Old block plane and unidentified hand tool

Hi everyone,
My dad gave me an old block plane. It's seen better days and there's some mammoth cracks in the wood. The blade has "cast steel" stamped on it,....I don't know if that's an indication of its age or not. Can anyone give me some advice on what I should be doing with it? Should I just accept what it is and put it back together on the shelf as a bit of ancient history or should I try to repair it? Also, in the photo there's a hand tool that I picked up at the markets. Does anyone know what it is? I was thinking it may be related to marquetry or maybe it's a leather tool. Any suggestions appreciated. Thanks!
Attachment 465442

It's a white metal bearing scraper. Or Babbit bearing scraper. Google will help.
As for the plane, hmmm, a clean up and life on the shelf is all I would commit it to. I don't think it's worth the effort to attempt to make it a user.

If the blade is good you could use it as the basis for making another wooden plane. Check out "The English Woodworker" on YouTube

The plane (looks like a coffin smoother, not a block) looks well beyond redemption. If it has some sentimental value the wooden parts can be soaked in BLO for a day or two to close up the cracks and then cleaned up with either a green Scotchbrite pad or 000 steel wool. Soak the iron and cap iron in lemon juice/citric acid/molasses to get rid of the active rust (don’t try to clean it down to shiny metal) and give it a quick lick with varnish. Reassemble very lightly and pop on a shelf somewhere.

The bearing scraper is of very little use to anyone outside of vintage machinery enthusiasts, it is designed for scraping large journal bearings greater than about 6” in diameter and needs to be sharpened and polished to a very specific standard. If you wanna keep it on the shelf next to the plane just remove the rust the same way as the plane iron, otherwise flip it on Ebay with some very detailed close-up photos of the cutting edges and the back face.

As Chief Tiff says, the plane is a coffin smoother, not a block. It's in a bad way, but as it was you dad's it might be worth trying to resusitate it.

Block the mouth (with duct tape or similar across the base) then fill the blade area with BLO and let it soak it all up (for a week or two). See if that closes up the cracks - then see if it's sound and fit for further use. If it's not sound then either keep it on a shelf for sentimental reasons (don't varnish it, rub it with BLO every month or so), or try drilling across the the width front and back, and inserting dowels to strengthen it if you still want to try to use it.

Of course you could pick up a better one for small money - but this one was your dad's - it has his blood and sweat in it (hopefully not too much of his blood :C).

Photos of the mouth (from the underside) and of the iron (blade) would be nice.

Cheers, Vann.

I would say it's borderline so it depends how keen you are to have a go at it. I think the wider cracks are too far gone to take up with linseed oil but you could first clean them out and get some slow set epoxy in them. The crack at the top right beside where the wedge goes is the most important to secure if you want it to work. As the body shrank the wedge has caused that crack. A swipe or 2 each side of the wedge with a plane will stop a repeat of that. Acetone or spirit to clean out the cracks. Compressed air really helps blow out the gunk.(Eye protection for that job). If that all is a success and it looks to be holding together (Vann's suggestion of pinning with dowels could be backup) then clean the body with linseed oil and wire wool. Wipe off gunk and repeat as required. It aint going to look like new but it will look like a plane with history.
The blade will likely be fine with derusting and sharpening. Those old irons are usually very good.
I have an old wooden coffin smoother and it is a pleasure to use.
Regards
John