Thread: Anyone here tried the AdjuStar 2.0 vintage Stanley knob replacement from Rob Cosman?

Hi Rob

I don't have an opinion one way or another about the Adjustar. Sometime, however, I do find the slop on old planes annoying,(and on some new planes). If annoyance gets my goat, I'll pull out the yoke and with silicone bronze braze an expansion. Then file the yoke to suit tight fit and spray black. This modification brings down the slope to 1/8 of a turn or less and not visible.

A this level of slope back forth adjustments are not annoying, with the small or large diameter knobs. Also handy of one needs a longer yoke for thick blades ( but I'm generally fine with "thin" blades these days. On well tuned plane with asharp blade I can only detect a small inconsequential difference. )

Happen to have a Bakelite/ brass composite kob on one plane and quite like it for some reason only known to my internal sense of aesthetics.

As for the laminated blade I have at two of those. The blades as I understand it were made in England in the 1930's with Swedish steel. Adversitised as quicker to sharpen. Both of mine have sweetheart logo. They take keen edge. Cannot say much about durability. Do not keep track - sharpen when I feel the blades off , and try and use my variation of David Unicorn sharpening to maximise life.

Cheers M

Rob, it looks a bit 'unconventional', but I can see it might have advantages for on the go adjusting; you should be able to easily get a finger on one of the spokes and give it a tweak as you plane. However, as Martin implies, it probably requires minimal backlash in your plane's adjuster to work well or you'll be stabbing at spokes to take up the backlash. My two major work-horse planes have a couple of turns each between advance & retreat, & what's more, they are old type 11s with the small diameter knob, so adjusting on the fly with those means a good deal of finger-action & a not-too-tight cam pressure from the lever cap. At first, I found that much backlash annoying & resolved to "do something about it" but years have gone by & I've become so accustomed to them it almost never bothers me.

Laziness has its advantages.....

Cheers,

Nice fix with the backlash with brazing Martin. Ive played with re peening a worn wheel slot back towards where it first worked from and it made a difference. It was a slightly lumpy feel though. I should try the bronze braze way as well one day.
Ill save the original knob for the plane and may end up swapping it back?

I ordered two of the AdjustStar wheels today. I may give it a go on the 7 and one on a 4. Or swap to others and see where they end up.

Ian . It does look unconventional doesn't it. A bit Like a gas meter tap on a plane .
Slop should be negligible maybe as its a new wheel. Provided the channel and yoke are a good match . I watched a YT review and that bloke said the wheel was a bit stiff on the thread and he couldn't free spin it. It'll wear in I suppose.
Slop isn't my main worry but less is a lot better than more. Leverage and easy reach when I have everything done up tight is what I want to get rid of. I sometimes have things tight enough to make sure the blade stays put and I am picking up a plane and using a thumb and middle finger on the other hand coming in from both sides with the plane on its side to rapidly adjust with power. It sounds like these wheels may solve that.

There not an improvement that is probably worth what it costs ? I think Ive just run out of stuff I need to buy with tools and this looked good.

Originally Posted by auscab

Nice fix with the backlash with brazing Martin. Ive played with re peening a worn wheel slot back towards where it first worked from and it made a difference.
Slop isn't my main worry but less is a lot better than more. Leverage and easy reach when I have everything done up tight is what I want to get rid of. I sometimes have things tight enough to make sure the blade stays put and I am picking up a plane and using a thumb and middle finger on the other hand coming in from both sides with the plane on its side to rapidly adjust with power. It sounds like these wheels may solve that.

There not an improvement that is probably worth what it costs ? I think Ive just run out of stuff I need to buy with tools and this looked good.

Leverage, the adjustar will provide.
- Tend to set my plane's so the advance will move with single finger. The frogs are flattened and a tad of wax to keep things reasonable tight, but still able to adjust. I have used the planes of others and did notice they where hard to adjust - if mine where that tight, the depth adjuster would be an annoyance,


Selling coal to Newcastle, I guess, but a moment on a lathe with file will sort the lumpiness.

Also Stanley used the star style depth adjuster in the No 72 chamfer plane but it never was added to other models -SOLD i56 Antique STANLEY USA No. 72 chamfer PLANE & 2x attachments
– Vintage Tool Shop Pty Ltd


Lastly - trying to reform from acquiring tools, but it aways a shaky premise.

Cheers

Originally Posted by MartinCH

Also Stanley used the star style depth adjuster in the No 72 chamfer plane but it never was added to other models -SOLD i56 Antique STANLEY USA No. 72 chamfer PLANE & 2x attachments
– Vintage Tool Shop Pty Ltd

That's cool. They did too. I'm sure Ive seen that before but I'm not trying to remember all the stuff Ive seen any more.
That's my excuse anyway. .

Ive got one of those chamfer planes in a tool box. Not sure if it has that style of knob on it though. Ill have to go look.
Ive never had a use for it either. Time to sell stuff off is coming.

I bought a Cosmanised Woodriver 5.5 with the adjuststar. That was prior to covid and the plane with postage was the same cost as buying a standard Woodriver in Aust, not that there was any stock here at the time. I’m getting on in age and find the adjustar a breeze to use.

How tight a lever-cap needs to be is a good subject for discussion. It's a bit of a moveable feast, imo, given the number of variables in a plane, especially old & well-used examples, plus the type of planing you're doing (heavy or light, soft or hard woods, etc.).

With the Baily mechanism, besides the yoke/thumbwheel fit, there are two other areas that need to be 'right' for smooth adjustment and minimal backlash & it took me a long time to figure this out. I know, I'm a slow learner, but my excuse is that the problems occurred with planes that had probably had multiple owners before me and blades & cap-irons replaced, and I didn't suspect those parts of the equation in my ignorance.

The most obvious thing that can cause trouble is the position & fit of the cam slot in the cap-iron & this has been discussed several times before. If the CI slot is severely worn, or it's not the proper CI for the plane & even slightly north or south of its optimum position, the cam may be working at the extremes of its range where it has less mechanical advantage. As well as creating a lot of backlash, it can cause the adjustment to be stiff, & in the worst case you may not be able to advance/retract the blade adequately. Poor fit of the cam in the CI slot is also the more common cause of excessive backlash in my experience; sloppiness in the yoke/thumbwheel slot certainly contributes, but it's on the 'long' end of the lever, about 4x the length of the cam end so it takes about 4 times the amount of slop to cause the same amount of backlash as cam slop. And btw, there has to be some pretty generous clearance for the cam in its slot. You have a round peg rotating in a square hole & if you make things too tight, you can have a very stiff adjuster (damhik!).

The other area which I've only fully appreciated since I started making my own cap-irons, is the curve on the cap-iron where the lever-cap bears on it. Where the lever-cap meets the curve, it needs to have a flattish radius with the toe positioned on the curve such that that moving the blade up or down a mm from the neutral point doesn't loosen or tighten it significantly. The design of the Bailey CI is no accident, the curve is there not only to bring the edge against the back of the blade but to act as a spring that maintains sufficient pressure on the blade assembly as the toe of the LC slides fore and aft from the high point (in fact the curve is usually a bit flattened or worn at this point on old planes which helps the pressure to remain fairly constant). If the LC is a bit tighter than necessary & not a good fit so that it's bearing on the 'front' of the curve, you will need to apply more force to advance the blade - it can add considerably to the effort required.

When everything is just as Mr. Bailey intended, the adjustment works smoothly & easily yet the blade is held sufficiently firmly for most purposes, but it doesn't take much wrong with any of the critical areas to throw things off. I try to get my planes set up with lever-cap pressure that allows easy adjustment but sufficient to hold the blade for light planing, even if the yoke cam is not firmly advanced against the CI slot. At school we were taught to always have the thumbwheel 'forward' to help hold the setting, a rule I observe about half the time (I've lost the habit of automatically spinning the wheel forward over the last decade or so, possibly because I have so many planes without screw adjusters), but rarely have a setting slip on my Baileys.

Mind you, in consideration of my waning stamina I don't plane as enthusiastically or take off as much per pass as I once did......

Cheers,

Hi All

Yup Cap irons are pretty fiddly. Have rebent a number as the shape they arrived in was nothing like what is present by Mr Bailey, But this ia whole another story

For a moment there I has a though that maybe I need adjustars , so I could tighten the screws. But then reality hit me that I got often if ever have planes loses settings
I of then to keep the yoke in the forward mode, one of the reasons the yoke was tuned in a few key planes to minimise backlash. My usual approach is to to withdraw full and slowly advance only forward- mostly, ?/(rules are made get broken )


Cheers M

These arrived today .
One went straight on my Bedrock 7. It fits well. Its loose on the thread so it spins with a flick of the finger and the larger diameter compared to the standard wheel probably helps get it to the other end of any backlash just a tad more effectively.


One finger adjustment of the blade is nice and easy. Better than the, only just make it with finger tips , wheel.
Im keeping the wheel close though as I may try the new one on other planes to see where I like it the most . So the old wheel is screwed to the shelf under where the BR7 lives.





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Looks a bit "retro", but anything that makes life easier has to be a good thing..

The adjustment on my 5 1/2 was really tight when I first got it & the small thumbwheel didn't improve matters. The original cap-iron & lever cap were missing when I got it & the replacement I found turned out not to be a good fit, the yoke was working at the extremes of its travel, which added to the stiffness. A better-fitting CI and plenty of use have made a world of difference, but had these Adjustars been around a decade or so back, I think I would have tried one myself.
Cheers,

Ian. We have spoken on the forum of the Tap that's available for the Stanley planes that will put a thread on the Tote rod or front knob rod if you want to do it yourself.

Edit . Mistake . You know what I meant guys.
The tap for the cast iron bed not the rods .

Has the LH tap for the wheel screw or the wheel been discussed on forum? Or are they seen in the market place as well?


I was just wondering while waiting for these to arrive what one could do with some brass making a DIY version of the star adjuster.
Doing the threads is the tricky bit of course.
Rob.

Rob,

tap hereInformation


PS, happy to be a tester of Rob's zero slop depth adjuster- but I am sure there're other volunteers on the forum.

Cheers

Originally Posted by IanW

Rob, it looks a bit 'unconventional', but I can see it might have advantages ...

Bet that is what the guys with wooden planes said in 1855 when Mr Bailey started producing metal planes.

Originally Posted by auscab

These arrived today .

Reece Plumbing have bathroom tap handles that look like that.

Martin, how do you blokes find things so easily?! I've searched for the darn things numerous times in the past & only ever found them at eye-watering prices. It's possibly not made to moon-rocket tolerances at that price, but probably plenty good enough for a plane thumb-wheel. It isn't something that is needed often, but could be very handy at times - think I might indulge myself...
Thanks!