Thread: Hairy Oak Handles

Hi all. The plane is finished and ready for the big reveal!! Cleaning off the rust revealed a laminated Stanley blade (which might be even better than an original). Apparently, these were made in England and mostly shipped back to the US (according to none other than Paul Sellars). Mine is heavily pitted but clean enough at the tip. Interestingly, the bed casting is at a different (shallower, thank goodness) angle than the frog, so frog has been moved forward to accommodate - which improved the depth adjustment process. However, I am going to have to adjust for the thread (clockwise to retract and anti-clockwise to take deeper cuts). I have also included a couple of family shots (my other Sargent, not the wife and kids [emoji3]). My 409 still has the original woodwork, East Indian Mahogany. Fresh paper but no shavings.

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Hi MA

With those Hairy Oak handles I do think that Sargents back to VBM standard (Very best Made!) .

Cheers M

Thanks, Martin. They have come up a treat. I do think that VBM seems somewhat arrogant, but who would be interested in the "they're alright but nothing too special" brand? In use, it seems quite a small plane, and I don't have particularly large hands, but it is more comfortable to have 2 fingers pointing forward.

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Love the look of the front knob. Great job!

Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

..... In use, it seems quite a small plane, and I don't have particularly large hands, but it is more comfortable to have 2 fingers pointing forward.....

It's not a straight-on shot so I may be seeing an optical delusion, but it looks like the Hairy-oak handle is closer to the frog than the handle of the 409 - is that the case, or am I seeing things? Patrick Leach gives a range of body-lengths for some of Stanley's planes, they can vary by a half-inch or so from shortest to longest. I wonder if Sargents also varied with the years?

The type 11 #4 I have also has barely enough room between handle & frog for my medium-small hand. It could be my replacement handle is leaning a bit too far forward, but it's a pretty faithful copy of an old Stanley tote so it can't be too far off original. The old Stanley #3 I cleaned up for my neighbor a while back was very tight wrt finger-space and it had its original woodwork. We humans have been getting larger over the last century or two...

Nice save on the old girl, btw; I find it very comforting to see an old wreck restored to something usable like that instead of going to landfill...

Cheers,

Thanks, JP and Ian. The knob is sized to fit the rod and nut and is low. This is my 1st plane with one (and I know Ian loves them), but I'm not sure about it yet. JP, again, my thanks to you for the wood, and thanks for liking my turning, I have found knobs a little hard to shape in the past. As for the tote, you may be right Ian. I used my plastic Stanley one as the template, modifying the top to mimic the Sargent sweep and the base, also. But it was too tall. So I "moved" top down, effectively shortening the stem. Funnily enough, there is plenty of room to use the depth adjusting knob just not wrap my bottom 3 fingers round the handle. Maybe the hang is wrong but the plastic Stanley tote is usually a comfy design (something I think you pointed out a long time ago, Ian).

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Oh, and I do get get a real kick out of bringing something back to life.

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MA

I wondered if you know the dates of your Sargent planes. Below are pix from 1894, 1910 & 1922.

1894:

sargent Plane 1894.JPG

1910

Sargent 1910 plane.jpg

1922

Sargent 1922.JPG

The front knob on your plane looked a little stubbier than those in these catalogues. This is a replacement cast iron version they offered in 1922. It has the dimensions listed, which I presume are the same as the timber knob.

Sargent cast iron front knob.jpg

Regards
Paul

Hi Paul. I have had a look at
Sargent #400 Series Bench Plane Type Study

and according to this, my 408 is a type 4b and was made from 1910 to 1918. From memory, I think my 409 is a type 4a (different frog) from the same time period.

I also have a reprint of the Sargent 1910 catalogue and will have to have another look. My knob was sized according to what could fit on the plane base and then scaled down from the 409 knob. Fair bit of guesswork, too.

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MA

My catalogues came from a reprint of selected material from three different years. Your reference looks to be more comprehensive.

The Internatinal Tool Catalogue Library also has quite a few Sargent catalogues listed.

Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine

Your plane has come up very well and the Hairy Oak is, to my mind, a very good choice for the knobs and handles: Better than the Rosewood of 1894 and the Mahogany used in later years by Sargent. There again, they probably hardly knew where Australia was in those days!

Regards
Paul

Paul, as you point out yourself, those catalogue pics are drawings and can be subject to a little 'artistic licence' at times, so the proportions may not be exact. But it is interesting to me that the plane at the top of the page in the 1894 pair shows a knob with what I call the "hot air balloon" shape, just like Stanley's earlier 'low' knobs. The 1910 pics show a knob with a distinct spherical top & a 'waist', very close to the shape of Stanley's later 'high' knob, which didn't hit the streets until about a decade after that. Did Stanley copy someone else for a change??

MA, I wrongly assumed you couldn't fit your fingers in because of the grip-to-thumbwheel distance. There isn't a lot of room between the tote & frog in any of the smaller Bailey type planes, so you don't have to get things far from original to make a big difference to finger-room, as I mentioned. The length of the 'grip' section of the tote is equally sensitive to small variations (as you've discovered), just 5mm can be the difference between a comfy 4-finger fit & an uncomfortable one. Also, the radii of the curves at the bottom and top of the grip can make a big difference & will make your hand feel cramped if they are too tight. I 'discovered' this well into my tote-making career by becoming a little careless with my shaping & thinking close enough was good enough, and got a surprise at the difference in the feel of two handles that were supposed to be identical but obviously weren't, quite.

You might find that a bit of careful re-shaping of those curves will free things up a lot & give your pinkies a bit more leg-room (how's that for a mixed metaphor!). It looks like you have enough spare wood on the top horn to ease the curve up a bit more. That would probably mean losing a bit of length off the horn, which wouldn't bother me, I'm not a big fan of the long horn, it's the most fragile & vulnerable bit on any plane, as evidenced by the number of amputees you see...

Cheers,

Thanks, Ian. I will have a little play around with it soon, I only got a chance to put it all back together and take a couple of shavings (and take photos!!) before I had to scoot.

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Thanks Paul. Sorry I missed your last post. I need to correct myself, I have a reprint of the 1911 Sargent tool book (for mechanics no less). They are a great resource.

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