Thread: Restored Stanley Mitre box

Jay ,
I remember the Southbends from my apprenticeship ,the company where I did my time had quite a few of them in the maintenance sections around the plant .They were use mainly for small quick jobs like making or modifying fittings for plumbing ,and stuff .
I always wanted to take one home with me .

I was fortunte to enough to be give a lathe and amilling machine just recently , I have to make room for them before I can set them up ,also the lathe will need some work to bring it up to scratch .Both machines have been in storage for 12years.The mill will be able to be put staright to work with some cleaning and a good service.The lathe will need stripping and cleaning and a new motor.
The lathe is an Edgwick MK1 6 1/2" swing English toolroom lathe ,the mill is a well made Asian import of some vintage.

Have attached pics of my Myford Super 7 and the lathe and mill on the truck after removing them from storage.

Kev.

Dev,

YEOW! Congratulations. You should enjoy many years of enjoyment from the lathe and milling machine. Even restoring them should be fun.

Regards,

Jay

Kev;

Are you any closer to figuring out what the metal insert in the board is for? I've got an early 240 with it in and always wondered what on earth it's meant to do!

Great post here BTW; I restored a 1960s era No. 60 in 2005 as I felt sorry for it, and at the time was able to get a lot of replacement parts (screws, angle plate, etc) from Stanley USA; though I did have to machine up a new indexing pin and had everything that was nickel plated, stripped and re-plated. Might even post some photos here one day. The 240 is on the list of things to do, as well as a 358 (SW vintage with Simonds saw that came with its original shipping crate), and a mid-late 1930s 460 (the BIG one). Tackling these ones isn't a job for the faint hearted as you know. I'll make a start when I figure out how to remove the brass makers plate without damaging it in order to re-japan the frame.

Missed out on a saw on eBay the other day that still had its saw trip clamp attached to it - went for around $23-30 but I left it since the seller wanted US$75 for shipping!

One other thing, from what I can tell the boards for all these boxes are made from poplar, stained dark walnut brown for the earlier models, later painted Stanley orange.

Originally Posted by zitan

Kev;

Are you any closer to figuring out what the metal insert in the board is for? I've got an early 240 with it in and always wondered what on earth it's meant to do!

Great post here BTW; I restored a 1960s era No. 60 in 2005 as I felt sorry for it, and at the time was able to get a lot of replacement parts (screws, angle plate, etc) from Stanley USA; though I did have to machine up a new indexing pin and had everything that was nickel plated, stripped and re-plated. Might even post some photos here one day. The 240 is on the list of things to do, as well as a 358 (SW vintage with Simonds saw that came with its original shipping crate), and a mid-late 1930s 460 (the BIG one). Tackling these ones isn't a job for the faint hearted as you know. I'll make a start when I figure out how to remove the brass makers plate without damaging it in order to re-japan the frame.

Missed out on a saw on eBay the other day that still had its saw trip clamp attached to it - went for around $23-30 but I left it since the seller wanted US$75 for shipping!

One other thing, from what I can tell the boards for all these boxes are made from poplar, stained dark walnut brown for the earlier models, later painted Stanley orange.

No still none the wiser ,I haven't thought about it much since I posted here.
Some one suggested it may have been for a stop that sat on top of the board ,but I have never seen anything in the Stanley catalogues or any mention of a stop by any one.
I had a mishap with my saw though ,I decided to move the mitre box to a bench outside of my shed , because of the heat of the day ,I picked up the mitre box and tilted i back ward a bit and the saw slid out and landed on the handle ,shattering it into four pieces.
I had some black walnut given to me by a forum member here and will get to making a new handle for the saw .I managed to glue the pieces of the handle back together with Sellys Resorsinol (two part resin ) glue so I could use it.Not pretty but I can use it.

Kev.

Originally Posted by zitan

Kev;

Are you any closer to figuring out what the metal insert in the board is for? I've got an early 240 with it in and always wondered what on earth it's meant to do!

Great post here BTW; I restored a 1960s era No. 60 in 2005 as I felt sorry for it, and at the time was able to get a lot of replacement parts (screws, angle plate, etc) from Stanley USA; though I did have to machine up a new indexing pin and had everything that was nickel plated, stripped and re-plated. Might even post some photos here one day. The 240 is on the list of things to do, as well as a 358 (SW vintage with Simonds saw that came with its original shipping crate), and a mid-late 1930s 460 (the BIG one). Tackling these ones isn't a job for the faint hearted as you know. I'll make a start when I figure out how to remove the brass makers plate without damaging it in order to re-japan the frame.

Missed out on a saw on eBay the other day that still had its saw trip clamp attached to it - went for around $23-30 but I left it since the seller wanted US$75 for shipping!

One other thing, from what I can tell the boards for all these boxes are made from poplar, stained dark walnut brown for the earlier models, later painted Stanley orange.

Zitan,
During your work on the No.60 Stanley, did you see if there is any way to make a fine adjustment to the mitre angle if the ones set by the pin are not dead accurate. The posts holding the saw slides seem to be held on the bottom by what looks to be an off-set or cam type ring. Any ideas?

Ernie

Originally Posted by Woodlee

Not quite finished but here are some images of the Stanley Mitre box I have been working on .
I think it is a model 244 ,but I am not sure as it has no label like the later models of that era .
The patent dates are 1904 as cast on the quadrant.
Later models will take different size saws as there are two lots of holes in the saw keeper .
This one is adjustable for a shorter saw ,by moving the front post to a second tapered hole just in front of the cutting board.

I stripped it down completely and used electrolysis to remove the rust from the frame and some of the larger parts .The smaller parts were done in citric acid .
All the treated screws were cleaned on a wire brush ,heads polished and blackened .
The frame and all the parts that needed Japanning were given two coats of the mixture and left to dry between coats .Then after a week they were baked in an oven at 220C for an hour, left to cool and harden.
I then repainted some of the parts silver using an aluminium silver paint ,and dry brushed silver over the raised letters and numbers on the quadrant to highlight them and make them more readable.

A new top support bar was made from 1"x 1/8" brass strip ,cut down by hand and filed to 1/2" wide to fit into the clamping caps .
Two replacement retaining screws were machined up on my lathe ,the caps were drilled and tapped 12 x 24 UNC.
Stanley was a bugger for not utilising standard threads , and it's near impossible to work out what the threads are unless you have an original screw to measure.

I was reasonably lucky with this mitre box as most of the small parts that are usually lost were with it , just one screw that secures the legs and the two screws retaining the top support bar were missing .The trip device that clamps on to the saw back was even there.
I also suspect that a length stop is missing ,but can find no reference to that part in any of the old repro Stanley brochures.

I still have to work on the saw ,(clean up and sharpen) and get the piece of timber sized for the cutting board.

I have done some test cuts with the mitre box after leveling and setting it up and it is very accurate.

Pic: 1 front of box ,
Pic : 2 topcap that holds the support bar (new brass bar as well)
Pic : 3 the new retaining screws
Pic: 4 the whole thing ,board just placed in for photo's
Pic : 5 as it was before I decided to give it some TLC.

Kev.

Originally Posted by 73sport

iam restoring a 1904 stanley mitre box. I am missing some parts.i was wondering if you be interested in making me some parts. In your post you where wondering what the threaded washer in the original sawing board. I looked at the stanley parts list ,and photo . In the photo it shows the sliding stock guide screwed to the sawing board and used as a lenght gauge (used for multiable cuts). Thanks .

Originally Posted by prozac

Too embarrassed to respond.

prozac

thats a beautiful job! I just acquired one with all the working parts, just a bit grimy and with some surface rust. Do you happen to know what the original color scheme is for these boxes? hard for me to tell if it's japanned black or a blue color. Also the back seems to be painted an aluminum color in the recesses.

Originally Posted by Woodlee

This link is to a website that has information on Stanley mitre boxes and other tools that they produced .

Try it now.

Paul.

I've just posted some scans of old (early 1900's and 1926) Stanley catalogs. The relevant pages for Mitre Boxes are posted below. Hope they're helpful in determining model and age.

Early 1900's:
http://willough.customer.netspace.ne...18_19_half.jpg
1926:
http://willough.customer.netspace.ne...42_43_half.jpg

Regards,
chrrris