Are Stanley block planes still good?

[LancsRick]

So, I'm going to add a low angle block plane to my workshop. The price that the old planes seem to go for on eBay are actually the same price often as a new Stanley offering.

Is there any reason to buy one of the older planes over a new cast iron offering?

 

[MikeK]

If the new Stanley LA block planes are anything like the new Stanley LA jack plane (#62), buy the old Stanley or Record plane. I ordered a Stanley #62 from Amazon and returned it twice. Each time the problem was the same. The bed was not flat and had a noticeable bow of about 1mm in the center. I also could not make a lateral adjustment for the iron to make them cut evenly. The iron in each appeared to be ground correctly, but didn't fit correctly in the plane. I bought the Lie-Nielsen #62 instead.

 

[Rhyolith]

If the new Stanley LA block planes are anything like the new Stanley LA jack plane (#62), buy the old Stanley or Record plane. I ordered a Stanley #62 from Amazon and returned it twice. Each time the problem was the same. The bed was not flat and had a noticeable bow of about 1mm in the center. I also could not make a lateral adjustment for the iron to make them cut evenly. The iron in each appeared to be ground correctly, but didn't fit correctly in the plane. I bought the Lie-Nielsen #62 instead.

It is this kind of thing that I hear/read about everytime I research or ask about thr new Stanleys from people who have owned them. I would avoid them like the plague.

Though I do have one of their sweetheart "premium" smoothing planes which I got very cheap from a closing tool shop. Its alright and certainly a usable tool, though not in the same league as Lie Neilsen or old records. The main issue with it is it can scratch the work, don't know why but makes it a no no for neat stuff. If it was my only smoothing plane I would take the time to fix that then it would generally be a good tool.

Persoanlly I think old records better than old stanleys, particularly the "SS" range which are very well built.

 

[memzey]

I suppose it all comes down to personal preference and experience but I'd agree that old Records are better than old UK made Stanleys but I find that old US made Stanleys to be better still. Having said that with enough fettling you could probably make a new Silverline (shudders) work well enough.

 

[MikeK]

What I don't know about Stanley, Record, Veritas, and Lie-Nielsen planes will fill volumes; however, I do know the two new Stanley planes I had would make better door stops than wood shaping tools. Maybe I had the only two bad ones in the batch, but I didn't want to wait another two weeks to test this on a third example. The Lie-Nielsen planes are expensive, but for me, it is money well spent.

 

[LancsRick]

Thanks all. I'm watching as many 60 1/2 items on eBay as I can find so I'll see what the next few days yields!

Between the advice on here and the Sam Allen book I picked up, I'm really enjoying learning more about planes. I'm currently building a Norm-style router cabinet, and using parts of it as experiements, so a little block plane will be fun for chasing drawer front fits!

 

[D_W]

This bed comment - was it a bow in the bed but the contact points were in plane? If so, that may be intentional. When making a plane, wood or metal, you don't want to shoot for actually making two identical planes (poor choice of words, I guess), because the metal is only going to contact in a few points. You want to bias the machining so that the contact points happen where you want them.

Veritas does this on their planes - their machined beds aren't perfectly flat, even though they may look like it to you.

1mm sounds like a lot, though, but it doesn't mean the plane won't function well, which is what you should really care about as the buyer. If you had a nice-looking flat area on the bed of the plane that was actually a little bit high centered, you'd be a lot less happy about it.

 

[MikeK]

This bed comment - was it a bow in the bed but the contact points were in plane? If so, that may be intentional. When making a plane, wood or metal, you don't want to shoot for actually making two identical planes (poor choice of words, I guess), because the metal is only going to contact in a few points. You want to bias the machining so that the contact points happen where you want them.

Veritas does this on their planes - their machined beds aren't perfectly flat, even though they may look like it to you.

1mm sounds like a lot, though, but it doesn't mean the plane won't function well, which is what you should really care about as the buyer. If you had a nice-looking flat area on the bed of the plane that was actually a little bit high centered, you'd be a lot less happy about it.

I can't remember if the leading and trailing edge of the beds were in plane, but the irons would have been exposed quite a bit to make contact with a smooth surface. Combined with the inability to square the iron to the working surface, made the Stanley undesirable.

 

[Vann]

I suppose it all comes down to personal preference and experience but I'd agree that old Records are better than old UK made Stanleys but I find that old US made Stanleys to be better still...

That's my impression too.

...particularly the "SS" range which are very well built.

I'm not so sure here. Aren't they supposed to be the same quality, with just a different cap-iron and lever-cap?

Cheers, Vann.

 

[Rhyolith]

I suppose it all comes down to personal preference and experience but I'd agree that old Records are better than old UK made Stanleys but I find that old US made Stanleys to be better still...

That's my impression too..

Spoke with a friend today who said that many olde carpenters considered record planes best for the workshop and stanleys better for site work (where they are more likely to get wrecked). The records were more expensive.

...particularly the "SS" range which are very well built.

I'm not so sure here. Aren't they supposed to be the same quality, with just a different cap-iron and lever-cap?

Cheers, Vann.

I don't have many examples to work with, but my record No.6 SS feels a grade better than my Record no.4 (though both are excellent) with thicker smoother castings and generally mechanically better (smoother adjustment).

Record No.6 SS (Stay Set) by Rhyolith, on Flickr

Record No.4 by Rhyolith, on Flickr

 

[ED65]

So, I'm going to add a low angle block plane to my workshop. The price that the old planes seem to go for on eBay are actually the same price often as a new Stanley offering.

Ebay is the wrong place to look for an old plane for cheap. You might get lucky every now and then and acquire something which nobody else bids on but then there's postage on top of whatever you paid for the plane. At a decent car boot the same item would more than likely cost less than you'd paid in postage!

Is there any reason to buy one of the older planes over a new cast iron offering?

You could get a Silverline and it would probably be about the same quality as the current-production Stanley stuff by all accounts.

Now you could probably fettle either to be a solid user, but I don't know about you I'd feel a lot better about doing this if I'd paid Silverline money rather than what Stanley are asking! If you wanted to buy new I'd get a Faithfull as they have higher standards and better QC than Silverline.

Old ones are a big unknown, they may or may not be better than their modern counterparts. And if you're unlucky enough to get the worst of the older production (those from the 70s where the irons are reputed to be like cheese) you won't be happy with the performance even if you're lucky enough to get one where the iron is seated well and projects squarely.

 

[LancsRick]

Well I've grabbed one for around 40 quid delivered off ebay. I realise car boots may be cheaper, but I can't easily get to any good ones near me. Quite pleased, just need it to arrive now!

 

[ED65]

Hope it turns out to be a good 'un. But almost all failings can be fettled out if there do happen to be any issues.

Did you go for a Stanley or Record equivalent in the end?

 

[LancsRick]

Stanley 60 1/2. Looks to be in good nick, bit of pint scuffing but what do you expect!

 

[D_W]

>> Combined with the inability to square the iron to the working surface, made the Stanley undesirable.<<

Yeah, that's not so good. There have been a few tools over the years where you ask yourself "have they ever tried to gainfully use their own tools?". Both in design and execution. Sounds like this is one of those.

 

[ED65]

...bit of pint scuffing...

No biggie. I actually like to see worn paint as it's some sign the tool was good enough to use for long enough for such wear to occur. Plenty of lovely looking old planes are in such great condition because they were shelf queens!

 

[ED65]

There have been a few tools over the years where you ask yourself "have they ever tried to gainfully use their own tools?".

The English-made Stanley 9 1/2 that I posted about here last year sometime was essentially unusable straight from the box, by our sort of standard at least. It had clearly seen quite some use previously though so I think it's a safe assumption it was used for site work (rough carpentry) because that's all it would have been good for.

Looking at the casting and where the fault lay what's worse is the entire batch made with that machining setup would have shared the same fault. Not acceptable at all.

 

[D_W]

I had one of the last english made stanley 4s - plastic handle, etc. The dog for the adjuster (or whatever you call the part that goes through the cap iron) was so large that the iron could not slide down onto the bed. That adjuster dog was pot metal, too, so each time you tightened the iron, it would mark the dog a little bit more, but never close enough to get the iron down on the bed. It wasn't suspended just a little bit, either, but somewhere around 1/8th of an inch. The plane actually worked like that because the iron was bedded OK at the bevel end, but it never felt right and it took a little while for me to see it.

Same as you said, there must've been a whole batch that way because the adjuster yoke and dog was manufactured too large. Even with that fixed, it wasn't a very nice plane to use and had a huge mouth, so I stole all of the screws out of it, and the blade and threw away the handle and the frog. I kept the casting just in case I want to use the cast for something down the road. Biggest surprise of all of it was that the iron is suitably hard, compared to the planes in the '70s it was actually quite a lovely iron.

So, for $25, I guess it could be said I had quite a nice spread of parts - a whole bunch of stanley screws, an extra piece of cast iron that I can use destructively and a pretty good iron. I just didn't have a plane that worked very well.

I wouldn't ask the same question about those planes (no reason to suspect anyone had used them, the manufacturer was probably in its death throes by then).

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I pulled a nearly new Stanley No.4 out of a skip - as for the size of the mouth, it was exactly 50% larger than the mouth on my old No.6.

 

[ED65]

I pulled a nearly new Stanley No.4 out of a skip - as for the size of the mouth, it was exactly 50% larger than the mouth on my old No.6.

Yep plenty of more modern bench planes have large mouths. But TBH I don't think that's the failing it's often made out to be. I've seen plenty of decent quality coffin smoothers that had far larger!