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Restored Stanley Planes (Before & After)

 
Below will be many pictures of planes I've restored.

I will be the first to admit my skills as a restorer is limited.
I do what feel is right. What feels right for you will be different.
Many ways to skin a cat, mine were just a means to an end.


Stanley No.5 Type13 cleaned by a 1 hour dip in an electrolysis tank.

 
Generally, my restoration philosophy (huh?)is to bring the plane back in time, without doing any thing irreversible. Where possible, the factory finish is retained. This includes the original Japaning and the factory mill/grind marks. For this reason, I hardly use sandpaper, except to sand off flaking varnish from the wooden totes and knobs.

Type 13 "sweetheart" #5, before restoration.

Perhaps cleaning would be a better word.
 
 A 100 year-old plane has taken a beating, suffered the ravages of time. Rust, chipping, flaking, pitting, dents, scratches, insect bites, put away wet,forgotten, neglected, left in the barn to bake, left in the rain, left in a yard to rot, general neglect, sold, pawned, inherited, etc. For each ham-fisted new owner, it's another cycle of the above. To RESTORE would suggest bringing the plane to how it looked the day it left the factory. It would mean re-varnish, stripping and re-japaning, re-grinding, resurfacing, re-nickel plating, etc.
 
 It is always tempting to file back a chipped levercap, touch up missing pactchs of Japan with stove enamel, but these marks are part of the plane's history.
 
I think what I did should be called cleaning. But in any case, I aim to make them look like they were STILL being used, carefully sharpened and put away well oiled,
 
 Before: No. 3 type-11. If a tradesman were to depend on it to make a living, how would it look?
 
# 3 After: The brown rust stains can be cleaned off by gently scrubbing with fine metal polishing paste.
 
 
In fact, at this stage, I often debated with myself if this looks over-cleaned already.
 
And Block planes too....
picture sniped off ebay (seller's one picture-tells-all  of a post WWII stanley No.65)
 
 
 
This one still retains the factory milling marks.





I merely shined the knuckle with fine steel wool
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Earlier type #220 (circa 1900s).For a plane pushing 110 years, the more I would want to preserve the looks 
(photo: ebay seller)
 
 
 
After cleaning: The lever cap screw was quite peeled over from careless screwdrivers, so I filed back the peening and reblued the steel; This deters further rusting. I don't think Stanley ever blued their screws. It is just my personal mark to distinguish a user plane from the shelf dwellers. It any case, it's better than a mirror finished screw head, and historically acceptable.
 
The Jappaning loss were left as it is, with the gentle removal of loose rust, especially on the cast raised wording, such that bare metal is exposed to suggest hand rubbing from frequent use. 


Another #5 type 11 before cleaning. (not to bad)


These "after" pictures will probably look more right, if I knew how to rotate a picture on this blog by 180 degrees.
 
I decided to tune this one to more to smooth than to hog, so I sharpened the iron dead straight across the cutting edge (without any camber ie. radius) I merely rounded the resulting sharp corners at each end to prevent the plane leaving marks. If you did everything right, the shaving should be (almost) full width. The seperated ribbons above is probably due to micro serrations at the cutting edge. A remedy would be to polish up the edge with a black arkansas or 6000 grit stone, followed by stropping on clean leather. I'm plain lazy, and I'll insist it has more to do with the species of wood (Nyatoh, Nato). Well, to be fair, I'll probably have a more gossamer like shave on cedar.

 
Many amateurs like to take photos of the shavings of the plane they just fettled.  After looking at the pictures above, I realised I'm just as lame. When will I ever show some of my work instead? At some point, we all have reminded ourselves to be more concerned with the surface a tool leave behind, rather than focusing on the tool and the debris it left behind.



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