Hand Plane Restoration

Intro

I have searched for good quality hand planes for most of this cursed summer and have gotten good results - A collection of all the hand planes that a beginner could hope for. After acquiring them, I refurbished them and they transformed from ~~busted~~ rustic to the high precision instruments they were designed to be. They are serving me well and I hope for them to do so for my life.

Acquiring

New York Tools Jack Plane

Over the summer I combed my quarter of the city for garage sales, specifically looking for tools. The results are mixed, with the suburbs giving subpar kid's clothes, but the postwar areas gave superior results. The last to be fixed was the first found, a wooden jack plane for $10. After a month or two without any results I snapped it up.

The man who sold it to me told me:

My father in law made this hand plane himself while he lived in turkey. He was an excellent carpenter and made many of his tools.

I decided not to mention the faint New York Tool Co stamped onto the nose of the plane.

I wonder how many "family heirlooms" of this nature have exaggerated or entirely fabricated roots?

Cast Iron Planes

Quick Aside - On Obtaining

Despite getting several gems in garage sales over the summer I've realized that they really aren't great for when you have something specific you want. For specifics, Kijiji or the equivalent is the better option. There are some nice gems in garage sales, but many of the things to be sold, frankly, are cheap garbage. If I want kid's clothes then it's great but since that is not my area of interest it's many hours driving for bad stuff. The gems are fun, especially if the people selling the things might either not know the value or not value the piece then deals can be found, but it's not great. The flea markets I've tried as well, where you can get good to top notch curated items of diverse type, but you will pay a premium in price - the people selling them can properly appraise the value! As an example I saw an old Stanley no.4 for $60, which is about the price of a garbage quality brand new plane (I speak about that price comparison and quality assessment from experience). In this sense you're getting a fair deal, but a fair deal is not necessarily a good deal, and a whole toolkit of fair deals will fairly soon become an expense. If you have more cash than patience the flea market is a good choice, but for me with some of the latter and less of the former, I have to go with posted ads a la Kijiji.

A Lucky Break

I saw a mildly interesting ad for a transitional plane, generally considered to be not great tools, along with what looked like a jointer plane. It was $15 for one or $25 for both which wasn't bad. On Cortney and I's arrival to what turned out to be a lovely old couple, it turned out the man had in his possession a box full of old planes! As his partner talked to mine about their garden gnomes he offered to show the box to me and I obviously agreed. In it were several generic looking planes, but also an old Stanley no. 4, no. 5, which along with the jointer (apparently unmarked) would make a good set of respectively smoothing, jack, and jointer planes.

The planes were in typical condition for used planes, with a good covering of rust grime and ~~tarnish~~ patina. Other than that the only real issue was that the tote (rear handle) of the jointer had split, which could easily be fixed with wood glue. Interestingly you can see on the no. 5 plane a rectangular rust patch where perhaps the plane was placed overnight on something like a wet cloth.

On closer inspection of the jointer I noted that the iron had STS SIEGLEY stamped onto it. I later learned that this was a Canadian plane maker that was bought by Stanley. During this time Siegley produced Stanley design planes but under their own name. Based on that and a measurement of 18" it looks like this mystery jointer is essentially a Canadian-made Stanley no. 6 plane. At the time I was just happy to have finally found a jointer plane. Instead of the transitional plane, I instead got the mentioned 4,5, and 6 planes with every single cent in Cortney and I's wallets, $40 on the dot. As far as I'm concerned that's a pretty solid deal, and it came with a free friendly conversation which I'm always happy to get. Siegley plane iron with STS SIEGLEY stamped on it

Caretaking

Further Inspection

The no. 4 plane has three patents on the body of the plane, along with a smaller brass knob. The patent numbers are:

MAR - 25 - 02
AUG - 19 - 02
APR - 19 - 10

The patent numbers along with the smaller knob mean that this is a Type 11 plane, which was produced 1910-1918 and is considered one of the better models out there. view of the no4 plane patents

The no. 5 plane has S W in a heart on the iron, and the "L" in stanley is styled with the foot of the L tilting down. This identifies it as being from either 1921 or 1922. Stanley sweetheart logo on the no. 5 plane

The Siegley branded no. 6 has less information on it, so linking it to any specific design is a bit more challenging. It has a larger brass knob (the same size as the no 5.) and Siegley branding ended 1927, so early to mid 1920's is a decent time period guess.

Cleaning and Repair

As mentioned before, the Siegley plane had a broken tote which needed to be glued together. After that both the Siegley and no. 5 plane handles had chipped shellac, which I scraped and sanded off. The handle wood appears to be beech wood stained to look like rosewood. After that I applied boiled linseed oil as an easy finish. The no. 4 plane's handle coats were intact minus some paint splats. I decided to leave it as is.

All of the brass components were scrubbed with a fine steel wool. This removed all the grime and improved the lustre somewhat. I didn't scrub them very hard though since I didn't want to damage the soft brass, and I like the aged but well tended look.

The plane bodies got a good scrub with a bristle brush to get the loose rust and grime off. All the sharp edges were lightly filed, both to make them more comfortable and to remove any rust. I procured a perfectly flat tile which I attached p150 grit sandpaper on. I covered the bottom and sides with black marker and sanded them until most of the marker rubbed off. I also rounded all the bottom-to-side edges, including from bottom to front, and bottom to back. It feels great compared to my hinted-to garbage plane.

The rest of the metal components were submerged in a bath of white vinegar and salt, making an effective rust-remove bath. Afterwards I rinsed off the vinegar and lightly scrubbed with baking soda to neutralize any remaining vinegar. This technique really needs to finish with an alcohol rub to quickly dry the metal, because I learned the hard way that they very quickly rust again when even residually wet after a cloth dry. The second wave of rust was removed with sandpaper.

All the moving components got a few drops of 3-in-1 oil as a lubricant and rust protector. The immobile ones got a light paste waxing to keep it protected. I hope that these measures, along with a sharp eye and some love, will keep these planes in good shape for many more years.

To sharpen the planes I used different grits of sandpaper attached to the dead flat tile. First 100 grit, because the plane irons were dented and chipped at the edge. After a rough bevel was established, I moved on to 150, 220, and 400 grits. I then used a kitchen wetstone at 1000 and 6000 grit to get the planes shaving sharp, with a final finish on a leather strop block.

Results

The final planes are clean, smooth, sharp, and a comfortable joy to use. They leave perfectly level surfaces, and they have minimal wood tearout even on tempermental and wavy-grained pine boards. It's said that hand plane handles only need a bit of water to keep them healthy and crack free, which a woodworker's hands can supply through regularly using them. I'm glad that they don't require the crysknife's blood tribute to become the AC unit in The Brave Little Toaster.

I used the planes to flatten my joiner's bench, and to joint together boards to make a vice face for said bench. I've also used them on a family cutting board to remove all the knife marks. Finally, I used them to flatten the bottom of the wooden plane. Once that plane is finished I will talk about it as well.