Newbie makes new tote for Stanley No 4 (being fettled)

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tekno.mage

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Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.... What started off last month with a bootsale 1930s Stanley No 5 with very nice rosewood handles and a fairly easy little plane-fettling job for a novice has now grown somewhat rapidly (is this the start of a descent down one of the dreaded flat woodworking slopes- it's bad enough over in the woodturning section)

I was surpriserd by my unexpected success with both fettling and learning to use my vintage No 5 - especially so having compared it in use with several of the "proper" expensive & highly tuned planes available for test-drive at the recent Yandles show.

I was very pleased to find my fettled No 5 works just as easily, cuts just as nicely and can produce very similar tissue-thin shavings as the top-of-the-range planes that cost far more than the £15 I gave the boot-sale man.

Ok, it is not as nice or as warm to hold, and definitely not as good-looking as the lovely hand-made wooden planes on offer, and it's certainly not as well-engineered & finished as shiny "work straight out the box" high-end cast bronze ones with price tags to match. They are probably easier to adjust than my old Stanley Bailey too - and less likely to rust.

Ok, I thought - maybe a I do need more planes than just a No 5...

Acquired a Stanley No 4 (after WWII, little rust, missing frod adjuster screw and worst of all - nasty beech handles in very poor condition - but, hey it was cheap). The next week I *found* in a damp dark corner of a shed, an poor abused and rusty Record No 3 complete with broken beech tote, grey paint overspray on most of it complementing the rust.

Having started work on the No 4 and sourced a frog adjuster screw and entire new frog - there was another bootsale and I took pity on a "Hobbies" block plane (needs new front knob and plenty of TLC) and a strange No 2 thing I thought I might convert into a scrub plane both included for a few pence when my partner bought some old axeheads at the same stall!

Having lightly fettled the No 4, I gave it a go and found the beech tote was really uncomfortable in use. Compared with the Rosewood version on the No 5 it was much fatter and less well shaped - indeed it is so fat at the top it was threatening to raise blisters where thumb and index finger join - and I'm a girl with very small hands. My partner tried it and agreed and his hands a quite a bit bigger than mine.

There was only one thing for it. Make a new tote and front knob for the No 4, and while I'm about it for the No 3 as well, and for that strange No 2 which has horrid plastic handles.

I don't have any rosewood big enough to make a tote, and buying enough to make 3 new totes and 3 new knobs would cost than what I paid for all the planes! I do have quite a lot of 30-year-old boxwood, however, and some pieces are really quite large.

This is what happened to the first piece when log met bandsaw... (sorry the pics are a bit rough & ready)
Boxwood.jpg


A tote-sized slice with my rough sketch of the shape of the old tote on the side, plus an idea of a better shape. Then it was drill the hole, cut out the rough shape and attack the result with rasps, files, abrasives etc etc, trying the shape for hand-fit as I went along. I wasn't going to be able to make the new tote as tall as I'd have liked - on a Number 4 the blade and lateral adjuster get in the way. But I could slim it all down (boxwood being harder & stronger than beech) and shape it a whole lot better.

After some fiddling and much final finish sanding - this is how the new tote looks on the not-quite-fettled No 4... I finished it off with a few coats of Chestnut Lemon Oil and then some Rennaissance wax - as I prefer to hold oiled/waxed wood than varnished wood any day. I'm not planing on staining the boxwood so it can pretend to be rosewood, either (boxwood doesn't take stain all that well - it's too hard )- so it will stay the natural pale yellow of boxwood and may even develop a nice patina from use!

planeside.jpg


planeside2.jpg


planerear.jpg


And for comparision, with the old beech tote beside it so you can see how I changed the shape to better suit my hands.

compare.jpg


Having now "test-driven" the part-fettled No 4 using the new tote and old beech knob, I find the new boxwood tote is very comfortable - maybe not quite as nice as the taller rosewood one on my No 5, but a massive improvement on that horrible shaped beech thing.

Next I have to sort out a suitable knob for the front (I fancy trying a lower style of knob), & then do the same thing all over again for two more sad old planes....

Trouble is, using a 1930s plane with a real rosewood handle that has been properly shaped really spoils you for anything less. Mental note to self - only re-home rusty old planes that already have rosewood handles - or do you *really* want to spend time making new totes instead of actually using the planes to make other things?

What do other people think - anyone else find those fat, badly shaped beech handles giving them blisters?

tekno.mage
 
What a glutton for punishment using Boxwood, make sure you don't have any Lignum Vitae lying around for the next one. :lol:

Well fettled, nice Shiny Worker salvage job almost completed, the flatworld tool slope won't be a problem for you TM because you are not a collector after all.
 
Ah, I didn't realise the flat side slope referred to people who collect handplanes and other tools.

Phew! I'm safe then - all my tools to earn their keep by being usable, useful and hopefully long-lasting enough and of good enough quality to be passed on to someone else when I am no longer here to use them. I do have some that haven't got the usable stage yet - they are in the queue to be fettled back into use!

tekno.mage
 
CHJ":1t232t29 said:
What a glutton for punishment using Boxwood, make sure you don't have any Lignum Vitae lying around for the next one. :lol:

Why am I a glutton for punishment for using boxwood? I find it quite pleasant to work with and it does takes a lovely finish. Lignum Vitae is something else entirely - aside from being strangely oily it is really, really, very hard and quickly blunted my turning tools the one time I turned a piece. I made it into a box - which ended up heavy, dark, and really rather boring to look at :-(

Boxwood is lovely to cut, doesn't wear the edge off my tools particularly quickly, and can take lovely fine detail. I have never attempted to use a handplane on any though - just turning tools or a handsaw, bandsaw, wood rasps, abrasives, powered and manual and on occasion those little HSS cutters that come with dremels, It is difficult to stain effectively - spirit stains look washed out, slightly muddy and often quite patchy - so you are stuck with the pale yellow colour.

tekno.mage
 
I like your approach TM - if a tool's not right for you to use, adapt it, so it works properly. The value of a tool should be in what it can enable you to make, not what it is as an object.

(At least, that's true for these common, mass produced second hand tools, on the whole.)
 
You have the better of me TM, the correct or shall I say more appropriate tools for the task, and the patience to see your creation slowly unfold in your hands.

Last few bits I've handled were a bit of a challenge for my limited tool kit.

I agree with you a lovely wood to handle when finished, I know the Black used on printing blocksto give contrast before carving used to give an even dense coating but I don't know what it was, never occured to me to ask or take notice 60+ yrs ago, possibly indian ink? but it certainly did not penetrate very deep.
 
CHJ":2vh1gpwf said:
Black used on printing blocks [/url]to give contrast before carving used to give an even dense coating but I don't know what it was, never occured to me to ask or take notice 60+ yrs ago, possibly indian ink? but it certainly did not penetrate very deep.

I doubt it was indian ink, which would raise the grain (being water based) and sit on top of the wood, then probably flake off as it dried (or was carved through). I'd guess it may have been lampblack - ie soot collected from an open flame (an oil lamp or candle). This is a dense matt black powder with slightly oily/sticky properties which makes it cling to a surface easily and stay there, but it would not soak into the wood, or make a brittle flaky film on the top.

They may even have started off by "blacking" the blocks by actually holding them over an open flame - high enough up to collect an even coating of the slightly oily & sticky, dense black soot, but not so close as to scorch the wood. I imagine this process would progress to a more "industrial" collection of lampblack and/ or soot which could then be mixed into a fast evaporating oil-based solvent (paraffin, white spirit, etc) to allow it to be applied to the blocks by brush or cloth and would quickly dry to become a dense even coating of matt black. Any remaining lampblack left after the blocks were carved could be later removed by wiping the blocks over with the same solvent.

An oi/solvent based system for blacking the blocks makes sense as the printing inks used for woodblock printing were thick, pasty, oil based with a high load of very, very fine pigment (black ink probably used lampblack as the pigment) This very thick sticky ink allows control of the amount of ink is transferred to the paper (how dark or light the print is) and reduces clogging of the printing block and the bleeding of ink into the paper (making the print look fuzzy at the edges. Most of the ink transferred is actually the fine pigment coated with a tiny amount of sticky oil which slowly hardened - when the printed page was "dry" (this could take quite a long time!)

tekno.mage
 
Whatever it was it was just wiped on with a piece of old sheeting by the person I spent many hours watching carving the blocks, It certainly won't wipe off after 60+ years, I wish I had taken more notice of the home made machines he had for putting the perfectly flat and fine surface finish on the blocks, I think it was a form of mechanical scraper, some blocks were then placed on another home made machine to etch the dot matrix for newsprint type pictures which he then proceeded to remove with his carving to give the various degrees of light and shade.

All done under the light of paraffin mantle lamp and darn great magnifying glasses to concentrate the light and enlarge the workpiece. (No electricity.)
 
CHJ":2xfpph9g said:
Whatever it was it was just wiped on with a piece of old sheeting by the person I spent many hours watching carving the blocks, It certainly won't wipe off after 60+ years, I wish I had taken more notice of the home made machines he had for putting the perfectly flat and fine surface finish on the blocks, I think it was a form of mechanical scraper, some blocks were then placed on another home made machine to etch the dot matrix for newsprint type pictures which he then proceeded to remove with his carving to give the various degrees of light and shade.

All done under the light of paraffin mantle lamp and darn great magnifying glasses to concentrate the light and enlarge the workpiece. (No electricity.)

Wow! Hand-carved dot screens, that's well impressive! I made wooden printing blocks for block printing on fabric at school back in the mid-sixties, but nothing like to that sort of precision - and there was electric light in the classroom. I'd have real trouble doing any kind of fine work indoors now without electric lighting - I'd probably have to wait for a sunny day and take the job outdoors!

Like you, I wish I had paid a lot more attention to some of the home-made machines and jigs I saw in use in the various work places I visited and in friend's Dad's sheds when I was a kid. I'm left with a sneaky feeling that some very good and usable ideas were swiftly overtaken and forgotten when affordable power tools became widely available.

It's always seemed kinda wasteful to me to burn coal/gas/oil to boil water to make the steam to drive a turbine to generate electricity that gets used to make a machine rotate - when a small stream can turn a waterwheel and directly power a rotating machine in a sustainable and quiet manner. Where I currently live (in a rented house) are the remains of a small pelton wheel that used to generate all the electricity for the busy working farm up until 1963 when the mains reached hill farms in mid-wales. There is also the remains of a wheel house where once a water wheel was used to churn butter, drive a circular saw, a grindwheel and lots of other tools. I'm kind of hoping that our Landlord will want to do something about re-installing a micro hydro generation system if electricity prices go up enough!

I still the the black stuff he wiped on the blocks was lamp black in some kind of oil-based carrier - if it stayed on there despite use and abuse, it may have been in a hardening oil of some kind.

tekno.mage
 
Hey TM...we seem to be travelling a similar path!

I think you may have the bug that I have...I am very sorry if I gave it to you or made it worse!

Bootfairs are amazing places if encountered as early as possible, and even later the dealers at mine have not quite worked out the value of tools yet! They flock like honey bees around the antiques still....thankfully!

I got the Whitmore No.2 as identified by Bugbear in my thread earlier in the week. I have to say that looking at it further it is a total load of dog poo! It does seem to scrub pretty good though so I will probably sharpen the blade that came with it. It's not original..it is rather thick and Veritas-like...so that may be worth keeping!

Your boxwood handle is really beautiful...you nailed the shape and added some feminine curves too...wonderful! 8)

I am now on the lookout for some smaller ones...three and below...

Probably no chance but we shall see!

Keep posting your projects...I love threads like these!

Jim
 
Hi Jim,

Yes, our plane fettling adventures do seem to have quite a lot in common!

Thank you for your kind comments regarding my "improved" boxwood tote - it certainly feels nice in the hand (as does the lovely original Rosewood tote of my Stanley No 5 on which I modelled the shape).

I've turned plenty of tool handles on the lathe - and roughed shaped handles for axes, mallets etc from greenwood using hand-axe & drawknife. This tote was the first thing I've made that had to precisely fit something else using flat woodworking tools and methods! My partner suggested a powered router to shape the curved edges, but I found my microplane hand rasps were quick and easy to use. The finish sanding was fiddly and time-comsuming. The shape of the tote made sanding along the grain very awkward in some areas, and the curve at the rear is nearly all endgrain - I found a small sanding drum mounted in a slow running electric drill was helpful for the coarser grits (120, 180) there.

I'm sure the new front knob will be much quicker to make - as I can do it all on the lathe :)

You are quite right about those Whitmore No 2 Planes! I took mine apart and cleaned it up a bit, then started to flatten the sole on a sheet of glass using valve grinding paste followed by various grades of emery paper. The metal it's is cast from is utter rubbish compared to an old Stanley or Record plane. Lighter, more brittle, probably the cheapest quality they could get away with.

The sole on mine was a long way from flat and still has a some of small areas of heavy pitting which look to be a defect in the original casting than from rust damage. Oddly, my No 2 had hardly any rust on it at all. I had to regrind the whole of the bottom surface of the chipbreaker, which was left so rough from casting it barely made contact anywhere along the blade. That's now nice & flat and seats down onto the blade a lot better. Now I have to remove the thick layer of paint from the top of the upstand supporting the blade under the tightening screw and make sure it is good and flat, then I'll resharpen the surprisingly thick blade and hardly used blade into a nice curved scrub shape and test the thing to see if it will work - only then will I spend any time on replacements for it's particularly nasty plastic handles!

Then there is the very rusty record no 3 to sort out - which probably warrants electrolytic rust removal before I do much else to it. I don't think it had much use before it's tote got broken and it was chucked into a dark damp corner and forgotten by the previous owner. It doesn't look like the blade was ever properly sharpened. Maybe that's how the tote broke - a strong previous owner pushing too hard on a blunt blade? Poor thing - it's going to need a complete new paint job as well - what blue paint the rust didn't get is ruined by overspray from a paint spraying job. The sole and lever cap have several layers of "car undercoat" overspray over them, which at least protected them from the worst of the rust!

I'll post more pics as the projects slowly progress - and keep my eyes open at boot sales for any other useful looking rusty bargains. A rebate plane, a decent little block plane and a bullnose shoulder plane would be nice additions for the future....

tekno.mage
 
tekno.mage":3jpdkhwl said:
It is difficult to stain effectively - spirit stains look washed out, slightly muddy and often quite patchy - so you are stuck with the pale yellow colour.

tekno.mage

You can impart a nice brown colour to boxwood using Nitric acid. Make a small swab with cotton rag on the end of a stick and wipe some concentrated nitric acid over the boxwood Once it's the right colour just wash it off. If the colour doesn't appear you can encourage it by heating it with a hot air gun and as soon as the colour appears, "chase" the colour over the piece.

It's a useful technique on many other woods too for giving them an "antique" look.
 
Chris Knight":3m53cur6 said:
....You can impart a nice brown colour to boxwood using Nitric acid. Make a small swab with cotton rag on the end of a stick and wipe some concentrated nitric acid over the boxwood Once it's the right colour just wash it off. If the colour doesn't appear you can encourage it by heating it with a hot air gun and as soon as the colour appears, "chase" the colour over the piece.

It's a useful technique on many other woods too for giving them an "antique" look.

Tips like that being passed on show the forum off to it's best. It may be common knowledge to those in the know but for every one of them there are a dozen who don't. Thanks Chris.
 
Yes, thanks for the tip about boxwood and the conc nitric acid. Something I'll remember to try in the future - when I've sourced a small quantity of the relevant acid. Shame it wasn't conc sulphuric or hydrocloric as I do have some of those!

tekno.mage
 
Where do you pick up concentrated Nitric Acid these days Chris?

I am also wondering if buying some of that stuff will get you on some sort of register somewhere...it wouldn't surprise me...?

Any chance of some pics of your No.3 TM?

Jim
 
I got my last lot of nitric from Mylands in West Norwood. It was a few years ago so I don't know if they still sell it. I do know that the product list they handed out at the trade counter had far more in it than they ever showed on the web.
 
Fascinating thread. Thanks all.

With reference to the blacking used on printing blocks. I contacted my brother who recently did a printing course, he contacted an 'expert', the reply was:- " To black-up a block for freehand cutting, most printers would just roll black printing ink over it and let it dry. " Obvious really I suppose, use whatever will do that's close to hand. Of course other solutions may well have been used.

That Nitric acid tip sounds useful :)

xy
 
If you dab nitric acid with a cotton pad....is this not highly explosive,gun cotton?
 
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