Thread: New and old treasures

I don't think it's a bedrock Steve (but it'll still make for a good plane), as for the blade, either of the two you mentioned or a Hock will be better than the original. I'm waiting on a package from Lee Valley that contains two Hock blades (and a few other goodies) and can't wait to test them out.
I think the bare cast iron look has a lot going for it. I just applied the same treatment to a Timbecon vise to get rid of that hideous orange paint and the result looks pretty good.

Definitely not a Bedrock - a standard Bailey type frog for sure (as announced on the front of the casting). Bedrocks have quite different numbers for the same sizes. What you've got is still a venerable old tool which should be capable of providing all the perfomance you'd ever want from a jointer.....

I'd just clean it up, sharpen the blade, and put it to work, and get a better blade later, unless the one in it is pitted on the back, or too worn down. I use roughly 25 and 30 for my bevels, but note that I work mostly with 'easy' hardwoods like Maple and Silky Oak. If you were to use 30 as your primary bevel, then another 5 or so for your secondary bevel, on a 45 degree bed, you have a 10 degree clearance angle. That's probably heaps for hard woods like Jarrah, but is getting a bit low for softer woods like cedar and pine. (As a blade dulls in use, it tends to compress the fibres more, reducing the effective clearance angle - softer woods compress more, which partly explains the paradox of why softer woods need sharper blades to plane cleanly).

I've got both Hock and LV blades, and both are excellent. The Hock HCS blade in my #7 does a very good job for me. At the moment, I reckon LV A2 blades are the best bang for buck around. Take a bit more sharpening effort than the Hock, but hold their edge a bit longer. I imagine the Hock A2 blades would be indistinguishable from LV's all else being equal, but they ain't cheap.

Cheers,

I have the exact same plane and I'm still using the original blade. I don't like micro angles on blades, so I have mine at 25 deg works a treat.

Steve

I've just finished cleaning up a very rusty $10 junker (No4 Stanley) using electrolysis. All rust was removed and the bare cast iron came up a nice dull grey colour. The electrolysis loosens the japanning as well so it is easy to scrape off.

My electrolysis set up consisted of a battery charger, 10l paint bucket filled with 200g of bicarbonate of soda and 10l of water. Red lead connected to a strip of stainless steel, black lead to plane body, suspend both in the paint bucket and Voila, rust gone.

It takes a while (4 or 5 hours ) and for a large plane you would need to do it in 2 goes (or get a bigger bucket)

If you don't like the idea of electrolysis, I have also had good results using citric acid. You can buy small tubs in the cooking section of the supermarket. I used I tub (probably about 50g) in a 2l icecream tub for cleaning up small parts. Remarkably effective for something made from household ingredients. It is also a very weak acid solution (no qualms about getting on hands unlike nitric or other acids)

John

To finish the plane of, I thought about using original japanning recipes but it was just too hard. Ended up using gloss black enamel (the kind especially formulated for protecting metal) It come up a treat.

John

Heathens - have you not heard of 'patina'? That old plane has been around for ages, have some respec'!:mad:

Jokes aside, it looks like all you'd need is a good scrub with detergent, as there doesn't appear to be much rust? Otherwise electrolysis is the go - easy as.

IMHO re-finishing these venerable workers never looks as good as a carefully cleaned 'original'. Check out this article from the 'best of the best', to see what I mean:

http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...ead.php?t=8243

I have the same #7C - it has the SW bi-metal blade, which seems to hold a 25deg plus 2deg secondary bevel for ages. Wonderful plane that needed very little fettling, I love the noise it makes.

Best way to clean your old Stanley is to remove all the wood and put aside. Disassemble the rest completely and get a big plastic container and fill it with water and half a packet of bi-carb soda. Then get a battery charger and connect positive to one end of a metal rod and negative to the other (its DC so its safe) then place all in the container (keep all parts seperat and not just dumped wily nily) and turn it on. (Keep your hands out…lol) about 2 hours will be fine and you wont believe your eyes. Like magic you will have a beaut new clean plane… Strangely enough Mithbusters last night had a similar method on corroding bars to break out of jail