Replacement LN Iron/Chipbreaker does not fit!

[mahking51]

Hi All,
Just bought a new LN 2" A2 .095" thick iron and latest chipbreaker to retrofit to my lovely Record T5 to use for shooting and the b****y thing does not fit!
Well it does go in the hole but no way can I make the iron protrude without fouling the front of the mouth; pulling the frog right back does not work as I run out of adjustment on the wheel and also there is a 'step' in the body casting which just lifts the iron assembly away from the frog surface.
Have tried the LN iron with the old chipbreaker but still no go.
I would appreciate any help here before this expensive chunk of steel is
sent back.
Silly thing is the plane works quite well as standard but I thought I'd give it a treat and fit the best iron etc.
Does not help that I got nailed over £12 for ParcelFarce and VAT :evil:

Regards,
Martin

 

[Paul Chapman]

Hi Martin,

When fitting better blades to planes, if they are thicker than the original you often have to file the front of the mouth and replace or modify the 'Y' lever so that it will reach the slot in the cap iron. This is one of the problems Rob (Woodbloke) is grappling with with his Record #4. On my Records that I fitted Clifton blades and cap irons to I obtained some 'Y' levers from Clifton that were just about long enough and filed out the front of the mouths.

Hope this helps

Cheers :wink:

Paul

PS another problem you can get is that, because 'Y' levers tend to be a little tapered, as the cap iron moves further forward (because of the thicker blade) you can get some slack in the blade adjustment. Jarviser came up with a good solution for this when modifying a #6 - see here http://www.jarviser.co.uk/jarviser/tools1.html Jarviser's modification would also have the effect of making the 'Y' lever a little longer, which is helpful.

 

[Chris Knight]

Martin,

You'll have to file the mouth to use it I suspect. Since that will likely detract from its value, you might want to use the thinner iron or look for one not quite as thick as the LN, it will still shoot well.

I filed the mouth on a Record 4 (bought new in 1965) to accept a thicker blade. At the time, I was new to woodworking and did not realise the importance of the mouth and I made a bit of a mess of the filing - having said which the plane works fine thankfully.

 

[Paul Chapman]

On a related issue, does anyone know a source of supply for long 'Y' levers? Many people talk of the undoubted benefits of fitting thicker blades, but seldon mention the 'Y' lever problem

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[mahking51]

Thanks guys,
Logic dictates that the problem can be overcome by filing the mouth but I had not considered the Y lever aspect and will read Jarvisers link carefully.
I had (wrongly?) assumed that LN made this series of blades slightly thinner than their own so that they would be a direct replacement for the originals.
There are marked differences between the two:
The slot on the LN is a VERY tight fit on the lateral adjuster.
The hole that the lever cap screw goes through is round not elongated.

Chris, I don't really intend to sell this T5 so the reduction in value is not a great issue, I just need to be sure that I am doing the right thing in terms of performance. Should I ever get around to a LN No9 then I would sell the T5 complete with the LN combo which should be quite desirable I would have thought.

Regards,
Martin

 

[woodbloke]

Martin - I had exactly the same problem on my T5. The blade will fit if the leading edge of the mouth is filed out, not too much of a problem. However the main thing is that a LN chipbreaker won't fit onto a standard Record frog as the small rectangular hole for the 'Y' lever is in the wrong place. If you compare the Record and LN side by side you'll see what I mean. As far as I can see there's no way round the problem . The iron that I intend to fit in my No4 is the Hock/chipbreaker which is specifically meant for Record and Stanley planes, the other option is the Clifton/two-part breaker that Paul has in his planes - Rob

 

[Paul Chapman]

Martin,

You should be able to try the blade before filing the mouth (just make sure that the adjuster is wound back so that you don't damage the blade edge) so that you can see whether the 'Y' lever is long enough. Will probably be OK if it's a one piece 'Y' lever and not the later split type.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

Just seen Rob's post. Might not fit then

 

[mahking51]

Rob,
Are you saying to get the Hock chip breaker and use with the LN iron?
Do you think it is possible to fill the LN rectangular hole with brass and recut the hole in the correct place?
Any idea how much has to come out of the mouth?
If you have a moment later today can you give me a call on 07774-773414 please?

regards,
Martin

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Martin

It appears that no one has yet said that you have the wrongly specified blade for your plane. The LN blade you should fit is the "Stanley Replacement" #4. This is much thicker than the standard Stanley/Record blade but slightly thinner than the full on LN blade. These fit!

I have this blade and the LN chipbreaker in my #604.

Return your blade for a replacement. LN will do this without any fuss.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[woodbloke]

Rob,
Are you saying to get the Hock chip breaker and use with the LN iron?
Do you think it is possible to fill the LN rectangular hole with brass and recut the hole in the correct place?
Any idea how much has to come out of the mouth?
If you have a moment later today can you give me a call on 07774-773414 please?

regards,
Martin

Martin - you could use a Hock breaker with a LN blade provided that the breaker nut is long enough....Hock blades are thinner than LN (but as good, so I've heard). The mod you are thinking about is doable but for my money I'd use a different blade/breaker combo as it seems an awful lot of phaff (good word, sort of Alfish ) I've been out to the shop and taken a quick pic of the problem:

The mod that Jarviser did is sound but will only take out the backlash on the adjuster thread and only increases the length of the 'Y' lever by the thickness of the shim - Rob

 

[dchenard]

Rob, I've had the exact same issue with my LN blade/breaker set when I installed it on my Stanley #8. Here's what I did, inspired by Frankd:

- traced the proper hole location on the LN breaker (as per your picture)

- cut off the hole. Two issues here: first, at least in my case the original hole location overlapped the new one, meaning I had to "fill up" the old hole. Second, the LN breaker is hardened steel, I tried many small metal blades, even went as far as modifying a Bosch bimetal jigsaw blade to fit in the hole (this is a tight fit), no luck, it didn't cut. In the end I ended up using a Dremel tool with one of those very thin brittle cutting wheels. The cuts ended up going past the layout lines a bit (because of the size of the cutting wheel), even working from both sides of the breaker, but in the end it's just a cosmetic issue. For a cleaner apperance you might consider taking the cap iron to a specialized place that can cut a clean hole.

- kept the metal offcut, and made a piece of wood of the exact same size as the original hole

- placed that wood piece in the new hole location, pushed the metal offcut against the wood piece, and filled the voids with steel epoxy.

- once cured, I punched out the wood piece, and cleaned the hole with diamond needle files.

Hope all this doesn't sound clear as mud :roll: :wink:

As far as the yoke is concerned, because of the mechanism's construction, beyond a certain point the yoke won't sit in the adjustment nut anymore, so a longer post will not solve the problem.

In any case, with this modification the chipbreaker now works perfectly. I do not have pictures handy, if you want one I could possibly shoot one today, depending on my schedule...

One has to keep in mind that the LN improved chipbreaker wasn't designed to work with Stanley planes. The Canadian rep told me that it did fit, but that wasn't intentionally done by LN. Why it didn't fit my plane, I don't know, maybe the hole location on the chipbreaker changed over time and the LN CB will fit some Stanley planes and not some others. My plane is a Type 6, if that makes a difference. Or maybe they fit Bedrocks and not Baileys, I don't know.

Hope this helps,

DC

 

[mahking51]

Derek,
The blade was ordered from the LN site under the heading for Stanley replacement blades which are a bit thinner than the std LN ones at .095" which is stamped on the blade.

The issue is definitely with the CB/Yoke combination and I wil first talk to LN for their comments.

DC, nice solution for the CB slot but does not resolve the yoke issue, you are correct in saying that you run out of contact with the adjusting wheel pretty quickly; maybe larger 'collars' on the wheeel would help?
Regards and thanks to all for the input,
Martin

 

[Paul Chapman]

I wil first talk to LN for their comments.

Martin, if you are going to speak to them, it might be an idea to ask whether they do long 'Y' levers or whether the ones from their planes would fit Stanley/Record with thick blades. Irrespective of problems with your particular cap iron, it seems to me that the limiting factor in how thick an after-market blade can be fitted comes down to the length of the 'Y' lever. I know that they do thinner blades for fitting to Stanley/Record planes, but a thick one would probably be better (otherwise they wouldn't fit thicker ones to their planes :wink: )

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Martin

Here is a suggested fix for the chipbreaker/yoke problem:

I have planned to do this for planes of my own, just not yet put it into operation. Nevertheless I think it should be fairly straight forward.

The aim is to use the blade slot to connect to the yoke. This will make the chipbreaker slot redundant, and permit any thickness blade you like with a Stanley/Record plane.

The idea is to infill a section of the blade slot with brass, leaving a slot open for the yoke. I have infilled a few blade slots, so I know this can be done easily enough.

Here is a Hock with brass infill:

and here is my Stanley #3 infill blade infill (don't say that after a couple of drinks!):

Method: cut out and shape two pieces to fit inside the blade slot. They will go in with a gap between for the yoke. Shape them fractionally large, then leave them in the freezer for a day. Hopefully you can then tap them in as a tight fit before they thaw. After they thaw and expand the fit will be tight.

What do you think?

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[dchenard]

Derek,
The blade was ordered from the LN site under the heading for Stanley replacement blades which are a bit thinner than the std LN ones at .095" which is stamped on the blade.

The issue is definitely with the CB/Yoke combination and I wil first talk to LN for their comments.

DC, nice solution for the CB slot but does not resolve the yoke issue, you are correct in saying that you run out of contact with the adjusting wheel pretty quickly; maybe larger 'collars' on the wheeel would help?
Regards and thanks to all for the input,
Martin

Martin, I must be missing something here :-k

By repositioning the hole in the CB the yoke issue, as I understand it, is solved, the new iron/CB being positioned at the same adjuster location as before. With the original hole location on the LN CB, I was running out of adjustment before the iron went through the sole.

Apologies if I'm not getting it...

DC

 

[mahking51]

DC,
S'me thats lost the plot, you are quite correct!
sorry!
martin

 

[Rknott2007]

I had the same problem with my bedrock 604 1/2, i brought the LN chop breaker and blade i got the to fit on after a fair bit of filing, but i coudn't adjust the blade back and forth, so what i did was put a tiny blog of weld on the end of the y connector, and filed it back to fit, after all this my bedrock £10 off a boot market, after £50 on blades and chipbreaker, some new cherry handles and some elbow grease looks and works just like a LN 4 1/2 it make my work mate very angry when i remind him of this as he spent £230 on the LN.

 

[Alf]

Having read through all this thread I fall upon the falling from Martin's original post

Silly thing is the plane works quite well as standard

and say "Martin, mate, chum, just use the bloody thing and leave this sort of nonsense for when you have to replace an iron" :roll: :wink:

Cheers, Alf

 

[mahking51]

Alf,
I know, I know, I know!
Just got seduced by all the tinkering thats going on around here; thought I might be missing out on something - I was....

FRUSTRATION, I had none, now I got plenty :?

Good to hear you preaching the voice of true reason!

Anally yours,
Martin

 

[bobscarle]

Martin

I did exactly the same thing. Steve Maskery was selling a Hock blade and a Clifton CB. I got the money out of the bank and took my perfectly good Stanley No.4 to see him. New blade and breaker fitted but would not protrude from the mouth. We spent an hour trying before giving up. I returned home with my perfectly good Stanley No.4 and its original blade and my money still in my wallet.

I was disappointed not to have bought something with should have been better and I know Steve was as he did not get his sale. The little voice of reason in the back of my head nagged all the way home "Told you, if its not broke.......".

Bob