Replacement thin 2 1/4 plane irons for 5 1/2

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Sam321

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Hello,

I have an old style 5 1/2 plane which needs a new iron as the current one only has a few mm left. Does anyone know where I can get one that‘s roughly the same thickness as the original?

I know Ray Iles make them but theirs are 50% thicker which would require filing the mouth to fit and I’d prefer not to do that. The mouth is quite small, I think the maximum thickness that would fit would be < 2.5mm. Does anyone make new ones that thin?

Thanks for any help.
 
Those laminated ones only seem to be available in 2 3/8“ or 2“, not 2 1/4”. I suppose I could grind 1/8 off the side of a larger one, not sure how easy that would be.

The frog is already flush with the mouth so I’m not sure if it can go any further without causing problems.
 
Those laminated ones only seem to be available in 2 3/8“ or 2“, not 2 1/4”. I suppose I could grind 1/8 off the side of a larger one, not sure how easy that would be.

The frog is already flush with the mouth so I’m not sure if it can go any further without causing problems.

if you were in the states, I'd make you one out of .08" stock,, but the cost of shipping to the UK for an iron is probably something stupid, like the cost of an iron.

I had the same plane years ago and I think I eventually filed the mouth - that was before shipping and hand tools both more or less doubled (shipping plus older tools - new tools haven't changed much in price comparatively).
 
I have an old (1911-1919) 5 1/2 & faced the same problem when it needed a new iron. At the time I wasn't even aware that there had been a change in the blade width so I just ordered a new blade "to suit a 5 1/2", which duly arrived & then I found it didn't fit. I thought I'd been sent the wrong blade, but a few minutes of "research" provided the explanation. So I had no option but to make the new blade fit. In fact, it required much less than 1/16" each side to get the 2 3/8 blade to fit - most old plane mouths are very generously sized width-wise. It took just a few minutes of careful work on the grinder to have my new blade in place.

I would be most surprised if a modern replacement blade won't fit quite comfortably in your plane once you get the width problem sorted. Most of them are around the 0.1" mark (~2.5mm), which is not all that much thicker than the irons of old (most I have measured were between 1.75 to a bit under 2mm), and there is usually plenty enough adjustment available in the frog to accommodate an extra .25mm of blade thickness. You may have a problem with the cam of the adjuster yoke not reaching through the thicker blade far enough to get a good grip on the slot in the chipbreaker. It's mostly not a problem, but the yoke is a cast piece & there is some variation in the length of the cam end, if that is on the short side of average, and if both cam tip & slot are a bit worn, you'll find you have many turns of backlash & the thumbwheel may have to be wound a very long way back to get enough blade extrusion (all this was covered in a recent post..)

Cheers,
Ian
 
I have an old (1911-1919) 5 1/2 & faced the same problem when it needed a new iron. At the time I wasn't even aware that there had been a change in the blade width so I just ordered a new blade "to suit a 5 1/2", which duly arrived & then I found it didn't fit. I thought I'd been sent the wrong blade, but a few minutes of "research" provided the explanation. So I had no option but to make the new blade fit. In fact, it required much less than 1/16" each side to get the 2 3/8 blade to fit - most old plane mouths are very generously sized width-wise. It took just a few minutes of careful work on the grinder to have my new blade in place.

I would be most surprised if a modern replacement blade won't fit quite comfortably in your plane once you get the width problem sorted. Most of them are around the 0.1" mark (~2.5mm), which is not all that much thicker than the irons of old (most I have measured were between 1.75 to a bit under 2mm), and there is usually plenty enough adjustment available in the frog to accommodate an extra .25mm of blade thickness. You may have a problem with the cam of the adjuster yoke not reaching through the thicker blade far enough to get a good grip on the slot in the chipbreaker. It's mostly not a problem, but the yoke is a cast piece & there is some variation in the length of the cam end, if that is on the short side of average, and if both cam tip & slot are a bit worn, you'll find you have many turns of backlash & the thumbwheel may have to be wound a very long way back to get enough blade extrusion (all this was covered in a recent post..)

Cheers,
Ian

There was probably some variation in mouth sizes. I recall getting both an 8 and 5 1/2 (narrow style). The 5 1/2 needed a lever cap and a blade. That turned out to be terrible. I don't remember what I did about the lever cap, but I think I eventually found one and paid for it.

never found an iron in good shape for a reasonable price and bought one of the LN stanley replacement blades (thinner than the blades for their planes). It could've been a hock, too - long gone now, I only remember the fiscal result.

at any rate hock and LN stanley replacement are about the same thickness and the back of the mouth was a bit coarse, and just the extra couple hundredths of thickness made the plane poor feeding. I ended up filing the mouth just a little as I recall, being surprised it was that tight, and then eventually selling the plane for...

....wait for it. The cost of the parts to make it work well. Something like $80....

....which would be OK if I hadn't actually paid something for the plane in the first place. The seller was less than honest by a mile.

With the 8, I never did find a replacement cap iron for reasonable and got one from LN. It didn't fit because their hole is different than stanley's in length from the edge, and that turned into a humorous debacle (except I couldn't used the plane). They asked me to send the damaged original (which was actually worn through in the middle - the plane was either planing extremely dirty wood or it was used in a fixture) -never seen that before or since - and LN "lost the cap iron on Tom's desk" and it took a while to get it back. When I did get it back, they had made me a custom cap iron for only the cost of one of their stock cap irons and the plane worked a treat.

And I eventually sold that, too. No ill will toward LN - they were nice enough to adjust the original cap iron and give me a custom one for no extra charge, and little pet projects like that are hard to keep track of in a relatively modern boutique production environment. They're unprofitable to say the least, but if anyone has ever gotten a stanley replacement cap iron from LN and it fit their stanley, they can buy me a beer.

From time to time, I will hear how big of a waste of time it is for me to buy tools, or especially to make stanley plane irons, which I can make in 1/2 hour with very limited tools. I suppose if you just want to find one plane that works and stick with it, it is. If I could've made irons or ground cap irons narrower back when I had both of those planes, I'd have spent far less time than I did actually finding replacements.

The cost for an 80crV iron to replace an original stanley would also be about $8.

These days, most of the irons that I see that aren't premium irons are just punched, though. I'd be surprised if their stock plus heat treatment plus finishing cost was half as much as the cost for me to get 80crV. I do use a drill press, die grinder with a carbide burr and files, and then a belt grinder a little (any belt sander would be fine, or even just the files). The plus for irons to be used on planes in the shop is that I can by hand match the slot within a couple of thousandths (and very quickly) by making the slot undersized and then quickly filing to fit the wheel on the lateral adjuster and then the lateral adjustment is tighter even than LNs. '

(the cost to heat treat with thermal cycling is probably about 50 cents and 10 minutes of time, too - tempering takes longer but that's a "set it and forget it" process).
 
Probably worth looking on eBay. If you're not desperate to get an "old" iron (e.g. one with an older Stanley stamp such as the Sweetheart logo) then the price for a used iron shouldn't be too bad.
 
Probably worth looking on eBay. If you're not desperate to get an "old" iron (e.g. one with an older Stanley stamp such as the Sweetheart logo) then the price for a used iron shouldn't be too bad.

this is a vain statement, but now that I have my party trick of good shop heat treatment and making pretty much anything in any size, it's semi agonizing to see all of these posts about things needed elsewhere. I found the search for all of those early parts to be an enormous pain. Postage to the UK really prevents me from making any reasonable offer about making and sending much to send there, though too.

But someone there could do exactly what I'm doing with nothing more than an overhead photo of an original and one key dimension noted.
 
this is a vain statement, but now that I have my party trick of good shop heat treatment and making pretty much anything in any size, it's semi agonizing to see all of these posts about things needed elsewhere. I found the search for all of those early parts to be an enormous pain. Postage to the UK really prevents me from making any reasonable offer about making and sending much to send there, though too.

But someone there could do exactly what I'm doing with nothing more than an overhead photo of an original and one key dimension noted.
Yea, my problem is that I have a bit of a thing for wanting to get original/period correct irons for my old Stanley planes; so I have spent more time than is sensible trying to source the right irons. Topical to what you've said about postage to the UK; many of those old irons are also in the US, and getting them here is often prohibitive in terms of postage and tax costs.

If the OP isn't worried about particular dates of irons then the availability should be better.
 
Yea, my problem is that I have a bit of a thing for wanting to get original/period correct irons for my old Stanley planes; so I have spent more time than is sensible trying to source the right irons. Topical to what you've said about postage to the UK; many of those old irons are also in the US, and getting them here is often prohibitive in terms of postage and tax costs.

If the OP isn't worried about particular dates of irons then the availability should be better.

That was the aggravating part. A million "almosts" when looking.
* the perfect iron except more pitting than desirable
* the perfect iron, but much more modern than the plane
* the perfect iron, but uncommon and listed by someone who knew it, an perhaps asked $55 plus shipping and tax for an iron that was already 1/3rd consumed

It's almost as if looking and finding too many things that are almost good enough gets confusing.

I preferred originals, too, especially on a less common plane.

The thrill of buying and refurbishing wore off quickly and now I've only gotten pretty much ideal planes and when there's something uncommon (older record 8 or I.Sorby #7, I'll make a new iron and carefully store the old ones.
 

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