Plane Lovely

**Wongdai** · 10th November 2008, 11:14 AM

Hi all

I have a couple of old planes sitting around in a draw in my shed, which have been there for at least thirty years, unloved and untouched. They were given to me by my father, who would have had them a similar number of years I suspect.

One is a Stanley No. 4, a Stanley No. 78, and two wooden planes, one long and the other short (with some type of British stamp on the blade).

I showed them to SWMBO who said "They are junk. Throw them out." Not surprising given the Stanleys pretty much looked like rusty, dusty heaps of rubbish.

So, inspired by this group, and having yesterday afternoon free, I got out the Ranex, some steel wool and lots of elbow grease and turned the No. 4 into the picture I have attached.

I'm really happy with the result.

My only problem is that I have no idea how to set it up correctly. Does anyone know of a good but simple and clearly illustrated guide to how to set one of these up properly?

All the best

Wongdai

**jmk89** · 10th November 2008, 12:58 PM

There is quite a good chapter in Jim Kingshott's book on Making and Modifying Hand Tools on adjusting the setup of a Bailey plane. I could email you a copy if you sent me a PM with your email address. Other good chapters on tuning a handplane are in Planecraft and Garret hack's book about handplanes.

In essence, you need to make sure that the frog sits firmly and square on the base, that the frog is the right distance from the mouth so that the blade is the right distance back from the fron of the mouth for the kind of work you are going to do (smoothing or hogging), that the cap iron is properly set about 1.25mm back from the edge of the blade and sits firmly and squarely on the blade, the blade is square to the mouth and has the correct profile for the kind of work you want to do and most importantly that the blade is sharp.

**tomnewby** · 10th November 2008, 07:57 PM

gday

this site is pretty good. scroll down to the Tuning 101 section.

http://www.rexmill.com/

if you google using search terms such as tuning, plane, wood, hand etc, you'll get plenty of options to look at.

cheers
tom

**Wongdai** · 10th November 2008, 08:58 PM

Thanks guys.

Much appreciated.

Wongdai

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