Tony Zaffuto
Established Member
I’ve been searching high and low for a 15 (5-1/2 size) but no luck to date. Though they are “collector items”, the MF “Buck Rodgers” planes are superb!
It's hard to believe, but stanley still makes a #7
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I know nothing about MF plane numbers and very little about MF planes. I did use one a couple of years ago, the size of a #4 in old money. It had the 2-piece chip breaker. In the limited time I used the plane I didn't form an opinion about that, good or bad. What is your view? Worth having or not?
Tony Zaffuto
Established Member
We have idiosyncrasies, likes and dislikes, opinions and so forth. We tout loudly that which works for our subjectives ways of holding/using tools.
To me, MF planes are beyond superb! When wood sees my reaching for MF smoother, why sub .001” shavings just jump off the timber before the sole even touches the surface.
In all seriousness, I find MF planes very well made, with those with two piece lever caps falling in between Stanley Bailey and Bedrock planes. In other words pretty much to same as other well made planes.
Homeless Squirrel
Established Member
I like mine but as long as blade is sharp and held correctly you could plane with a Stanley knife blade.
But yes seems ok and something different to the Stanley Mafia plus a dung plane is a dung plane no matter what make/model if casting is poor as seems to be with new Stanley's etc
Blades seem good but the older blades seem sharper than newer gear
Homeless Squirrel
Established Member
no6 i just got i think is a tad too old and fragile for often use? "is around 170 years old"
Homeless Squirrel
Established Member
Question! So what's the Sweet spot with planes? As in many have Type 1.2.3.4 and so on with changes along the way like soles made thicker/stronger and frogs also.
Yes i know Older is more collectable and newer not so good so there must be a sweet spot where there made better with best changes and blades
Yes i know Older is more collectable and newer not so good so there must be a sweet spot where there made better with best changes and blades
There speaks someone who has never done battle with a Stanley RB5 or RB10! I do take your point though.
The one I used had been "acquired" (liberated?) from the local army camp when the yanks left after WW2. I couldn't see any real difference between it and a similar Stanley or Record, but I didn't use it for long.
They still make a 3, 4, 4 1/2, 5, and 6 as well. Also a 78, high and low angle block planes, etc.
Spear and Jackson even make a 5, maybe others.
Take a look:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=stanley+...x=stanley+hand+plane,aps,231&ref=nb_sb_noss_1
Spear and Jackson even make a 5, maybe others.
Take a look:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=stanley+...x=stanley+hand+plane,aps,231&ref=nb_sb_noss_1
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I couldn't resist this No. 6 at £45 + p&p on Facebook. It arrived today and looks in excellent condition, I haven't had chance to try it yet.
Tony Zaffuto
Established Member
I’ve got a Stanley #6, Type 11, bought 20 years ago, used a few times, but it is not something I reach for! Either the #7 or the #5!
The 5 seems to be the one I never use, but probably because of what I'm not doing with it (jack work - that is left to a wooden plane). This whole screwing around with a mexico stanley thing made for a flurry of playing with metal jointers, but I don't use those that much, either, except for trimming guitar bits and match planing.
And once in a great while, wood that's straight up nasty that probably should've been saved for utility junk only (like making shop shelves), like this back bracket on a basement TV shelf. For scale, I think it's probably about 18" wide. Just garbage.
The top part of the shelf isn't a whole lot better.
looks great to me!
Jameshow
Established Member
You need a variety tbh.
A no3 is only a little larger than a block plane.
No4 the most common jack plane.
No5 I use as a scrubbing plane.
4 1/2 wider and still short unloved tbh.
5 1/2 sweat spot to many. Does much of what the 4-5 do and what the 6-7 do..
6-7 longer planes for joining boards or flattening long boards, heavy to use.
Others are far more experienced than me!
Not sure what that would be in the UK. Much of the discussion of quality was started by collectors in the states, and maybe some by people like patrick leach who also make declarative statements about the usefulness of tools with bits left out. Who on here has had several different scraping planes, but doesn't generally work on veneer?
Personal opinion? I like later stanleys better than anything else, but not later than type 20. Post WW2 used to be considered junk because collectors had something for the very early planes and the sweetheart stuff with decals. In terms of doing the job, it doesn't make any difference for my use if everything is in a certain range (type 10 functionally the same as type 19), and my preferences for later tools have more to do with the larger adjuster wheel, typical lower miles and what seems like more predictability in how adjustment will feel. If a plane is coming out to swipe something between machine work and sanding, that stuff doesn't really make any difference.
Homeless Squirrel
Established Member
I wasn't talking about sizes but types(year made) as they went on changes was made like early Stanley's Thinner/Fragile castings often with casting stress fractures included! then they changed the beds making more rigid till later had ribs inside bed so lessens ends snapping off!
Blades changed over the years many Laminated early years
So must be an era of sweet spots like some say about Record with 50's there best years where the invocations to builds and quality to castings and blades are best as ok pre war steel (post Nuclear era)is better and more sort after by many inc Dubious people stealing ship wrecks out in Pacific etc southern Hemisphere seas.
Jameshow
Established Member
frogesque
Established Member
Easy enough to make an iron from oil hardening gauge plate. You can still sharpen the blade on normal stones yet the steel holds the edge better than plain carbon steel.Comes up as a 7 here in UK?!
Probably not worth the effort (or expense) for jack work but far better for fine finishing, especially on hardwoods.
Also, be careful with the plane body. Modern planes are usually cast iron and the 'flat' base is polished on a belt polisher. They are anything but flat!
As an aside, I corrected the body of an old beechwood plane with a wooden wedge to hold the iron. With careful fine cuts on the base to get it truly flat and a sniff of beeswax rubbed in and polished out its performance was magic!
Most of them are cast and ground, but the grinding is really coarse. The issue with them isn't so much that, but rather that it seems like they may have some bias in them from harsh grinding or lack of seasoning and the little hills and valleys are more abrupt even if they aren't "more thousandths" than vintage planes.
And the modern castings on the stanley planes are *really* hard and really not suitable for hand lapping. They have to be ground or filed on the long planes.
I'd imagine stanley's solid irons are either tungsten steel like W1 or they're oil hardening. I guess I haven't ever really looked. Sweet spot O1 is nice (figure tempered 375-400F and the hardness depends on the quench), or oil hardening gage as it may be referred to in England.
Stanley's steel quality is good, though. I may have mentioned it earlier on here, but the very early irons were a tad soft, probably in deference to hand sharpeners with a sandstone grind stone (as in 1860s/1870s early), and the round top irons are soft. The rest of them are pretty good. I kind of prefer them to O1 once a really fast sharpening routine is mastered (like a minute total), but many others don't seem to like the vintage irons - in some cases, I think it's like changing mufflers on a harley.
If someone is actually using a jack plane with camber for jack work, the older water hardening irons will fare better than O1, and miles better than A2 or V11. Not that the latter will last less long, but taking into account nicking and then honing and grinding out chromium carbides - you can't get a proportional return in rough work because they take damage that cancels out abrasion resistance.
if I were in the UK, I'd probably hand out oddball plane irons for the cost of materials just for an excuse to turn them out like people make pens. I like 80crv2 quite a lot - it wears about like O1, but is tougher for same hardness and has a finer grain with crazy little evenly distributed carbides. And it's cheap.
And the modern castings on the stanley planes are *really* hard and really not suitable for hand lapping. They have to be ground or filed on the long planes.
I'd imagine stanley's solid irons are either tungsten steel like W1 or they're oil hardening. I guess I haven't ever really looked. Sweet spot O1 is nice (figure tempered 375-400F and the hardness depends on the quench), or oil hardening gage as it may be referred to in England.
Stanley's steel quality is good, though. I may have mentioned it earlier on here, but the very early irons were a tad soft, probably in deference to hand sharpeners with a sandstone grind stone (as in 1860s/1870s early), and the round top irons are soft. The rest of them are pretty good. I kind of prefer them to O1 once a really fast sharpening routine is mastered (like a minute total), but many others don't seem to like the vintage irons - in some cases, I think it's like changing mufflers on a harley.
If someone is actually using a jack plane with camber for jack work, the older water hardening irons will fare better than O1, and miles better than A2 or V11. Not that the latter will last less long, but taking into account nicking and then honing and grinding out chromium carbides - you can't get a proportional return in rough work because they take damage that cancels out abrasion resistance.
if I were in the UK, I'd probably hand out oddball plane irons for the cost of materials just for an excuse to turn them out like people make pens. I like 80crv2 quite a lot - it wears about like O1, but is tougher for same hardness and has a finer grain with crazy little evenly distributed carbides. And it's cheap.
Yeah, for practical purposes, at least in american stanleys - once you get past the really early soft irons and thin castings, and before you get to the post type-20 planes, everything in the middle kind of works about the same. Some of the later irons are definitely a little bit lower in carbon (like the square top type 20s), but I haven't tested much other than really early and really late. More out of curiosity to see if there is surplus carbon in the laminated irons so that they could be driven higher in hardness (there is surplus carbon, but they do something to manufacture them and constrain or grind them - they turn into potato chips if you try to reharden them), and then on the softer block plane irons and 750 chisel to see if stanley made them soft and it wasn't a matter of a poor alloy (that is the case - both are very good. I think the 750s might be something similar to O1 - they can be made to match anything boutique if they're rehardened).
Stick to something that looks a little grayish with smoother machining if you're concerned about later irons being a touch softer. Until they get really soft (like the round tops), you might prefer them in something like a jointer.
Smoothers are really the only thing where a harder iron can be gamed, and even then, I don't think harder irons provide any benefits in an all hand tool cycle - more like for a smoother that's following wood out of a planer.
Homeless Squirrel
Established Member
The 1850's 6 i got for me was too high risk on breaking due to age and thinner castings plus setting up harder so swapped with friend for Millers Falls 18 and some other tools like 78,sliding square,Bevel and an old brass backed saw etc as don't have a workshop just my Keter bench and kitchen worktop! So have to carry in bag to likes of Wood group and mens shed not so bad when could use car but these day's with ULEZ it's Pubic transport.
He didn't have an old 6(Has just about every other plane in existence some still new in boxes!) and i like the Millers falls ones as have 9,2 10's,15 and the 18.
Have a pile of Stanleys also 3.4's.41/2's,5.51/2 some mint in boxes plus got a 91/2 knuckle plane SW one with matching blade works a treat.
Got a 2nd MF no10 as wanted cap iron for 18 and blade now odd one is the casting is different to other 10 even though looks same age one had rib in front of slot lower and thicker than other plus one has a smaller brass wheel while others larger nickel'd one.
I also got a MF trinket 199 multi screwdriver gadget like a low angled screwdriver so could tweak handle screw with other bits in the way like blade/lever
