Thread: How old is this Bedrock plane?

Not an expert by any means but I do enjoy researching and trying to date old Stanleys. Here are two websites that can assist with dating your plane, Patricks Blood & Gore and RexMill

I would say it is a Type 14 or possibly 15, made between 1929 and 1932. The RexMill type study concentrates more on the standard bench planes than the Bedrocks but a lot of the changes were made for the same years such as the raised ring holding the front knob (type 14).

The best way to replace the lateral adjustment lever and wooden parts would be to track down a donor 5 and just steal them. Any pre WWII will do, even the early type 16’s with their ogee shaped frog shoulders still used rosewood for the handles and knobs.

Originally Posted by Dengue

This Bedrock 605 plane was recently handed down to me from my late father in law.

is it a Stanley plane?

Yes, without doubt.

Originally Posted by Dengue

...Would anyone have any idea how old it is?...

It looks to me that the main casting is type 5, type 6 or type 6a (kindly note these 'types' bear no relationship to the Stanley Bailey types) dating it anywhere from 1911 to 1922. However, the lever cap has "Stanley" on it, and that came out on Bedrock planes from type 7 in 1923. That lever cap could have been sourced from a later Stanley Bedrock or any of many Stanley Bailey planes. But assuming that the lever cap is original to this plane then it would have been a transitional plane with one of the last type 6a (1922) bodies and one of the first type 7 lever caps.

The diameter of the brass wheel increased to 1 1/4" diameter with the type 6a in 1922 - but once again it could have come from another plane. If it is 1 1/4" diameter, that reinforces the theory it may be one of the last type 6a/1st type 7 Stanley Bedrocks.

The cutting iron is a much later English Stanley replacement.

Originally Posted by Dengue

...It obviously needs a new wooden handle, screws and a blade adjuster. Where would be the best place to get these parts?

You could make your own wooden tote and knob (we are woodworkers after all) but the steel rods and nuts have unique threads. Your best bet is a beaten up, or incomplete, second-hand Stanley Bailey No.4.5, No. 5, No.5.5, No.6 or No.7 for parts (the totes on the smaller Stanleys are different).

Originally Posted by Dengue

...Is there a plane expert on the Forum, like Doggie and his Titan chisels?..

Nope. I just consulted this website: Stanley Bed Rock Plane Types - Bob Kaune - Antique & Used Tools

Cheers, Vann.

Edit. p.s. Nice plane, and worth the effort to get it complete and taking shavings.
pps. I just read Chief Tiff's reply. That Rex Mill website is a really great site - but it applies to Stanley Bailey planes only, not Stanley Bedrock planes.

Thanks for these posts, Chief and vann, very much appreciated.

Would this plane be British with Imperial threads, or US made? It is obviously a US Patent No

The diameter of the brass wheel is a 0.98"

Thanks for that link Vann, I didn’t know anybody had done a type study of the Bedrocks so that’s todays thing to learn!

It’s interesting to see that Bedrock type 5’s had both the tall knob and a “receiving ring” in the base, both of these introduced in the 1911 while the tall knob wasn’t fitted to the standard bailey range until 1919 and the ring not for another 10 years afterwards. Seeing that ring on the base in Michaels photos immediately had me assuming it was the same cupped receiver, hence why I picked the later date range. Looking further it appears the Bedrock ring did nothing except raise the knob off the bed, the knob was still flat bottomed and it wasn’t until the type 8 that the ring became “cupped” with the knob given tapered sides to fit into it. The date of this mod appears to align roughly with the Bailey type 14.

I'd be looking for a bit of Rosewood to make a new handle, meself, but the suggestion to look for a beat-up pre-WW2 plane which has the toe-screwed type of tote would provide a more 'genuine' part, as well as donating the stud & toe-screw. Trouble is, most planes earmarked for canabalising have pretty damaged woodwork, as a rule. The screws can be obtained from various sources (until recently, at least, you could get them from Stanley Australia at very reasonable cost - check with your local friendly hardware store proprietor if they are still available), but failing that, Jim Davey & Hans Brunner both carry some spares.

I've made a couple of lateral adjusters, it's not that hard (here's a 'how to') , but I suppose it would be nice to have a genuine Stanley part. You can also live without a lateral adjuster, as they did pre-1885.

Dating indicators are helpful, but notoriously unreliable due to Stanley's penchant for using up old stock well into new-model runs. The depth-adjuster thumbwheel looks suspiciously like the smaller version to me, making it pre-1922. I have one on my ~1918 #5.5. They are better at keeping out of the way of your fingers, but harder to move if the thread is stiff, so make sure the thread is clean & given a squirt of dry-lube.

I concur with Vann - it looks to be in very good shape apart from its missing bits & should more than repay the effort to restore it well....

Cheers,

thanks for this info ianW, much appreciated. Which Rosewood is the most suited ( there are so many of them) and where would be the best place to get some in sizes to make a tote and a knob ?

Originally Posted by Dengue

...Would this plane be British with Imperial threads, or US made? It is obviously a US Patent No...

Stanley Bedrocks were only ever made in USA. Stanley USA stopped making Bedrock planes just 6 years after starting up in England, so I guess it wasn't worth setting up to do a about-to-be-discontinued line. Other bench planes Stanley in England never made include the Bailey No.1, No.2 and No.8.

As for the threads - well therein lays a long story. When Leonard Bailey started making planes, there were no standards as we know them today. A manufacturer would pick a thread diameter, and then decide how many threads per inch best suited his requirements. Eventually Whitworth introduced standards in UK. The US played around with Whitworth threads for a bit, but eventually decided on a different system - which eventually became UNC.

Meanwhile Stanley were happily making planes to Leonard Bailey's design, and saw no good reason to change to these new-fangled standards. After all, they had several decades of planes out there, and wanted to keep parts (including threaded parts) interchangeable and/or avoid the additional costs of changing. So, until the 1990s Stanley continued with their own threads. Funnily, Record (UK) in 1930s and then Falcon-Pope (Australia) in 1950s copied Stanley planes, right down to the now non-standard Stanley threads - even though Whitworth threads had been adopted as the British (and Australian) Standard, decades earlier (BSW = British Standard Whitworth).

So your plane has neither British nor American standard threads.

Originally Posted by Dengue

...The diameter of the brass wheel is a 0.98"

This would suggest that your plane is type 5 (1911) or type 6 (1912-21) and the lever cap is from a later plane, as type 5 had "Stanley Bed Rock" cast on the lever cap., while type 6 just had "Bed Rock" cast on the lever cap. However, bits get changed between planes as parts are damaged etc. so there are no guarantees. All you can be sure of is the main casting of your plane dates to between 1911 and 1922.

Cheers, Vann.

Originally Posted by Dengue

.....Which Rosewood is the most suited ( there are so many of them) and where would be the best place to get some in sizes to make a tote and a knob ?....

You're not wrong, China! Searching for "Rosewood for sale, Aust." brings up lots of Dysoxylon (Scented R'wood) and Pterocarpus (N.G. R'wood) neither of which is remotely like the Rosewood that was used on planes before WW2. You need a species of Dalbergia, of which there are many, the genus ranges from Africa (African blackwood, beloved of bagpipe makers) hrough India, Asia and the Americas. I could be wrong, but I think we're the only continent that misses out on having any.

The Brazilian Rosewood that they used for plane handles & many,many other purposes was so depleted, it cannot be exported in raw form any more. There are still bits of it around, bought legally before the CITES ban (I have a coupe of bits, each about the size of a domino piece, which won't do you any good, I'm afraid)but hard to locate. You can still buy similar species legally, sourced from Asia & central America, and suppliers to instrument makers would probably be your best bet, though you may need to look offshore. Maybe someone else knows where you could buy a bit big enough for a tote? The front knob should already be R'wood if it's original.

If you fail to get any Dalbergia of some sort, there are a few local woods that make excellent handles. Western Myall (Acacia pendula) has a very dark heartwood, and some could pass for aged Rosewood if you didn't peer too closely, The Solomon Island "Ebony" I used for the panel plane I just finished is excellent handle material, but it is more brownish-black where the original Rosewood handles are a purplish black.

You are spoilt for choice unless you want the real thing!

Cheers,

From the Patent dates 1895 and 1910 it would be 1910,1911 or 1912 manufacture.
The Patent lasted 17 years.
Ie 1895 plus 17 is the latest as the date was removed after the Patent ran out.
The earliest is 1910 obviously.
I used to be into collecting these these planes and other Stanley stuff but sold about a hundred items to help finance the Reno on our house.
Bob Kaune visited us here in Sydney in 96 or so.
H.

Originally Posted by Dengue

It obviously needs a new wooden handle, screws and a blade adjuster. Where would be the best place to get these parts?



P1010768 Large.jpg

Taking a close look at your front knob there Dengy . Id say that looks like a later addition as well . It doesnt look like the Normal BRW/ Rosewood and it has traces of chipped lacquer remaining by the looks . Which is how the later Beech English ones look . You may want to consider a set of two if you can find one on Ebay. Take some better pics of your knob if you can .

These turn up in the US and not so much here as parts . I think Cites rules may now make bringing in such things impossible though ?

Does anyone know If vintage planes from the US with BRW are being stopped ? Or The same for BRW plane parts ?


This is the sort of thing found on US Ebay . Its off a 6 and the date or style may be wrong , I'm not sure , it looks older maybe . And its got a break with a piece gone .
Stanley Bailey # 6 Tote & Knob Handle Plane PARTS + Attachment Bolts & Brass Nut | eBay

Well spotted auscab. I dug out the old tote and knob today, had them in a box buried in a cupboard from 2013, meaning to get around to replacing them. amazing what the memory forgets and then digs up.
I now recall replacing the knob as the original was well and truly damaged and painful to grip. I then continued using the plane until the tote foot snapped, probably took it off to clean the body, and buggered it putting it back on. I then went chasing for a tote and could not find one, so put the plane away, and it has been in a drawer for at least 5 years. Doesn’t time fly.

Thanks to the encouragement of IanW and Vann above, I decided to restore the Bedrock 605 plane that belonged to my wife's grandfather (born 1880) who was a carpenter/ joiner.

Here are the steps I took to restore it. Mind you, it was pretty badly battered, with the handles un-usable and there were nail scratch marks along the base etc.

1. Flattened the base using sheets of wet and dry fixed to a sheet of plate glass. Many hours of work to get rid of the scratch marks and flatten the base. Still not as flat or as highly polished as I would like. One day maybe when my shoulders and neck recover.

2. Sandblasted the inside of the body and the sliding frog to get rid of rust and dirt. I spray coated the blasted surfaces with Tectyl 506 heavy duty rust preventative immediately the plane came out of the sand blasting cabinet, as rust forms within minutes on freshly prepared bare metal. A couple of months later it was a fair bugger to remove. The manufacturer recommended soaking in water and a strong detergent, but that did not work. In the end I bought a couple of spray cans of heavy duty automotive degreaser, and that worked a treat.

3. Coated the inside of the body and frog with spray-on etching primer and then epoxy paint, but not the mating machined surfaces

4. I had some Ebony from the Solomon Islands, and a master craftsman (IanW) offered to make me a new knob and tote ( front and rear handles). I really appreciated this beautiful work that IanW did, the knob and tote are beautiful to feel and are very comfortable to work with. What a great Forum this is !!

5. IanW also replaced the lateral adjustment lever which moves the blade so that you can get it sitting square in the mouth of the body. I was not game to rivet on 100 year old cast iron. The original adjuster was long gone, as you can see from the original photos posted earlier in this thread.

6. Replaced the old Stanley blade and cap iron with the latest, top of the line Veritas PMV-11 plane blade and cap iron. Expensive, but they make a big difference. I ground and polished the bevel on these, finishing with an 8000 grit waterstone. They are razor sharp and these PMV-11 blades retain their edge for a long time. The backs of these blades are machined so accurately that they do not need flattening!! As I found out much later after using the 8000 waterstone

7. Replaced the chewed up old brass depth adjustment wheel with an original, polished the brass to a nice shine. The wheel has a backlash of a couple of turns before engaging the blade in the opposite direction, not bad for a 100 year old plane

8. I did a test on some 45mm wide pine, and the full width shaving was measured at 0.11mm thick. I am sure I can get that finer with that new blade, but why would I bother

I would liked to have brass plated some of the screws on the body of the plane, which are adjacent to the brass depth adjustment wheel. That would go well with the ebony timber and black epoxy, but there is no local plating works and I am very wary of losing 100 year old irreplaceable fittings in the post.

Anyway, that plane is now ready to be pressed into service. My wife and her siblings are very happy to see it back at work, and regard it as a beautiful family heirloom

Lovely job. The tote and knob look spectacular.

It's always good to see an old tool back in service.

Mick.

Dengue

That has come up so well

Regards
Paul