re-freshing an abused wooden plane

[g7g7g7g7]

My most used tool is probably a "workzone" plane I was gifted for free by a friend who had no luck with it, it's spent time in a shed and has some discolouration, the handle has fallen off and been glued back in place squint but I've really been hard on this thing and it's been an excellent tool.

I set it up and got it running about a year ago and it's gradually been getting worse and worse at it's job till finally it was relegated to rough stuff and scrubbing fast forward to today and it has all but given up, I think it's time to spend a few minutes and see how bad the damage is.

OOOh that's nasty a lot of damage to the front of the plane, probably caused by a combination of plywood edge, aggressive chamfering & bullnosing, it's gonna need a little work, flattest surface I have is a bit of chipboard just to take any imperfections out of my workbench.

 

[g7g7g7g7]

So after a few minutes of sanding at 180 grit we've got a flat surface.

A quick spray with 3 in 1 is my standard lazy finish for stuff that's in the workshop, I need to make up some beeswax polish as I'm almost out but this'll do fine for now.

I decided not to go right down past the most extreme damage on the very edge of the toe and to protect the edge from being destroyed by my aggressive setting with a claw hammer I went for a little roundover, on a plane with nearly 50/50 surface area for heel and toe I don't think I'll miss it.

And the results are in...

Not perfect by any means but it works and that's something. This thing is great fun to use, I really think I'm going to try and pick up any German style planes I find kicking about or I might just start replacing Stanley style knobs with big horns.

 

[D_W]

Not being contrary here. I have built a few wooden planes (30?), and find that they will always erode at the mouth like that. Certain things expedite it, as well as any irregular sole wear (like jointing narrow edges constantly, etc). Since it's wood, the erosion is quick, and may require what you did.

At any rate, all of the mortised bench plane types are similar, it's just a matter of decoration, and the size of the elements (wear, etc), so once you understand one, you can pretty much fix them all if the parts are fixable.

I think the front horn might have been glued on backwards, but it matters not if the plane works well.

Presuming that a workzone plane is inexpensive, or very inexpensive (pardon if i missed you saying that), it doesn't matter much as that plane has the core parts of all quality wood planes and it should last the rest of your life. I'd expect the body to outlast the iron, which is the opposite compared to japanese planes.

To make it last for the long term, I'd save truing of the sole - for anything but the finest of smoothers - until the plane shows you some bad behavior. If you have a pet superfine smoother, you can true the sole regularly and sparingly and always have it "just so".

 

[ED65]

g7, I see in one of the pics you have a block plane right on the bench, any reason you didn't use that or a smother to address the sole? I've always found it much preferable to plane a woodie's sole back to flat than to sand it. Of course this ties in with my natural reluctance to rely on sanding anyway but it does do the job in well under half the time. Anyway, you got the plane back into working shape which is the main thing so nicely done.

I am surprised your mention of 3-in-One being used on wood didn't rile a few people up :mrgreen:

 

[ED65]

Presuming that a workzone plane is inexpensive, or very inexpensive (pardon if i missed you saying that)...

Unfortunately we only had a small window where these were available. Soon as I heard of them I wanted my own, but I'd missed them by a few years.

Anyway, yes it was very cheap. Eight quid in the UK if memory serves, how's that for a bargain?!

 

[g7g7g7g7]

I would imagine that £15+ would have been the price point, it was a gift second-hand so I had no idea that they were manufactured so cheaply, it's a bulky solid blade and cap iron that keeps a keen edge (but is a pain in the backside to grind because it's so much material).

I'm not sure the plane body itself will last that long without major changes, it's not a very dense bit of wood by plane standards, it's almost like pine compared to an old beech coffin type plane I've got. Which begs a question, could you laminate a veneer of something denser and less liable to compression to the bottom of this plane, or conversely could you do the same with a wood veneer on a metal bodied plane in order to get some of the feel of a wooden plane.

As to the why not the block plane, that one is missing a lateral adjuster and the blade is prone to moving whilst in use so I'd rather wait till I get a spares kit for it, I could have used a different smoother but chickened out because I as a beginner I'm liable to make it worse rather than better.

 

[D_W]

Yes, you can add a sole to it. Don't worry too much about wood movement or complications, etc, just glue a bottom on and see how it works out. You're the mechanic, so if it needs to be fixed later, you can just replace it.

I was curious about what the wood was - from one of the pictures, it looks to be quartered, and the high-wear face of the wood is on the sole. Same as the glue-on sole comment above, it is what it is, and there's no great reason to overthink it or cast it off. See if you can wear it out, instead.

As to veneer on a metal plane, it'd probably just break apart, and you'd have a real mess.

re: the thick iron, I think most planes of that type are a copy of the later ulmia wedged planes, and they had a large fixture sticking up for the cap iron screw, a highly sprung cap and a thick iron. Thus, the copies do, too. That includes the euro style planes from mujingfang.

In terms of the low price of those planes, I'd imagine that they can be made almost without any hand work. The wear is low, the cuts are straight, and they are ideal for a production setup vs planes 100 years older. And none of the compromises affect functionality. Most of these production planes have very low wears, which a planemaker would try to better, but in reality, the low wear is a great preventer of clogging. If you ever work a sole all the way through a wear, the mouth opens quickly, but you likely wouldn't want to use a plane shortened that much, and you're not out. It's a really novel design - very trouble free.

 

[ED65]

I'm not sure the plane body itself will last that long without major changes, it's not a very dense bit of wood by plane standards, it's almost like pine compared to an old beech coffin type plane I've got.

From (not very complimentary) comments at the time I believe the theory was it was made from not very good wood that was dried too quickly, although I'd expect some variation in hardness as there would be with grain orientation for example.

Yes you could re-sole the plane, it's quite commonly done. One thing to note though is with a plane which isn't being re-soled due to wearing down you generally need to take off a good few millimetres of wood so that it doesn't end up too tall.

Just a nice piece of quartersawn oak would be a decent pick for a glued-on sole if you want to try that, there are harder/more wear-resistant species of course but oak would be a significant step in the right direction and easy to get. You could also use beech of course, hard maple is popular in North America, and one of the Continental favourites is hornbeam. Hornbeam also grows in the British Isles but I don't know if it's quite the same as the stuff from Europe.

I could have used a different smoother but chickened out because I as a beginner I'm liable to make it worse rather than better.

Fair enough, but IME there's nothing that quite focusses attention as knowing there's a big penalty if you screw up