5 1/2 plane???

[shed9]

Certainly but - "Surface rust isn't that much of an issue but walk away from pitting, especially on the sole."
doesn't ring true with what you've just said.

That's a fair point. Surface rust just isn't an issue for me and in some cases it shows that the seller (assuming it's a distant purchase) hasn't messed around with it or sanded it down for a shiny sale I suppose.

 

[Corset]

pitting is increasingly common i find as the planes are all getting on a bit. Plus many people dont have the love for old tools or the knowledge. I buy my share at auctions and the number i see that have flash rusted or pitted is increased despite often still being in original boxes. I suspect many have been tucked in sheds and well looked after. Then the owner passes or someone clears them out and they have a layer of flash rust as they get left outside as someone clears the shed etc in the rain. I bought about 40 No5s recently and they were blatently well looked after but they all had one side bright orange where they had obviously been left outside in the rain and thewater just left on. It takes a lottttttt of pitting to affect a planes performance.
In terms of no 51/2s there does seem to be a wildish variety in weight. However its hard to go somewhere and see the difference, its not like there are many shops with 5 or 6 old 5 1/2's to compare. I personally favour a weighter plane but a lot of how they feel relies on the handles. The rosewood handles of some of bedrocks are truly wonderful and make the plane feel far superior to what it probably is.
Iy seems to me that the records are slightly weighter on the casting but that could just be on the planes i have had. I would note that the later records seemed to have a grittier casting that is harder to get a smooth finish on, weirdly it seems similar to earlier stanleys (1900-1930) which seem to have a grittier darker casting. However again i could be probably taling nonsense and i have just seen some odd planes,
For me i prefer a 5 to a 51/2 and a 4 to a 4/12 but i tend to favour a no8 where possible as its got such a sense of unstoppability when it gets going...

 

[JobandKnock]

Well for on site work I have to agree with @Corset that a #5 is preferable to a #5-1/2, if only because it is less weight to lug around. At the bench, though, I prefer a #5-1/2 on joinery work because of the extra mass. I am less keen on the #6 because I feel that the extra weight and size make them more awkward and tiring to work with.

In terms of period, I'm not a fan of pre-1920s planes as users because the castings are so very thin in most cases. In point of fact I think the best period for planes is definitely after about 1930 or 31 when the larger (and easier to grip) adjuster nut came in. Rosewood handles look nice, but aren't a must on user tools, I feel, but I detest plastic handles which Stanley gradually introduced from about 1979 or 80 (I recall buying a #3 as a present back then which came with a grained plastic handle and knob). Plastic handles make my hands sweat and in the case of hand saws have been known to raise blisters. I would also avoid "war finish" planes as the quality of those can leave a lot to be desired. I own a number of Marples planes which prove that point

In terms of blades I feel that the better ones all come from the period before they stamped blades out from a ribbon of carbon steel and then flame hardened them (I.e those modern round edged ones), but fortunately there are quite a few decent replacement irons on the market these days.

 

[D_W]

Ok, I wasn't going to weigh into a "what's best" debate but I do have an old type eleven 5 1/2 inherited from my dad. It has become my absolute favourite bench plane & gets used daily. I like it because of the lighter casting - at my age, pushing extra metal around for no good reason is not as much fun as it once was (I have a very nice skewed-blade infill panel plane, but it only gets used for fine finishings due to its heft!).

The problem of replacing blades in the 2 1/4 inch jobs is much exaggerated, imo. I bought a new blade for mine in complete ignorance of the size issue, which I only discovered when I went to fit it. Had I done some very simple research beforehand, I would have known & maybe wasted much time & energy looking for the 'right' blade. The blade I bought (Veritas), was certainly a bit wide & would not fit initially, but it didn't need much ground off the sides to get it to fit, certainly not a full 1/16" per side. Stanley wasn't all that fussy with mouths and there is a good deal of room on most old planes I've had much to do with, anything from 1.5 to 2mm. I doubt I removed more than .5mm each side.

Having the mouth just wide enough to admit the blade is a good thing, imo, because the blade pivots on the edges of the mouth and it makes lateral adjustment more consistent & repeatable. In fact, my Norris A5 has a convex disc either side of the mouth that can only be there for that purpose, as far as I can tell.

Whatever, I sure wouldn't worry too much about having to replace a blade in a 2 1/4" model of the 5 1/2 (pre-1935, iirc), they may not all be as easy as mine turned out to be but if you have access to a grinder it shouldn't take you too long to have it in place. I made a crude jig to keep the sides straight, & snoothed them with a diamond file once the bulk removal was done (new blades are hard for their full length, & I couldn't cut the upper end with a regular file).

Cheers,
Ian

it's not an issue of the blade being impossible to replace, it's a matter of it being a nuisance - especially if you'd like an original blade or the cap iron or lever cap are ganked. Those all become harder to find. I wanted an original iron and cap iron for mine and then realized that someone replaced the lever cap iwth a 2" plane lever cap and spent a mint finding all three - perhaps close to $80 at a time when stanley irons lever caps and caps sold for about $10 each for everything else (and you could get on ebay and have your pick of 10)

The other issue is that you can risk getting something like a cap and find that it fit an older plane, like a transitional and not have it fit your plane, and then you get to do it twice and decide how honest you are (a 5 1/2 2 1/4" cap is valuable. if you mention that it's from a transitional, then it's not so much).

it can be dealt with (and there's plenty of us who could just make the iron -I'd personally just make it. IT'd literally take an hour and be in the plane after tempering, but in a newer plane, it doesn't have to be dealt with.

I say the above with much more experience than I had scrambling a year or two into having gotten the 5 1/2 (and thinking it was neat because it was older and had a unique sized iron and cap). I think there are fewer shysters now than there were, then, though. Plenty of people on the american SMC forum who would browse want ads and then offer to give you something based on a description of what they had. I learned the hard way that you'd better get pictures (they wouldn't provide them).

 

[D_W]

Minor pitting on a plane does not worry me but minor cracking does.

Minor cracking on a plane doesnt' bother me too much, but factory -made corrugations do!

(just kidding - sort of - if the cracking isn't consequential, like the top of a cheek where someone dropped a plane, then I don't care as long as there's a discount. I never get a corrugated plane on purpose, though, and have one because I wasn't smart enough to believe they put them on type 20 stanley 4s .Actually, didn't even think about the fact that the listing didn't show a plane bottom.

Loves me some stanleys' type 20, though. They're dandy other than sometimes rubbery irons.

 

[Just4Fun]

I have some planes with corrugated soles. I don't really like them and prefer a flat sole, but I don't dislike the corrugations enough to change the planes. An interesting point though: does anyone prefer corrugated soles, and if so, why?