sort it out asap. Not sure how I’ll make a doughnut of wood to fit inside the knob without a lathe. No matter we shall try – I find that #3 effort usually does the trick. We shall see. The problem is that the doughnut seems to be about (I’ve not measured it) 14 mm (internal) wide and about 16 mm external, no idea of the height but it looks to be about 12mm (ish), maybe a piece of dowel, bored to fit. Dunno – bed time.

But thanks for all the helpful tips, appreciated.
 
If the brass nut is currently sitting below the surface of the wood then packing out is the right way to deal with it. Metal washers are the way to go if you want to do it the conventional way, if you can get those washers.

An alternative is a fill using an epoxy + wood dust mixture. Much easier than making a fitting wood plug and possibly stronger.
 
ED65":2zamk07q said:
Final smoothing on something round like this I'd scrape as much as I could, but where sanding is required I'd use strips of the same strong abrasive backed with duct tape (helps prevent snapping) used shoeshine-fashion, which really helps smoothing fair curves.

I use this stuff. http://cleanfit.com/abrasive_cloth_prof ... 0090.shtml
Sold as Clean Fit in the U.K and can be torn into narrow strips for the finer curves.
 
I really like using this particular plane, it just seems to know it’s business and gets on with it. The low rider front knob seems to be the key – to my hands at least. I am almost tempted to beg some time on a mates lathe and turn up some similar, at least for the four and the five – just to see how it works out. I have made now a ‘satisfactory’ rear tote; used the grain ‘vertical’ and drilled in on the square, cut the base to square with the hole. Can’t yet work out why, but I came up a mil and a half short on the back end; gods know, I was careful, but that small amount is missing. No matter, the rest works great, drilling out the top and bottom curves works great and the large radius curves (22 mm) worked for me, just fine. The only ‘irritations’ are that the lateral adjuster restricts the height of the tote, by about one finger thickness for my paws and the mil and a half undersize - digital dis-function. I shall save the front knob for the holidays when I can ponder the thing, and mess it up a half dozen times before getting it sorted.

It is a tricky process, with disappointments using hand tools only; but satisfying. When you drill ‘the hole’ with a 5/16 auger – from both ends and that magic moment when they meet in the middle makes it worth the effort. I shall now search for a suitable lump of some kind, enough to make two – (to be sure, to be sure) Sods law and all that. If I make a decent job of it, I shall try for a photo. I could walk down to the big workshop and get one made’; but where’s the fun in that I ask you.

Merry Christmas to one and all from ‘dununder’. (Just in case I get called out to work).
 
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