There's nothing like a nice low knob.....

[memzey]

Ooer missus

Say hello to my new to me Stanley No. 7:



It is a post 1888, pre 1902 jointer and a lovely piece of kit if I do say so myself! Now this is not supposed to be a gloat thread as such rather a call for some advice: does anyone know where I can get my hands on a high quality, thin Stanley style iron for this plane by any chance? The iron that came with it is quite pitted, I don't have much confidence in Stanley's current offerings and all the other supposedly premium irons seem to be of the thick variety. As I sharpen freehand on oil stones I don't want to mess about with removing more material than is necessary and I have no intention of filing the mouth to fit a thicker iron anyway. Any advice of the non-sharpening variety gladly received!

Thanks in advance!

 

[JJ1]

I can't help with the Stanley iron but just to mention that you don't always need to file the mouth when fitting thicker irons. I recently bought a selection of thicker irons and chipbreakers including Hock A1 and Veritas PMV11 and have successfully fitted them to Stanley/Record No's 3, 4, 4 1/2, 5, 6 and 7 and they all worked superbly with the only adjustment having to be made was repositioning the frog.

 

[AndyT]

Assuming you don't want the current offerings, but some old stock made in Sheffield, I suggest you contact some of the used tool dealers who might have what you want.
There's a good list on the TATHS website at http://taths.org.uk/tools-and-trades/notes/140-rn-03-uk-old-tool-dealers

 

[David C]

At the moment I am restoring a nice USA 5 1/2 from 1910 to 1918.

Hock blades work very well and are only about 50% thicker than Stanley. 2.4 mm.

This extra thickness is a good thing, and the throat might need a very small amount of filing, though I have not confirmed this yet.

David Charlesworth

 

[Corneel]

I have some similar planes. They are gorgeous indeed. The original irons are very good and 25% thinner. That is a lot of metal when you don't have a grinder. I would indeed shop at these tool dealers and ask for a Sweet heart era plane blade or earlier. Themoder. Offerings look out of place with their weird corners in a plane like that.

 

[Vann]

I believe JJ1 is correct, Hock and Veritas replacement irons are not much thicker than the standard Stanley irons.

Stanley irons tend to be in the 1.9 to 2.2mm thickness range, with older irons being at the thinner end of the range (because they've been lapped more often :?: ).

Hock irons are 3/32" thick (= 2.31mm), while Veritas irons are 0.100" (= 2.54mm) thick.

For an older plane like yours, with a very thin mouth, the Veritas might be getting a bit thick, but the Hock would almost certainly fit without modifying the mouth.

The downside is: neither have the classic angular shape of the original Stanley irons.

Cheers, Vann.

 

[memzey]

Hmmm thanks everyone. Food for thought indeed. I will try to source something more age appropriate for the tool via the links in Andy's post above (the man is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to hand tools and their restoration) before considering resorting to a modern equivalent.

 

[ED65]

memzey, when you say the existing iron is heavily pitted is it so bad that you couldn't possibly use it? I can see it's a bit short too but still looks like it has some service life remaining. Unless the pitting was so extensive that no sharpening strategy could deal with them I'd certainly try to use it myself, at least initially.

If you were set on a new one, the Quansheng irons are superb (Rockwell C hardnesses above 60), and I think much better value than Hock or L-N, especially on this side of the pond. Unfortunately they are 3mm thick, so some filing of the mouth is likely to be required. But this isn't as scary to do as it might at first appear!

 

[bugbear]

Ooer missus

Say hello to my new to me Stanley No. 7:


It is a post 1888, pre 1902 jointer and a lovely piece of kit if I do say so myself! Now this is not supposed to be a gloat thread as such rather a call for some advice: does anyone know where I can get my hands on a high quality, thin Stanley style iron for this plane by any chance? The iron that came with it is quite pitted, I don't have much confidence in Stanley's current offerings and all the other supposedly premium irons seem to be of the thick variety. As I sharpen freehand on oil stones I don't want to mess about with removing more material than is necessary and I have no intention of filing the mouth to fit a thicker iron anyway. Any advice of the non-sharpening variety gladly received!

Thanks in advance!

I suggest setting the frog all the way back, and measuring the mouth with feeler gauges. Then measure the blade thickness as accurately as you can.

A little maths will then tell you the thickest blade that will fit, which strikes me as a useful piece of information, at least if you want the option of fitting anything other than the exact period blade.

Alternatively, I'd just try an early (laminated) Record iron. In the UK, Record generally tends to be better stuff than Stanley.

BugBear

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Another source for 'new' irons is Ray Iles, who makes them about 50% thicker than current standards, which might well be quite close to vintage thicknesses. As BB suggests, any slight disparity should be easily accommodated by a slight frog adjustment. Ray makes them in O1, so there should be no sharpening problems, and they can be had either directly from him at The Old Tool Store, or from Matthew at Workshop Heaven.

Edit to add - Classic Hand Tools and Peter Sefton's Wood Worker's Workshop stock them, too.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

The main problem with fitting a thicker blade is that the adjuster yoke will not have the extension to reach through the blade to the chipbreaker.

I have fitted the Veritas PM-V11 blade and chipbreaker as a combination to my Stanleys. These have been excellent and require minimal set up.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[David C]

The yoke measurement needs checking carefully, but many blades such as hock will work perfectly.

Problems are more likely to occur with extra thick blades, 3.2 mm & 3.6 mm.

David

 

[Vann]

If you were set on a new one, the Quansheng irons are superb... Unfortunately they are 3mm thick, so some filing of the mouth is likely to be required...

I wouldn't file the mouth. You have beautiful plane there, built to tight tolerances. To go and hack the mouth open would be a shame (better to start with a wide-mouth plane in the first place).

Acouple or three years back, I bought a Clifton 2 5/8" iron for my Record 08. I was loath to file the mouth, so instead I had the 3.175mm thick iron surface-ground down to 2.75mm. With the even tighter mouth on your vintage Stanley, you might need to go down to 2.5mm thick, or less.

The main problem with fitting a thicker blade is that the adjuster yoke will not have the extension to reach through the blade to the chipbreaker...

He means "...the adjuster yoke MAY not have the extension to reach through the blade..." This is unlikely to be a problem with an iron at 2.5mm thick, or less. But highly likely with an iron over 3mm thick (as David says).

Cheers, Vann.

 

[Corneel]

Even when the yoke is long enough, it MIGHT put the adjuster wheel almost at the end of the threads, taking everything to the limits. A thicker blade WILL increase the backlash. It's up to the user to decide if that is a problem or not.

All the modern blades look different from the originals. It just make sense to install an old one in a very nice plane like this.

 

[Paul Chapman]

The yoke measurement needs checking carefully

Clifton do a longer Y-lever which overcomes this problem http://www.flinn-garlick-saws.co.uk/cgi ... ml#SID=454

And Workshop Heaven sell one that you can file to fit http://www.workshopheaven.com/tools/Gun ... Lever.html

Hope this helps.

Cheers :ho2

Paul

 

[Sheffield Tony]

All the modern blades look different from the originals. It just make sense to install an old one in a very nice plane like this.

+1. The other downside of installing thicker blades is that the screw that connects the lever cap to the frog can be left with not many turns of thread engaged; I found this out to my cost fitting a Clifton stay-set cap iron and blade in an old Record plane. Said Record #6 lives on with a replacement frog (thanks to a kind forum member), and currently has in it just what you need - an old 2 3/8" wide thin Stanley iron. Now if I could find an original Record one, we could all do a swap !

 

[D_W]

I'd echo the others' sentiments here about the stock irons, and finding a good one that was made either with water hardening or oil hardening steel (not sure when record made a switch, but finely milled and dull looking for stanley).

For some reason, good nearly unused irons used to be had for 10 dollars here (what's that, 6 or 7 quid?), but everything other than 2" has become more and more appreciated over time and that has resulted in higher costs. By that, I mean more people are starting to prefer stock irons in older planes, especially as people get back into using oilstones.

Anyway, I think asking on here is your best bet. If I were in the UK and I had a spare, I would spot it to you.

Love stanley planes, by the way, ever version of them from type 10 or so all the way to later than most people like them (e.g., the wartime or slightly postwar types that have the rubber covering on the adjuster).

 

[bugbear]

If I were in the UK and I had a spare, I would spot it to you.

If you were in the UK, it's unlikely you'd have a spare period blade for that plane.

Do you know how uncommon pre-WWII Stanley stuff is over here? We sometimes have to make do with Norris, or Preston!

BugBear

 

[David C]

Thanks Paul, I have just filed one of those and it had the desired result of reducing backlash from one and a half turns to 25 minutes.

Mind you it is ticklish work which needs considerable care.

Specially with the hole drilling.

I must say that I can't understand the reluctance to adjust throat width. A small job which allows the use of top quality modern blades which are readily available.

I can now confirm that my old 5 1/2 does not need adjustment for the Hock blade.

Best wishes,
David

 

[D_W]

If I were in the UK and I had a spare, I would spot it to you.

If you were in the UK, it's unlikely you'd have a spare period blade for that plane.

Do you know how uncommon pre-WWII Stanley stuff is over here? We sometimes have to make do with Norris, or Preston!

BugBear

Sounds like you guys have really suffered!! Of course, we were the open wallet for those infill planes for a while until the fad fell apart about four or five years ago.

What you may not have in stanley, you make up for in ward.

I'll have to check my iron bin, though it, too, is looking more like a bin from england than the US as I stockpile NOS irons for wooden planes.

When tool cleaning was a local fad (as in only at my address), and I was finding stanley planes cheap, I would give away all of my good stock irons with planes that I was selling. I wish I wouldn't have done that now!! At the time, I would put a hock iron in the planes I was keeping and if 3 planes had two good irons, I kept the third and sent the vintage irons out the door with the first two planes and threw away whatever basket case iron was left.

I know for certain that I have a nearly unused early type iron and cap iron pair from a transitional, but I know so little about transitionals (except that any single part that's worth having is usually worth more money than an entire plane), that I don't know if it would fit the need for the OP's plane. It is also *very* thin (but laminated), thin even for stanley standards.

I could say what pointed me back toward vintage irons being preferable for use, it's covered in another 10 page thread!