Thread: Rusted in Screws in No6 Plane

My suggestion would be:

• strip as many parts of the plane off as you can remove without damaging the slots on the screws first. Be gentle here, you don't want to widen the slots or damage them. If there are any screws/threads that are recalcitrant just leave them.
• go to one of those stores that sells to car restorers and buy some penetrating oil. I have a big bottle of "penetrene" in my shed and find it useful for this situation, I've also used "Liquid Wrench" and found it good. Both are more expensive than WD40 (which I also have in bulk ), however, in my experience the former are more effective at loosening bound up threads. Don't bother with the aerosol stuff, it's just more expensive for less volume of the product.
• follow the instructions on the packets. I've found that it's almost always better to put more coats of the penetrating liquid on the thread and leave it longer rather than trying to do the minimum. This is where an extra dollop of patience can help.
• clean the slot(s)in your screw(s)before trying to remove, I've slipped a few times and either damaged things or scun my knuckles

This should loosen 90% of rusted in screws. If they don't come out you can, using an old screwdriver, tap the screw lightly with a hammer (note lightly, grey iron castings are brittle) and put on another coat of penetrating liquid leaving it for another day.

If this fails you can use heat:

• give the plane a bit of a clean up and bake it in the oven at about 200 degrees
• wearing welding gloves pull it out while still hot and the screws should come loose (probably best to do this while those members of the household yet to be fully enlightened about the importance of old tools are out shopping!)

Don't you hate it when "Good condition" means "not broken"?

For the frog screws, apply CRC or whatever penetrating oil is to hand and leave the offending item on a sunny windowsill in the shed for a few hours. That usually works for me.

And patience. That's essential.

I replace all my knobs with the old low-knob style, HM., so I've got a couple of spare originals kicking about, & pretty sure I can find one suitable for a #6. Let me know if you need it & it's yours......

Cheers,

The citric acid and hot water will remove a lot of the rust so that may do the trick all by itself...if not the oil will be the way to go - I've found that in cases the Wd40 doesn't work (rare) then lemon oil (which I use for polishing my acoustic guitar) will do the trick because it's very thin and gets right into the part.