you'll never guess why my early record 8 is hard adjusting

[D_W]

Here's my Woden W4 with the lever cap pressing down on the cap iron below the hump. The distance between the bottom of the keyhole to the bottom of the lever cap is a bit less than 1.5".

if you make it over here before I end up selling this thing, you can give the knob a whirl. It's bizarre.

I don't know that i've ever taken the frog off before, but the footing of the frog is a little uneven, too. I say that with a chuckle - only a small part of the right foot is machined and the others still has paint on it. Just not made with much care overall.

the type 20 jointer that you may have seen laying around is also not made with too much care, I guess, but it's just about perfectly made aside from slight lack of care in finish bits like the coarse scratches on the frog.

Can't remember if I took the frog off of that one now, head foggy from a day of work. But It may not have looked that great on the contact points - they all seem to work fine from that respect, record or stanley, so looking at them is sort of like standing in front of a mirror and bending over. If nothing is malfunctioning, why ever look.

 

[raffo]

The iron is easy to retract, but advancing it requires more force. I swapped out the lever cap with an Stanley one and the effort needed to advance the iron is lower. The lower end of the Stanley lever cap sits at the top, even a little behind, of the cap iron hump.

 

[essexalan]

Same problem mentioned in one of David Charlesworth's books. Different lever cap or chipbreaker, manufacturing problem at the factory. His fix was to go for the flat type chipbreaker that personally I am not fond of. Machining the underside of the lever cap so that it is parallel to the iron when tightened down should fix it I would have thought.

 

[raffo]

After a bit of thought, the distance that matters is the one between the top of the keyhole and the bottom edge of the lever cap. In my case, the Woden LC measures 2.3" and the Stanley one measures 2.15".

 

[D_W]

After a bit of thought, the distance that matters is the one between the top of the keyhole and the bottom edge of the lever cap. In my case, the Woden LC measures 2.3" and the Stanley one measures 2.15".

Suggesting in this case that the frogs are proportionally shorter, maybe, on a slightly narrower plane.

if they weren't, we'd probably think they look funny.

I think in the case of my plane, record just didn't do a great job of matching the parts properly.

A nod to the mention above - DC liked the flat cap irons. When I told him that they weren't as good, he did get upset with me because of my ultimate explanation about why I wasn't going to be swayed to agree with him.

In short, for a plane like this, the feel is lost for no gain in function. If I were to keep it, I'd rather have the feel meet its potential - i'd have ground the inside crisp lip off yesterday.

I don't think I have any other 8 lever caps to try on this plane.

The "new" stanley reappeared on the USPS radar, the seller by chance lives only about 45 minutes away. It looks like the delivery will be about 5 or 6 days for priority mail

Still a chance that something isn't right on it. If that's the case, I will complete the job on the record and forget about replacing it with a late stanley.

 

[D_W]

The saga continues. Ok, it's a letdown as far as sagas go, it's just swapping out a plane.

I finished tarting up the record 8 over lunch so that I can sell it. I also reinstalled the original iron, and I ground off the bottom lip of the lever cap as a courtesy to the next person using it.

I didn't test to see if I moved the cap iron far from the edge if that would also alleviate the adjustment issue but even with the lip ground off, the iron is still hard adjusting forward, easy backward. It's still getting "held back" by the lever cap unless it's set in not all the way down on the frog screw, which is dippy.

Whatever. I now have another 8 lever cap to see if it's the lever cap itself, which has more of a hook shape than the flatter stanley lever cap. I'll do that shortly now that it's lunch.

That leads me to why I like to get later planes, or one of the reasons. I thought the plane that I bought would have a later frog design. That turned out not to be the case (OK). I don't remember the type - I think it's 13 based on the charts.

The knob looked spiffy = someone cleaned all of the finish off and waxed it. The handle looked really vintage which threw me off and guess what.

..no go. Doesn't fit the plane. which is OK, I have another handle that I made that fits, but makes it clear that the seller is just replacing bits and he must've cobbled things together for pictures or taken pictures that wouldn't show the handle doesn't fit.

I'll find the handle type - it's an older stanley, and someone on ebay will give coin for it.

the frog screws don't appear to be original - they just barely reach, and one spins (which was temporarily horrifying). It's only the first thread, and fishing longer stanley screws out of my deceased plane parts bin solved that.

The sole looked pretty flat, the iron is about 1/3rd used, but the sole itself shows the original milling marks (not a clean up) with no significant wear or scratches. I have a feeling that the cap iron and iron (which are nice) are from another plane. But with some luck, they actually are sweetheart types.

Removing the "low toe" took very little time because it was really just the toe and 10 or 15 minutes of initial work and the plane is <feeler flatness (but close in spots) until the last 1/4th of its length, and then the heel is quite high. This isn't so much a problem, but when it's several multiples of the feeler, it can be a little bit of an inconvenience for really close tolerance match planing. I'll live with it.

...

compare this to the type 20 that I set up a couple of weeks ago, which took a little bit of flattening, had no questionable parts and was flatter as new.

...

But.....is the new frankenstanley that the seller stuck me on easy adjusting? yes. it is. I could file the center out of the sole and make the whole thing dead flat end to end, but that would have to be for sport and ...well, no later buyer would ever think "parts plane, kind of junky, mismatches and nonoriginal parts. really flat".

Would be like a Vega with a fresh alignment.

 

[D_W]

last comment - it's the record lever cap. I may have a chance to take a picture tonight.

Putting the stanley lever cap on the record plane completely alleviates the adjstment issues.

And to add to that, I also found what I think is a 2 1/2" wide ohio tool lever cap (copy of an early stanley style). It also fits the record 8 without issue, and the plane adjusts well with it.

The "hook" shape of the record lever cap is so much more drastic than the stanley that I'd go so far as to call it a defective design. Not sure what they were going for when two other lever caps go just as far down on the cap iron hump but the plane works and adjusts 100 times better with the non-original versions.

I can at least pass along the ohio tool lever cap with the plane when I dump it on ebay.

 

[D_W]

Closing the loop. The difference between an A and a F minus. Record is on the right.

I don't know what they were thinking with that short hard lip.

Stanley on the left is in the sweetheart run, so it's not cost cut. The Ohio lever cap has an identical profile, but it's probably just a dead copy of the Stanley, anyway.

 

[aet1]

I've had this plane for a while, it wasn't that flat when I got it and I've created some work for myself by not finishing a flattening job and then not remembering that I sort of left it half done.

But what has always perplexed me is just how hard it is to get the thing to move forward on adjustment but it goes back fine...

you ready?.....wait for it..

...the lever cap is too long. The end of the lever cap goes over the stock cap iron and it's literally like putting your fingers over a curve and holding it back.

This is an interesting problem because the cheap mex stanley has a cap iron that's too short and it won't hold the cap down properly.

I figured this out only because I'm prepping the record 8 to sell it and at least doing a decent job of flattening it so it's usable, and I noticed just how far over the cap iron hump the lever cap goes.

Bizarre!!!!

Also not really fixable for me, though I could make a different type of cap for it (one could always buy one of the modern flat ones, too).

This issue with adjustability is what triggered me to bid on later stanley 8s until I got a regular auction "win" (ebay's really the winner in these things these days, but whatever).

Can't believe it. I waxed the face of the frog and did all kinds of nonsense to no avail. No wonder.

It will be after you sell it you will find one of your other planes has a cap that is too short ...

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

David, I have not read all the comments, but can you not just grind a little off the end of the lever cap? There appears to be enough meat there to do so.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[AlanWS]

I wonder if that lip was intended to be machined off to fit during manufacture, so this is a defect that wasn’t. I’m always suspicious of old planes that look unused. Frequently there’s a reason.

 

[Vann]

You haven't said how early that Record is (what type). The first 'type' (1931-1939) are reputedly the best, even having nickled frog screws.

Maybe it's a "warfinish" (2nd type, 1939-1945), with less detail in the finish? Although I have a "warfinish" No.04ss, and it's very nicely made.

Record did have shorter and longer lever caps, but the longer caps were for the standard (Stanley clones), while the "SS" lever caps were slightly shorter (opposite to your problem) so that the tip would land in the centre of the SS "deflector" (the loose bit that falls onto the floor when the unwary take the irons out).

Sorry, I'm not much help, but thought I'd add a little background info.

Cheers, Vann.