A
Anonymous
Guest
I was in the market for a large framing chisel on Ebay and wound up with a package deal for 30 bucks…an old Stanley 5C Type 16…the Lakeside 2” Framing Chisel I wanted…a beater chisel with a mangled socket…and an old cooper’s shaping chisel:
This article will deal with the Stanley 5C…the cooper’s chisel was usable as is with some cleaning and sharpening, and the chisels I’ve covered in another article, although I’ll rehabilitate them together. These will be put back to work as users, like all my tools…conservation/restoration of collector items is another subject.
For this article, I’ll purposely use only the minimum tools and techniques necessary for a first-class job…and all the work done in a crude, temporary 12’ by 12’ shop. My intent is to provide a model for newcomers to the craft who will benefit greatly from acquiring older but high-quality tools in need of a hug for very little money…and putting them back into service without a lot of machines and fancy gizmos you don’t have yet. Moreover, with enough practice rehabbing old tools, making new ones like in other articles I’ve written, and doing traditional joinery for your workbenches and other shop necessities…by the time you create for yourself a nice workshop, you may find you no longer feel a need for all the trendy doodads being shilled at you weekly. I’m not saying that all those expensive tools and jigs aren’t useful or don’t have a place, I’m merely trying to provide you something to help set those purchase priorities.
I use a large; 8” gunsmith’s pedestal buffer-grinder for most of my grinding and polishing chores, but a smaller 6” bench grinder will also work fine. I’d have used a smaller bench grinder for the picturess…but I don’t own one.
I use a soft steel wire wheel to clean all metal parts thoroughly…the cooper’s tool has been cleaned in the shot above.
Then I treat them with a phosphoric acid solution (above) available at home improvement chains to kill any remaining rust. This is the functional equivalent of using an electrolysis solution for those not so inclined. The phosphoric acid is allowed to sit over night to work. The next day, the black oxide rust residue is removed with the wire wheel in preparation for buffing and finish later…we need to do the blade and chip breaker, and some frog, sole and bearing surface inspection, first.
It’s impossible to get all the phosphoric acid’s oxide residue out of mortises and screw holes, but I don’t worry about it and will simply oil over top of it later. The phosphate surface imparted in those deep recesses will deter future rust much better than simple electrolysis rust removal, and that’s important to me in a wet climate and unheated shop. It also seeps into any chips in the japanning, and prevents future rust deterioration there.
As the plane blade is in good shape, and I don’t prefer to leave the bevel with a hollow grind (although not important…merely personal preference), I do the grinding stage for my 25-degree bevels on the belt sander chucked in the Workmate. I use 60, 80, 100 and 150 grits lubed with WD-40 and lots of water, checking my bevel angle and edge with protractor and square as I go. Cool the blade frequently in water…turn that blade edge 600-degree blue and it has lost its temper and all the blue must be ground away.
Final honing of 25-degree bevel and 30-degree secondary bevel will come later.
Next I polish bearing surfaces on frog and plane body using whatever is needed…this Type 16 plane (1933-1941) has decent machined surfaces but many newer models and later Record planes do not. Here I just use 0000 steel wool, but files and the Dremel Tool with sanding and polishing disks are handy for the rougher ones. The bearing surfaces of frog-body and frog-blade should be dead flat and polished. Use Prussian Blue layout paste to check for uniform bearing, and take down the high spots for a perfectly-flat fit. Also insure the plane’s mouth is square and not chipped…do some light filing if needed…and that the frog mounts dead square with it.
As an aside, never buy an old plane without looking at a good photo of the mouth and sole. Pass them by if they are chipped or worn…there are plenty of Type 8-16 pre-war common Stanley models out there dirt-cheap and there’s no reason to buy a bad one. I look for rosewood totes and knobs and corrugated soles when I buy them, but that’s just personal preference…these have all the desirable later adjustment features.
I also check the sole on the ground jointer table using a dash of Prussian Blue layout fluid, the subject of much needless suffering concerning planes. On a short smoother, I like the soles as flat as possible and have honed them on lubed abrasive paper cemented to plate glass. But our plane today is a longer jack used for relatively coarser work. Jacks, Trys and Jointers are too long to flatten to the degree possible with a smoother, and frankly, I don’t understand why folks even try. All I’m looking for on this one is that the sole bearing surfaces at the front of the sole, the area in front of the mouth, and the surface at the rear of the plane are reasonably in the same plane…and they are, so no flattening is required. Much more important to the plane’s function are no wear at the mouth, frog adjustment and chipbreaker fit.
And remachining the plane sides dead square in anything other than a badly-warped shoulder, rabbet or coachmaker’s plane is, in my opinion, a needless endeavor.
Continued on Part II
This article will deal with the Stanley 5C…the cooper’s chisel was usable as is with some cleaning and sharpening, and the chisels I’ve covered in another article, although I’ll rehabilitate them together. These will be put back to work as users, like all my tools…conservation/restoration of collector items is another subject.
For this article, I’ll purposely use only the minimum tools and techniques necessary for a first-class job…and all the work done in a crude, temporary 12’ by 12’ shop. My intent is to provide a model for newcomers to the craft who will benefit greatly from acquiring older but high-quality tools in need of a hug for very little money…and putting them back into service without a lot of machines and fancy gizmos you don’t have yet. Moreover, with enough practice rehabbing old tools, making new ones like in other articles I’ve written, and doing traditional joinery for your workbenches and other shop necessities…by the time you create for yourself a nice workshop, you may find you no longer feel a need for all the trendy doodads being shilled at you weekly. I’m not saying that all those expensive tools and jigs aren’t useful or don’t have a place, I’m merely trying to provide you something to help set those purchase priorities.
I use a large; 8” gunsmith’s pedestal buffer-grinder for most of my grinding and polishing chores, but a smaller 6” bench grinder will also work fine. I’d have used a smaller bench grinder for the picturess…but I don’t own one.
I use a soft steel wire wheel to clean all metal parts thoroughly…the cooper’s tool has been cleaned in the shot above.
Then I treat them with a phosphoric acid solution (above) available at home improvement chains to kill any remaining rust. This is the functional equivalent of using an electrolysis solution for those not so inclined. The phosphoric acid is allowed to sit over night to work. The next day, the black oxide rust residue is removed with the wire wheel in preparation for buffing and finish later…we need to do the blade and chip breaker, and some frog, sole and bearing surface inspection, first.
It’s impossible to get all the phosphoric acid’s oxide residue out of mortises and screw holes, but I don’t worry about it and will simply oil over top of it later. The phosphate surface imparted in those deep recesses will deter future rust much better than simple electrolysis rust removal, and that’s important to me in a wet climate and unheated shop. It also seeps into any chips in the japanning, and prevents future rust deterioration there.
As the plane blade is in good shape, and I don’t prefer to leave the bevel with a hollow grind (although not important…merely personal preference), I do the grinding stage for my 25-degree bevels on the belt sander chucked in the Workmate. I use 60, 80, 100 and 150 grits lubed with WD-40 and lots of water, checking my bevel angle and edge with protractor and square as I go. Cool the blade frequently in water…turn that blade edge 600-degree blue and it has lost its temper and all the blue must be ground away.
Final honing of 25-degree bevel and 30-degree secondary bevel will come later.
Next I polish bearing surfaces on frog and plane body using whatever is needed…this Type 16 plane (1933-1941) has decent machined surfaces but many newer models and later Record planes do not. Here I just use 0000 steel wool, but files and the Dremel Tool with sanding and polishing disks are handy for the rougher ones. The bearing surfaces of frog-body and frog-blade should be dead flat and polished. Use Prussian Blue layout paste to check for uniform bearing, and take down the high spots for a perfectly-flat fit. Also insure the plane’s mouth is square and not chipped…do some light filing if needed…and that the frog mounts dead square with it.
As an aside, never buy an old plane without looking at a good photo of the mouth and sole. Pass them by if they are chipped or worn…there are plenty of Type 8-16 pre-war common Stanley models out there dirt-cheap and there’s no reason to buy a bad one. I look for rosewood totes and knobs and corrugated soles when I buy them, but that’s just personal preference…these have all the desirable later adjustment features.
I also check the sole on the ground jointer table using a dash of Prussian Blue layout fluid, the subject of much needless suffering concerning planes. On a short smoother, I like the soles as flat as possible and have honed them on lubed abrasive paper cemented to plate glass. But our plane today is a longer jack used for relatively coarser work. Jacks, Trys and Jointers are too long to flatten to the degree possible with a smoother, and frankly, I don’t understand why folks even try. All I’m looking for on this one is that the sole bearing surfaces at the front of the sole, the area in front of the mouth, and the surface at the rear of the plane are reasonably in the same plane…and they are, so no flattening is required. Much more important to the plane’s function are no wear at the mouth, frog adjustment and chipbreaker fit.
And remachining the plane sides dead square in anything other than a badly-warped shoulder, rabbet or coachmaker’s plane is, in my opinion, a needless endeavor.
Continued on Part II
