Thread: Repairing plane handles

Y'know, I don't think the #6 nut is genuine either. The old straight nuts were closed, just like the later, waisted version but it looks like yours is threaded right through. That's about the only way to get a decent amount of internal thread if you don't have a bottoming tap. Not that unusual to find strange nuts on very old planes, the darned things do have a habit of going AWOL on occasion.

Yairs, I think the existing handle for the 5 1/2 is a lost cause. I would suggest you follow your impulse & just build a new handle around the bodgy stud. As long as you can fit a handle of roughly the right profile, there is no point fussing about what's inside. If some later owner wants it more "original" that's their worry.

As you say, it's a real pity the original handle is cactus 'cos those old pre-WW2 rosewood handles were rather nice - something you could hold onto comfortably for many hours of the day. So what does one turn to now that Brazilian rosewood is off the menu? You used to be able to get "Indian rosewood" (a bit of a catch-all name for any Dalbergia sp. from S.E. Asia), but I don't know if it's still available. It's not quite as dense as the Sth. American species, but takes much the same tactile finish, is easier to work with & judging by the couple of handles I made from it 30 plus years ago, just as durable. Even if it is still available, I think my conscience would nag me about using it after the not too sustainable forestry practices I witnessed in parts of the continent...

There are a few local woods that will take the same sort of tactile finish, but most are "non-commercial" unfortunately. I favour She-oak, partly because I can get it for free from the old family farm, but it does require very careful drying in larger pieces if you want anything larger than matchsticks. It's a bit harder to work than genuine rosewood, too, but it eventually rewards you for your efforts. This old type 11 #5 1/2 from my father's shed was in very poor shape when I got it, half the tote was missing and the front knob was a very crude replacement, so I had no qualms at all about re-wooding it:
Shavings.jpg

It gets used daily & the handles have acquired that hand-polished gloss just like rosewood does.

Most of our Eucalypts are too coarse for handles imo - river red gum isn't too bad (some pieces, at least), but most won't give you that silky surface that makes rosewood so desirable. Of the commercial species, good dense Blackwood can be excellent, but I've found it a very variable wood. Myrtle beech makes an excellent substitute for apple wood for saw handles, and would probably do a good job on planes.

There are some species of black wattle that grow around my area that make good handle material. They don't grow very large before succumbing to insects & old-age & falling over, so I have a steady supply from my own & the neighbor's place. The wood is variable, but some is dense & close-grained (there are several spp & since they are dead when I "harvest" them, I never know which is which), & while the finished surface isn't quite as silky as the she-oak, it's quite tolerable. This is an old #5 that came to me as a near basket case that I rehandled with "found" wattle.

Rehandled 5.jpg

Well sort-of 'found' - it was from a small log ~250mm diameter that was lying in a pile down the back when we bought the place & not realising what it was, I hacked it up for firewood. Later, when I was splitting it for MIL's fireplace I discovered this lovely fine fiddlebacked wood. Wish I'd taken more notice before I vandalised it!


Another long-winded post - just anticipating the next question about what wood to use for a replacement handle.....

Cheers

Originally Posted by IanW

Y'know, I don't think the #6 nut is genuine either.

Well now you've got me curious! I've got a #7 that I'm going to have to check now as well. I didn't purchase these planes as 'collectables' though, so the fix-er-upper parts are hardly the end of the world. And yes IanW, you did pre-empt the next thought of what wood to use for a new handle.

I'm tempted to give spotted gum a go, even though I already know I will probably hate myself half way through the making (I didn't think I was a masochist but woodworking is changing my opinion of myself). But it is such a nice timber to look at and feels very nice planed/scraped or sanded to a high grit.

I don't have any she-oak but I do have hairy oak, will have to see if I have a clear piece large enough for a plane handle, could be another possibility.

Originally Posted by Alkahestic

Well now you've got me curious! I've got a #7 that I'm going to have to check now as well. I didn't purchase these planes as 'collectables' though, so the fix-er-upper parts are hardly the end of the world.....

True, looks are secondary to performance & comfort. I do like to return mine to something like original wherever I can. If I only had the right taps I'd happily make you a few nuts that would look just like originals, it would take about a minute to make one.
I'd like to be able to tell you when the waisted brass nuts were introduced too, & I've read it somewhere, but can't find a reference atm. Vann or one of the other 'rhykenologists' will know....

Originally Posted by Alkahestic

....I don't have any she-oak but I do have hairy oak, will have to see if I have a clear piece large enough for a plane handle, could be another possibility...

IMO, hairy oak would be ideal if you have a suitable piece, and it's much nicer to work with than some of the other she-oaks - an order of magnitude easier than bull-oak, which sometimes grows beside it. Why one needs to be glass-hard while the other is only mildly hard beats me. The only thing that stops HO being up there with my very favourite woods is that wood-munching bugs love it too. It can be so frustrating at times, you start with what looks like a nice, sound piece & find these small, elongated holes full of compacted frass all the way through it!

Have fun....
Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

...The studs are 7/32" 20 tpi...

Originally Posted by Cklett

...I have a 4 1/2 which also suffers from a stripped thread at the bottom of the tote.

I was never sure how to fix that best....

7/32" being a tad smaller than 1/4" - I'd try a 1/4" 20tpi BSW or UNC tap down the existing threaded hole. If that gives you a workable thread then weld/braze the threaded portion of a 1/4" BSW/UNC bolt to the existing rod.

My tuppence worth.

Cheers, Vann.

Hi Alk. Not sure if you have access to any but Jarrah can make lovely handles. I replaced an ailing set of external stairs and the treads came home to my workshop. I have used tbe timber on a couple of planes and made a set of chisel handles.

Originally Posted by Vann

7/32" being a tad smaller than 1/4" - I'd try a 1/4" 20tpi BSW or UNC tap down the existing threaded hole. If that gives you a workable thread then weld/braze the threaded portion of a 1/4" BSW/UNC bolt to the existing rod......

I reckon that's a very good suggestion; it may solve the problem nicely & if it doesn't, you're no worse off. A "Helicoil" is the ideal solution for repairing a stripped thread to original size, but as I said above, you are unlikely to find one in the 7/32" size. On a user, I wouldn't bother altering the stud to preserve the top thread, particularly if you don't have welding/brazing gear. I'd use a bit of 1/4" all-thread and just make a new nut. You can make a very convincing nut from a bit of 7/16" brass rod. (& if you don't have a 1/4" bottoming tap, Ck, I certainly do!). So we can solve that part very quickly, in fact I'm pretty sure I already have a couple of spares left over from altering the handles on my Veritas planes.....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

Hi Alk. Not sure if you have access to any but Jarrah can make lovely handles.

Sadly I do not have any Jarrah. One day, when I've whittled down my existing stock of timber, I'll get a board or two. At the moment I'm back to the bad old days of storing timber on the floor of the garage because my shelves and racks are full.

Originally Posted by IanW

Y'know, I don't think the #6 nut is genuine either. The old straight nuts were closed, just like the later, waisted version but it looks like yours is threaded right through.

The plot, she thickens! So the knob for the #6 type 11 looks undamaged and appears to be rosewood as well. The nut is identical to the handle/tote and is also tapped through. Both are un-waisted.

no6 type 11 both nuts.jpg

But like sausage fat cooling on a bbq, the plot thickens and gets even greasier - I've got a #7 type 12 and it has a waisted but also tapped through nut.

no7 type 13 nut .jpg

The threads on the #6 and #7 appear to be correct - I can interchange them with the rods from a #4 1/2 from the 50's.

And just for fun, I've got a wartime #5 that has screws in place of a brass nut/threaded rod combination. And yes, I have a thing for planes with broken horns. At least it seems that way on reflection.

wartime no 5.jpg


But back to the original patient. I was going to hunt for a suitable piece of timber this morning but lo and behold! I had an offcut from the shelves I'm finishing up sitting on my bench. It was earmarked as being unusable because of cracks at the end of the board - but there was just enough material for a handle and it was nearly the right thickness too. Not one to ignore a serendipitous moment, I stopped looking and glued my template on to the blank. If anyone else is after them, Lee Valley have rather kindly put up excellent drawings, for #3 and #4 planes (https://assets.leevalley.com/Origina...ote-c-07-e.pdf) and for #5 and up (https://assets.leevalley.com/Origina...ote-c-06-e.pdf).

I didn't have the bit sizes Lee Valley use for their cutouts at the curved part of the handle but a 20mm and 35mm forstner kind of did the job, just a bit more waste to clear out. And I didn't have a 14mm forstner or drill bit so the home made nut isn't recessed, but the lateral adjuster just clears the nut, so we'll put this down as something to fix later (i.e. never). Fortunately I had a 12mm forstner to cut the recess for the nut to sit in and an 8mm hole for the 1/4" rod. Can you tell I don't have any imperial bits?

I was in and out of the garage today, so sadly no photos of the butchery that occurred to shape the handle. I used what I had which was a Shinto medium/fine rasp, Bahco half round rasp, Bahco Filemaster (these are fantastic), and sand paper from 80g to 320g. The actual shaping wasn't too bad - the killer is cleaning up the coarse rasp marks from the inside curves. I think I spent about 2 hours just sanding by hand. I did wish for an oscillating spindle sander a few times, or even one of those drill mounted sanding wheels, or a finer rasp, but we got there in the end. Wiped down with methylated spirits to raise the grain and one final sand with 320g paper. The finish is Interbuild hardwax oil, because the little tin is open and I'm unlikely to use it for anything else. I'll do a second coat tomorrow followed by waxing with steel wool in a week or two. I think it turned out alright. I took some care to ensure the handles are curved smoothly and that the curve is continuous across the front and back of the handle - this whole exercise made me appreciate just how smooth and nicely shaped the original rosewood handles were.


new handle 1.jpg

new handle 2.jpg

The horn could probably do with a bit more finessing to get it looking sleeker - I've got more handles to make, so plenty of time to practice. Now just have to restore the rest of the plane.

Hi Alk. One tip I got from IanW was to use cloth backed sandpaper. Absolute game changer. Long thin strips will follow curves and when used like and old fashioned shoe shine rag, wont break under the tension.

Woops, slight mis-interpretation of the pic of your handle nuts on my part, Ah. It looked like the full hole went through the nut, but it's just the way the light coming through the small hole at the bottom of the driver slot is reflecting that makes it look like the thead goes right through. I should've checked with you before shooting my mouth off!

In fact, there is almost always a small or even large hole at the bottom of the screw slot, they are drilled & tapped to the max without breaking right through to gain as much usable thread as possible. The slots frequently get butchered and need deepening with a hacksaw or thin file, which can open the hole quite a bit, so the size of any hole there can vary from a pin-prick to several mm in some cases I've seen. Your nut certainly isn't drilled & threaded right through as I thought from the picture, the hole is simply on the larger end of the scale.

So that's ok, they could be genuine Stanleys, but I do wonder why they aren't waisted on your models. As I said before, I've got waisted nuts on two earlier planes than yours & I've only seen the straight-sided nuts on a couple of much older planes. But as we all know, parts get switched & swapped so it doesn't pay to get too hung-up on some minor detail that appears to be anachronistic. As long as the thread is correct, all's well....

You did a much better job on your first handle/tote than I managed on my first attempt! I destroyed several blanks trying to drill the stud-hole from each end before I managed to get them to meet with sufficient accuracy to get the stud through. I didn't own a drill press at the time & so I was doing it by eye & my eye obviously wasn't up to the job! I did, however have a 9/16" brad-point bit to make the nut recess. Not quite as clean a bottom as you get from a Forstner (I have acquired full sets of those in the years since), but flatter than you get from a regular twist-bit & quite satisfactory. A 14mm might do the trick, but the nut diameter is 7/16" (= 14.2mm), so it might prove a little tight if you were to use that size...

It doesn't take too many totes to get the hang of them. I've long-since replaced my earliest attempts with slightly more-convincing efforts, but yours looks good enough to last....

Cheers,

PS: Iif you ever needed to come out this way we could put the recess in your tote in with a Forstner bit very easily. It would take all of about 30 seconds to set it up accurately in the DP & drill the hole. I think you've said before you are on the opposite side of the city from me, so a long way to come for a 30 second job alone.....

Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

Hi Alk. One tip I got from IanW was to use cloth backed sandpaper. Absolute game changer. Long thin strips will follow curves and when used like and old fashioned shoe shine rag, wont break under the tension.

That's... genius! It would have saved my poor fingertips and so much time. I did try the shoe shine method with my paper and it worked about as well as pulling paper works.

Originally Posted by IanW

You did a much better job on your first handle/tote than I managed on my first attempt! I destroyed several blanks trying to drill the stud-hole from each end before I managed to get them to meet with sufficient accuracy to get the stud through. I didn't own a drill press at the time & so I was doing it by eye & my eye obviously wasn't up to the job! I did, however have a 9/16" brad-point bit to make the nut recess. Not quite as clean a bottom as you get from a Forstner (I have acquired full sets of those in the years since), but flatter than you get from a regular twist-bit & quite satisfactory. A 14mm might do the trick, but the nut diameter is 7/16" (= 14.2mm), so it might prove a little tight if you were to use that size...

It doesn't take too many totes to get the hang of them. I've long-since replaced my earliest attempts with slightly more-convincing efforts, but yours looks good enough to last....

Cheers,

PS: Iif you ever needed to come out this way we could put the recess in your tote in with a Forstner bit very easily. It would take all of about 30 seconds to set it up accurately in the DP & drill the hole. I think you've said before you are on the opposite side of the city from me, so a long way to come for a 30 second job alone.....

Thanks for your kinds words! It's comfortable to hold, so it's going to stick around.

The home brew nut is just under 14mm in diameter at it's widest part but it's shaped like a mushroom (right nut below). The body of it fits in the 12mm recess with some room to spare. Yes, when the previous owner of this plane went homebrew, they went full homebrew.

nuts.jpg

Using the drill press for the through hole made life fairly cruisy - the top and bottom of the blank were parallel so I marked out the entry and exit points with an awl and went halfway from either side. I don't use my drill press all that much but when I do, I'm happy I have it.

This little job has added a few things to my shopping list, maybe some of the woodie shops will be having a black friday sale.

Originally Posted by Alkahestic

That's... genius! It would have saved my poor fingertips and so much time. I did try the shoe shine method with my paper and it worked about as well as pulling paper works....

Apologies for not mentioning that myself, AH. If you'd been a wood turner you would've met cloth-backed paper long ago, I think. I first bought it to use on the lathe but quickly discovered it has quite a few uses around the shed. I still use the white (stearated) paper for sanding flatwork (as little as I can!), the cloth-backed stuff tends to clog when use that way. Used in the "shoe-shine" mode, it seems to clear itself much better, but still clogs more than the white paper on oily woods....

Originally Posted by Alkahestic

....This little job has added a few things to my shopping list, maybe some of the woodie shops will be having a black friday sale.....

Many jobs are like that. Eventually, after you've done enough 'jobs', you'll have enough tools, but not sure when that will be - I still find the need for something or other I don't have after more than 50 years of woodworking. Perhaps I should change "need" to "want" because while there may be some tool just perfect for a given job, there is almost always a workaround that will get it done just as well.....
Cheers,

Hi all. I know I am very late to the party on this thread, but I have just made a discovery which is useful enough that it is worth sharing, regarding beaten-out threads in Stanley plane bodies.

I recently acquired an old-ish (Type 11) No 3 Stanley plane. Nothing terribly special, but a nice old plane, and the price was right. Unfortunately, the rear handle/tote rod pulls straight out of the thread in the base - because of lots of wear to the female cast iron thread in the plane body. And I wanted to use the original rod. So I thought my way through all the options mentioned earlier in this discussion thread, but kept coming back to the option of "it would be great if someone made a #12/20TPI thread repair kit...". So the repressed engineer in me decided to start doing some sums and thinking about tolerances. My solution, which I have now experimented with and succeeded a few times, is to use an M6 thread-repair insert, but inserted into a thread cut with a standard 1/4"-20TPI tap. This achieves the 20 TPI needed for the Stanley rods, while squeezing the M6 insert to LESS THAN 6mm, because the 1/4"-20TPI tap is smaller than the M6STI (Standard Thread Insert) tap that comes with an M6 thread repair kit. And there is enough flexibility in a stainless steel thread insert that it will squeeze to the smaller diameter if you are careful, and will happily stretch to accommodate the 20TPI pitch.

Sure, This only works when the thread is not massively worn. It also takes care and a steady hand so that you don't break of the drive tang on the thread insert until you have finished the insertion, and the end result isn't absolutely perfect, but from my experiments, it will certainly hold the rod firmly, and is way stronger than re-tapping brazed fill. And it doesn't require any particularly special (or hard-to find) tools. And the (cheapie) thread repair inserts that I bought this morning cost $6.90 for 10. The two provisos are that I would strongly recommend using a bottoming tap, and as short an insert as you can buy (maybe 1D, because a 1.5D may stick out the top, and will need to be ground off), because it stretches as it goes into the tapped thread.
IMG_7034.JPG
Here is a picture of the finished product for anyone that is interested. I am sufficiently pleased with the result that I may even consider doing a Youtube video to share this with the rest of the world...
Cheers, Bruce.

Right, so you are happy to fix the nine more planes we about to mail to you?

Actually, that's really good info, Bruce & I've made a firm note of it. A mate of mine did suggest using a "helicoil' to effect a repair, but as I thought it would be impossible to find a 12-20 helicoil, I didn't pursue that line. It would never have occurred to me to try your approach, so top marks for out-of-the-box thinking!
Cheers,
Ian

Originally Posted by IanW

Right, so you are happy to fix the nine more planes we about to mail to you?

Send me as many planes as you like. Just remember that there are no guarantees that they will ever come BACK OUT of the black hole that is my shed.

But one additional comment on the "Stanley helicoil": After yet another experiment, I have now figured that the tightness of the fit is very dependent on the quality of the tapping job with the 1/4"x20TPI. I tried it on a hole (in a 'scrap' No 4 1/2) that a previous owner had drilled out, probably intending to tap it larger. The 1/4" tap cut OK, but fairly shallow (the hole must have been drilled to almost 6mm?) so that the peaks of the interior thread (once tapped for the insert) were flat. The technique with the 6mm insert worked OK, but it wasn't squeezed as tight as my previous attempts, so while the rod certainly won't pull out, it had more play than I would like. So my observation is that a little under 6mm would be about the limit for a reasonable result using this technique.

O/B