Cleaning old planes

[cliveskelton]

Hi.

Those of you who replied to my previous postings will have gathered by now that I am new to this forum and I am now rekindling my love of woodwork, ( not done any since my schooldays). I am converting my shed into a (very) small workshop and am buying my tools second hand (mostly Ebay) but I have bought two Record planes, a 5 1/2 and a No 4 thats got 2 S`s marked on the clamp ( dont know what that means) for a couple of quid at a bootsale recently that need a lot of cleaning.

I have been looking through past postings to see if any one had given any tips for cleaning planes and came across one from Jimi43 who had cleaned up one with something he called CORRO DIP, Now, remember that I am still new to all this but what is that, Is it something you can buy? or has he taken his plane iron somewhere to be dipped in a special solution?.

While looking through Ebay I have noticed that all the block planes have got different numbers on them, eg 9 1/2 - 60 1/2 etc
Whats the difference please? I ask because I have been bought a 9 1/2 for Xmas, A Rider one from the Axminster website.

Any thing you can help me with will be recieved with gratitude, Especially tips on setting out my workshop which is going to be about 14ft x 6ft (told you it was small) so there wont be any room for the normal things you find in a average size one.
All work I do will be done by hand.

Many thanks.

Clive.



"A constant vogue of triumphs dislocate man so it seems.......... All in all the journey takes you all the way"

Jon Anderson.

 

[jimi43]

Hello Clive

I'm Jim...the "someone called Jimi43" you mention) and would like to welcome you as well to the forum.

Firstly...to answer your question regarding "CORRO DIP".

You will find when you've been here a while longer and read through some threads or two...that there are probably as many ways to clean and restore planes as there are planes on this planet....and those who would just sharpen up the iron (blade) and get on with using them.

You can use chemicals...electrolysis...abrasives (and elbow grease)....or mill or grind a new surface...the choice is yours and they may all be the "right" solution for you.

I use CORRODIP for my cleaning off of rust and stabilizing the steel. This is because I bought a litre of it at a bootfair for 50p...tried it one day and it worked really well. You can buy it from Liquid Engineering HERE at somewhat more than 50p a litre :mrgreen: but I think it's still superb value. One litre is concentrated and makes 6 litres of solution (5:1) by the way.

After all these years I still have the original bottle and it's about half full!! Do a search here on CORRO DIP and you will find all you need to know about it and other methods of cleaning and rust removal.

For plane numbering...the standard "Bailey" type planes you have were designed by Leonard Bailey and taken up by Stanley Rule and Level Company - now just "STANLEY" and made in great numbers (some not so great!)....using a coding system which sometimes makes sense...other times is a bit more complicated.

The standard bench planes range from the highly collectible "No.1" up to the huge No.8

Stanley started making them in England between the wars and were copied by loads of companies...the ones you have by "Record"....which are considered by some as superior. The "SS" on the lever cap means "STAY-SET" which was invented by Record and means that the iron (or blade to some) was held by a two-part chip breaker or cap iron. The reason for this was you could remove the front piece to expose the cutting edge for grinding and honing without removing the "set" of the plane and it would go back in the way it was set before...saving time.

This is a more sought after facility and has been copied by Clifton planes. Some may call it the Marmite of features...you either love it or hate it!

This photo shows a Record No.7 SS plane and all the parts:

For Stanley plane identification try THIS WEBSITE

For information on Record Planes try HERE

I'll leave you to read through those sites a while...by the end of which you will have answered your penultimate question on the 9 1/2 and 60 1/2 planes! 8)

Also for workshop design and ideas...just do a search here at UKW...there are literally HUNDREDS of threads on the subject and many will suit your needs.

Enjoy your newly kindled fun....they're a nice bunch here...and you will have lots of fun skiing these slopes! :mrgreen:

Jim

 

[t8hants]

Welcome to the forum Clive much good information here!
However please do not adopt that awful Amercanism, there is no such thing as a 'tote' on a plane, it is a 'handle' and always will be.

Gareth

 

[bugbear]

Welcome to the forum Clive much good information here!
However please do not adopt that awful Amercanism, there is no such thing as a 'tote' on a plane, it is a 'handle' and always will be.

Moxon in "Mechanick Exercises or The Doctrine of Handy-Works" called it a "tote" in 1703.

BugBear

 

[bugbear]

Hi.

Those of you who replied to my previous postings will have gathered by now that I am new to this forum and I am now rekindling my love of woodwork, ( not done any since my schooldays). I am converting my shed into a (very) small workshop and am buying my tools second hand (mostly Ebay) but I have bought two Record planes, a 5 1/2 and a No 4 thats got 2 S`s marked on the clamp ( dont know what that means) for a couple of quid at a bootsale recently that need a lot of cleaning.

I have been looking through past postings to see if any one had given any tips for cleaning planes

Here's a classic post by "Spokeshave" that covers the main points of getting an old plane into good working order.

http://swingleydev.com/archive/get.php?message_id=57126

BugBear

 

[Vann]

However please do not adopt that awful Amercanism, there is no such thing as a 'tote' on a plane, it is a 'handle' and always will be.

I too used to think the term "tote" was an Americanism - and avoided using it. However, since I found it was a ye olde English traditional term, I use it all the time (my bench planes have a "knob" and a "tote" and both are "handles").

Another I think of as an Americanism (and I'm probably wrong) is the term "chip-breaker" which may or may not break chips, but IMHO is correctly called a "cap-iron" (or "back iron").

I'll get off my soap box now...

Cheers, Vann.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I once read an in depth article on Record, and the author said that historically there is no record of it ever being called a "tote". (I should have kept it somewhere, but I didn't!) Other than here, I've not seen it called a "tote", but in a 1960's Woodworker Annual I have seen it called a "toat".
The author obviously hadn't read Moxon. (Nor have I .)

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I was always taught that the one that screwed to the blade was a "back iron" and the one with the lever was a "cap iron".

 

[bugbear]

I was always taught that the one that screwed to the blade was a "back iron" and the one with the lever was a "cap iron".

"Lever cap" - it even makes sense!

BugBear

 

[morfa]

There's a good article about refurbing an old plane in this months Good Woodworking:

http://www.getwoodworking.com/news/arti ... king/13819

 

[jimi43]

Welcome to the forum Clive much good information here!
However please do not adopt that awful Amercanism, there is no such thing as a 'tote' on a plane, it is a 'handle' and always will be.

Moxon in "Mechanick Exercises or The Doctrine of Handy-Works" called it a "tote" in 1703.

BugBear

Cheers BB and Phil. 8)

I would have been cheesed off to have to redo the picture again!

And I always thought the "bottom" was the "sole"....but then I ain't bothered...we all know what we mean.

:mrgreen:

Jim

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Yes, heel, toe and sole.

 

[whiskywill]

Aaahh! Sole instead of bottom.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Our default position tends to be to take what we were taught when we were young always to be correct - no wonder religion causes such problems. (I had to correct a split infinitive then - that just proved my point (to myself!))

 

[jimi43]

Our default position tends to be to take what we were taught when we were young always to be correct - no wonder religion causes such problems. (I had to correct a split infinitive then - that just proved my point (to myself!))

With all this talk about bottoms it's no wonder you have a split infinitive! :mrgreen:

J

 

[t8hants]

I am not surprised to find the term 'tote' is an early term. It is thought that American English retains a considerable number of "Elizabethan" words that we have long since superseded. Of the forty plus plane wielding tradesmen and apprentices in my old boat yard not one would have known what you were talking about. The word is dead we have moved on, it should not be revived. Our American friends are at perfect liberty to apply whatever term is appropriate for them.

Gareth

 

[Benchwayze]

Ref tote...

a tote is a handle, is a tote is a handle! :mrgreen:

 

[AndyT]

Ok, let's clear up this tote business. I think the OED team know a bit more than Microsoft do about the origins of words. This is the OED entry for tote in the sense of a plane handle, confirming that BB has already given us the earliest recorded usage, in a book written and published in England (though the OED gives an earlier date for it):

tote, n.2

Pronunciation: /təʊt/
Forms: Also 18 toat.
Etymology: apparently < tote, obsolete and dialect form of toot v.1 to project, stick out. (R. Holme belonged to Cheshire, where the vb. is still tote.)


The handle of a carpenter's plane.
1678 J. Moxon Mech. Exercises I. iv. 61 A Fore Plain. a The Tote.
1688 R. Holme Acad. Armory iii. 352/2 All the difference is in the Tote or Handle, which every Workman maketh according to his own Fancy.
1823 P. Nicholson New Pract. Builder 243.
1873 Routledge's Yng. Gentl. Mag. July 503/1 The handle [of a jack plane] is called a toat or horn.
1901 J. Black Illustr. Carpenter & Builder Ser.: Home Handicrafts 10 The jack plane is used by grasping the ‘tote’, or handle, firmly with the right hand, placing the left hand on the fore part of the plane [etc.].


There is a pattern in which a usage that was common in C17th England remains current in US English although we have stopped using it in the UK. "Faucet" for "tap" is a well known example of this.

So this could be similar - "tote" probably was used in England when the people cited by the OED were writing but fell out of common usage some time later. But how much later?

I found it still in use in Wells and Hooper (first edition, 1910).

I also found a much later example - Charles Hayward, in "Tools for Woodwork" in 1946 has a diagram of the parts of a wooden jack plane on page 30 where the handle is captioned "Handle or Toat".

Was he looking back to English usage of the previous century or across the Atlantic for American readers? I don't really care!

And I know this is all off-topic, but the original question has been pretty comprehensively answered!

 

[jimi43]

Language is used for communication between humans to relay meaning and the OED is wrong in one respect...it is only obsolete if people aren't using it...and I'm using it so they can go swivel...and I don't mean "To cause to turn in alternate directions, or in either direction, on or as on an axis or pivot; to turn or cause to face in another direction" :mrgreen:

What I can't understand is that a subject as calm as woodworking can elicit such indignation and concern! :roll:

Must be the weather! :wink:

Jim

 

[AndyT]

the OED is wrong in one respect...it is only obsolete if people aren't using it...and I'm using it so they can go swivel.

Have another look at the definition Jim - it does not say that the noun "tote" is obsolete. It says that it is probably derived from "tote" which is an obsolete or dialect form of the verb "toot."

And I'm certainly not indignant!

Btw, access to the full on-line version of the OED is available on subscription, but many public libraries will have corporate subscriptions that their members can use. Have a look at your local library service website for details. You may need to sign in with your library card number.
Some library users will find that they can get to other commercial web services this way, such as full text newspaper archives, 'proper' reference books and audiobooks.