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