Record 044 Plough Plane Question

[Vann]

...Ik heb daar een mooie 5 en een kwart gekocht voor drie tientjes.

30 Euro !! Not bad.

Just out of interest (and slightly off topic) is the 5 1/4 made in England, or USA? Just part of gathering information on Stanley planes and where they were made - e.g. I believe Stanley never made their No.8 planes in England.

Cheers, Vann
(which is an abbreviation of van Nisselroij)

 

[Droogs]

:lol: :lol: at least it is not Van der Merwe

 

[Vann]

:lol: :lol: at least it is not Van der Merwe

Nah. Then I'd have to sign off...

Cheers, Vand.

 

[city17]

You're right that all the good tools tend to be snapped up by traders on Marktplaats. Then they just hold on to it for a long time until someone is willing to pay a premium price, a bit of a shame really.

That said, I've just received my Record 050! It looks to be in good condition, and the only thing missing are the short bars. There are 15 cutters, in the original packaging. One thing I don't understand though is that the tongue and groove cutter is 1/4 inch, but there is no 1/4 inch cutter to go with it for some reason. In the manual it says there are supposed to be 17 cutters, not 15. Might have to get the 1/4 inch cutter separately.

Question: At what angle do you sharpen your blades? They all seem to be at 35 degrees, which is what I think they came with from the factory. It seems kind of high, would you recommend going down to 25 or 30?

 

[AndyT]

Just stick with the factory angle. Hone flat across the whole bevel. Works fine.

 

[city17]

Was trying to set the plane up, but came across a problem that I don't know how to solve.

The way the cutter protrudes below the sole/skate is skewed. When the left side of the cutter is 1 or 2 mm below the sole, the right side is still above it. Basically the kind of problem where on a bench plane you would use the lateral adjuster to fix it. See the image below:

The result is that either the right side doesn't cut at all, or if you want it to cut (by lowering it more), the left side is taking way too big shavings.

The cutter is square, so that's not the issue. It's also held flat against the groove. If I put the cutter in the groove a little twisted (so that the left side isn't touching the bottom of the groove) I can get it evened out. But in that case I can't secure it from the top and it feels a bit wobbly.

Any suggestions for how to remedy this problem?

 

[Droogs]

needs re-sharpened. Lower the iron until it just protrudes at the lowest point, ie the right side in your example just cuts. Colour the exposed part of the iron with a sharpie and then sharpen to that line

 

[city17]

Isn't there a way to fix the body instead of sharpening the blade to be skew? I guess that it would work, just seems a bit odd to not sharpen the cutter at 90 degrees.

 

[Droogs]

Your skate looks bent, it may just be the angle in the picture. easier to fit the iron to the skate than the other way round

 

[AndyT]

You could try the other cutters.
If you get the problem on all of them, then there's a problem on one of the skates. You'll need to very carefully file it so they match.

But more likely, the cutting edge is off square somehow on the one you want to use.

 

[city17]

You could try the other cutters.
If you get the problem on all of them, then there's a problem on one of the skates. You'll need to very carefully file it so they match.

But more likely, the cutting edge is off square somehow on the one you want to use.

I checked the other cutters, and it's the same problem. If they're at 90 degrees they're off. There was one cutter that worked well, but that one was actually skewed.

EDIT: Just checked the difference between the skates. This is what happens if I put the square on the two skates (out of parallel with the bars):

And this is what it looks like when I put the square on the 90-degree cutter (parallel with the bars).

So it seems the inside skate is lower than the skate on the body. Unless that is how they were designed?

Another edit: Found this forum post on Paul Seller's site with the same problem (although there the sliding skate was lower than the body skate). They seem to have filed the skate down to match.

 

[Jarno]

That's quite a difference indeed, will need to check with my 50. But usually I plow grooves with a 44, that doesn't have the sliding section.
Maybe there's no issue in use at all, set the cutter based on the position of the main stock, and use the fence to determine position. The cutter still benefits from the extra support of the sliding section. I think there's also a smaller clamp for use with narrow cutters?

 

[AndyT]

That's a big difference. I wonder if this plane has been assembled from bits, which would have been matched in original manufacture, but in your case may have been cast from different patterns. Do try Jarno's suggestion before removing any metal.

 

[city17]

@Jarno may be right, if you use the narrow blade clamp you'll only have the skate on the main body. I guess it's a question of keeping the plane straight. If both skates are in the same plane, it's a lot easier to hold it straight though. I'll give it a try later today.

@AndyT Yea, that's what I was thinking as well. The two bars are also not the same (one has round ends, the other flat), so it seems that this is an assembly of parts rather than an original complete plane.

 

[RAF]

...Ik heb daar een mooie 5 en een kwart gekocht voor drie tientjes.

30 Euro !! Not bad.

Just out of interest (and slightly off topic) is the 5 1/4 made in England, or USA? Just part of gathering information on Stanley planes and where they were made - e.g. I believe Stanley never made their No.8 planes in England.

Cheers, Vann
(which is an abbreviation of van Nisselroij)

 

[Vann]

"Made in USA". Thanks.

I suspect the No.5 1/4 weren't cast in the UK either, but I'll keep gathering information.

Cheers, Vann.

 

[city17]

Jarno was right, if you set the cutter based on the skate of the body, it works just fine. It's a question of keeping the entire plane in the correct position. If the two skates were in the same plane, it would be slightly easier however, because it would automatically stabilize the entire plane. Now I had to keep the left skate ever so slightly above the workpiece.

I haven't tested it yet, but the only place where I can see this being problematic is ploughing dados, because then one spur will be higher than the other one. So I might still file it down a little anyway, the difference is a bit less than it seems in the images.