Thread: Machining a plane flat and square

I joined in on a plane tuning workshop a few years ago. It was run by Chris Vesper at his shop and we had Chris Swarzts helping out too. We all did the sandpaper flattening then had the surface ground back and sides. Machined any components that needed remedial work. Great fun. I did a Miller Falls #6 equivalent, I forget the model now.
Can't help with your local though.

Originally Posted by Theodor

I am wondering if anyone has taken an old Iron plane to a machinist to have it flatten and squared? I haven't required any of my planes to be square (other than for the shooting board, but I have a LV LA plane for that). Using a square on most of my planes shows they're pretty good anyway. Except...My Stanley No. 7 is now ready for another tuning. It's probably gone around the world twice now, seen a lot of use and I suspect it's been dropped on it's side when I've lent it to mates. One side is out several mm. So the No. 7 could actually do with the sandpaper flattening again, plus trying to fix the side.Before I set myself up, I am interested if anyone has tried getting their plane sides squared up by a machinist. I'd get it professionally flattened at the same time too.If so, can anyone recommend a machinist around the North-west side of Parramatta?Thanks in advance,Mark

That's not 'out', that's broken.

I've seen a #5 Stanley that was trued in a engineering shop, they ground a few mm off the cheeks so it would flat sit in a vise.

I'll be very interested in the replies to this thread. Milling a plane sole flat is one of my 'secret ' ambitions.

It has been discussed before ... maybe it was in the metalwork forum.
I'm pretty sure there was some x-over to here.

Paul

Philip Marcou started off refurbishing Stanley planes and used a surface grinder on bottom and sides: http://www.marcouplanes.com/Marcou_P...cellaneous.php

I was maybe thinking of this thread .... https://www.woodworkforums.com/f65/scraping-clifton-5-hand-plane-153138

Originally Posted by kevjed

I joined in on a plane tuning workshop a few years ago. It was run by Chris Vesper at his shop and we had Chris Swarzts helping out too. We all did the sandpaper flattening then had the surface ground back and sides. Machined any components that needed remedial work. Great fun. I did a Miller Falls #6 equivalent, I forget the model now.
Can't help with your local though.

I wondered if Chris Vesper may have offered such a service. Maybe it would be a good excuse to visit his shop.

I'd also seen the scraping of the Clifton. However my main concern is not the flatness cause I can do that already. It's getting the plane square again.

As for Marcou's planes... /drool! But his comment about just making an old plane functional rather than worrying about patina is what I'm after too.

At the risk of sounding like Peter Sellars, I question the need for super flat or square-edged soles on most bench planes. Flat-enough does the job, as far as I'm concerned. My favourite work-horse bench plane is an old 5 1/2 I inherited from my father's shed. It's a 1920-ish model, with the relatively light body of that era (i.e., compared with the thicker castings of later models), and has just the right heft for me. It was in pretty rough shape when I acquired it, needing new woodwork (it came with half a rear tote) & a new lever cap (corner broken off the original). The sole is reasonably flat at the toe, and about 3/4 of the heel end is sort of flat. The area just in front of the mouth isn't too bad, except that there's a bit of a dip toward one edge. This makes it awkward when sighting along the sole to adjust a freshly-inserted blade; it look like the blade is protruding more on one side than it really is. I've found the easiest way to deal with it is to set the blade roughly straight, then take a few fine shavings and adjust til the shaving is full width & even.

The surprising thing about this old clunker is that with a sharp blade, it does an amazingly good imitation of a finely-tuned smoother, and will peel off full-width shavings of a thou or less with ease: old 5.jpg

I had planned to try & clean up that sole, but it does a perfectly acceptable job as-is, so I think it will be a very long time before I get around to doing anything more to it...

Cheers,

I hear what you're saying Ian. And I agree. It's just that I have lost confidence that the edge of my no. 7 jointer being square. When I hold the jointer against the wood I'm flattening, I see the few nicks from the jointer having been dropped .. then I ponder if that's the wisest way to check if I've dealt with any curves across the board. It's the easiest and a hassle to switch to another tool e.g. straight edge.

I think next weekend I'll just flatten the sole again on the sandpaper and not worry about it. it's served me well enough for the past 5 years in its present condition.