Stanley No 5 - base casting reinforcement - dating

[baldpate]

Hi,

I've been looking at images of 'Made in England' Stanley No 5 planes on Ebay (and elsewhere) recently, and I have noticed that some have short ribs on the bottom casting, running radially from the raised seat of the rear handle; two of them run towards the rear corners of th base, and enclose the "No 5" embossed on the casting behind the handle; others (1 or 2, I'm not sure) run forwards towards the frog receiver. I assume these ribs are for reinforcement.

In other examples (of 'Made in England'No 5s) these reinforcing ribs are completely absent.

Does anyone know whether the presence or absence of these ribs is age-related in any way? I mean, were they either added at a certain time to the base casting of all 'Made in England' Stanley No 5s? Or alternatively, were they present on the original type upon which early UK Stanley production was based, and later removed?

In either case, does anyone have even a vague idea of when this change happened? the decade even?

regards

Chris

PS: I'm well aware that there is no definitive typing/dating system for UK Stanleys. I'm just interested in cataloguing features, perhaps like this one, which might be of help in saying whether a particular plane is of relatively recent or relatively old.

 

[jimi43]

Hi Chris

Patrick's Blood and Gore site is probably the best site for dating including some English plane information

Stanley's were not made in England until 1936 (if I remember correctly)....and there is not as much information on dating them.

Generally the ribbing is as a substitute for thickness of the earlier castings. This is common not only on the sole but on the frog in order to save metal.

Search here also for loads of threads on the same subject.

Jim

 

[Vann]

Hi. It's my understanding that these ribs appeared on UK Stanleys in the early 1970s.

Personally, I'd look for a No5 without them, as the more modern the plane, the lower the quality control (and therefore greater chance of picking up a dog),

Cheers, Vann.

 

[katellwood]

But don't Cliftons have these ribs and I would'nt include those in "the lower the quality control" category

 

[baldpate]

Hi Chris

Patrick's Blood and Gore site is probably the best site for dating including some English plane information

Stanley's were not made in England until 1936 (if I remember correctly)....and there is not as much information on dating them.

Generally the ribbing is as a substitute for thickness of the earlier castings. This is common not only on the sole but on the frog in order to save metal.

Search here also for loads of threads on the same subject.

Jim

Hi Jim,

unfortunately neither B&G nor the Stanley Bench Plane Page on Hyperkitten have anything to say about this feature change. Perhaps it never happened on US planes, or happened too late to be of interest to the type trackers?

The Stanley Bench Plane Page is useful in identifying type-feature-changes which also happened in the UK planes. For example, earlier UK Stanleys had the word STANLEY impressed 'horizontally' on the lateral adjuster arm, whereas this later changed to a 'vertically'impression (letters stacked on top of one another). Also, at some point the UK followed the US in changing the shape of the frog receiver on the base casting to the Y-shape, so earlier UK Stanleys have a straight T-shape.

Hi. It's my understanding that these ribs appeared on UK Stanleys in the early 1970s.

Hi Vann - thanks for that information. It confirms my belief that the ribs were a later addition, and weren't present on the earlier planes. Perhaps, as Jim suggests, they were added to reinforce a thinner overall casting - bean counters at work, perhaps?. All that really matters is that it's a nice visible feature, whereas a lot of the other clues are often difficult or impossible to see in a photograph.

PS: I've just seen some pictures on eBay of a No 5 with the ribs, where one shot exposes the frog face and shows that the depth adjuster yoke is one of those two-part, pressed steel jobs - so that's another indirect confirmation that the ribs are associated with later planes.

 

[jimi43]

Be very wary though...there are a lot of planes which are hybrid...bits having been replaced with newer (or older) bits at some time in their life.

Jim

 

[baldpate]

Be very wary though...there are a lot of planes which are hybrid...bits having been replaced with newer (or older) bits at some time in their life.

Of course, Jim - but you have to start with some objective means of assessment. At least it's better than going in blind or believing any old guff that might be dished up by an ill-intentioned (or just ill-informed) vendor.

There is, for example, a certain seller on ebay offering refurbished planes with what seem to me to be unsubstantiated and exaggerated claims as to their age - knowing something about what to look for helps avoid falling into traps such as that.

I always remember the old Ronald Regan adage about mutual nuclear arms reduction - "trust, but verify" !

Besides, I find this sort of dating research rather interesting

Cheers

Chris

 

[Vann]

But don't Cliftons have these ribs and I would'nt include those in "the lower the quality control" category

:lol: It was Stanley and Record who let quality control go out the window. Clifton, Lie-Nielsen and Veritas re-introduced quality - that's why their planes are so highly regarded (and so damned expensive #-o ).

Cheers, Vann.