Hints on (Re)Using a Stanley Plane
Along with the Chisels I restored over the winter I’ve been working on refurbishing a set of old Stanley hand planes. A 4 1/2 Bailey smoothing plane and two block planes (a 220 and 110) that were passed down to me from family.
The rusty bodies received the same treacle treatment as the chisels before being sanded back to clean metal. Luckily all three planes had flat soles so didn’t need re-flattening. In fact, given their condition the planes had been well used but beautifully looked after, before being stored for a long time. The Bailey even came with it’s original instructions and tag in the box, which I scanned and uploaded incase anyone’s interested.
Hints On Using a Stanley Plane
Grinding a new bevel
Whilst the handles, caps and other fixings were in reasonable condition the bodies had suffered from storage and the blades needed some attention. The irons had been re-sharpened over the years and the Bailey iron was not square. When I tried to sharpen with stones and a honing guide I couldn’t get a consistent bevel.
Luckily my local maker space has a Sorby EdgePro belt sharpener and so I took the opportunity to learn to use it to re-grind the plane irons. I though it’d be good practice and if I stuffed it up I could always find another second-hand iron! Using the coarse belt (60 grit) I was able to re-square the blade and grind a clean 25° bevel as per the original insructions. I then honed this using a fine belt (240 grit) to create a sharp finish. After stropping I wanted to see how it felt and re-assembled the plane. I didn’t add a micro-bevel as I want to see how the plane performed first.
Grinding a new bevel
Boy was the finish good! I tested it on some scrap softwood and the smoothing plane was able to make paper-thin shavings with no chatter, and the finish it left behind was polished. I’ve never used a powered sharpening system before but I repeated the process with the block plane irons with similar success. I’ll definitely be testing out the Sorby for future sharpening jobs. The planes are now oiled and the soles waxed ready for the next project.
