Stanley Bedrock planes

Re: Stanley Bedrock planes

They have an adjustable frog that allows you very precise blade adjustment.

Re: Stanley Bedrock planes

Marc

It's mostly in the frog setup - fine adjustment screw along with pins and setscrews to hold the frog where the "new" features (and patents) touted when the Bedrocks were coming into production. In theory the Bedrock frog-to-body fit was machined to tighter tolerances than the bench planes.

The earlier Bedrocks had rounded sides, similar to the Bailey bench planes. Later Bedrocks have the "squared off" sides, and had more mass both in the body and in the frog.

The reason they carry more value today is rarity and age, as they went out of production in the mid 30's I believe.

P.

Re: Stanley Bedrock planes

THe bedrocks have an easily movable frog that is machined precisely to the sole of the plane. THe overall plane is a little heavier. Some of the handles are a little fancier (depending on the bedrock the handles have a wonderfully elegant sweep to them) In tests I did years ago they performs slightly better then regular stanleys.

that being said both LN and CLifton copied the bedrock design and in both cases made it even better.

Unless there is seomthing seriously wrong with the plane An ordinary stanley performs great. A bedrock in good shape can perform slightly better, but, unless you are a collector the real reason for using a bedrock these days is that even at the bedrock premium price they are less expensive then equivilant CLifton or LN planes.

Re: Stanley Bedrock planes

One other thing - take any stanley or bedrock and put in a high performance thicker blade (hock,clifton, holtey etc) and the performance increase will be amazing. A clifton cap iron also helps a lot.

Re: Stanley Bedrock planes

Thanks guys. I have a Stanley/Bailey #4 with the stock blade and Keep hearing about the Bedrock styly and wondered how much difference there was. The adjustable mouth would be a major dif. I assume the Bedrock style came in different lengths?

Re: Stanley Bedrock planes

The full range of bench planes 2-8 and in corregated versions too.

If the main reason for thinking about upgrading is the moveable frog you could just get yourself a thicker iron, set the frog in your current plane to nice and fine with the thicker iron and then go back to the thinner iron when you want a wider mouth.

THat being said - unless you are using the plane for real milling of wood - for example my 605 has a 1/16" or so mouth maybe a little less and I use it like a true jack (for milling by hand which is how I do it). THe rest of my planes have much narrower mouths - mostly because of thicker blades - I'm too lazy to move a frog.

now even a real fine mouth is going to be set at .002-.015" . The thickest shaving you will ever want to shave (except for rough work -see above)) will be about .0005 - .0015 or .003 . plently of room for the shaving. THe only issue is if the cap iron will cause clogging. Which in worst case scenereo just back off the cap iron a bit and all will be well.

Re: Stanley Bedrock planes

The No4 that you have also has an adjustable mouth, just that on a later model Bedrock, you can move the mouth without removing the blade. More a convenient feature than a necessity, given the number of times that we have to move the frog.

Yes, they were made in equivalent sizes from a No2 to a No8 standard Bailey bench plane

I don't know why the sudden hike in prices, perhaps people have realised that they're cheaper than a Lee-Nielsen or a Clifton Plane.

Cheers,

Andrew

Re: Stanley Bedrock planes

Just quoting Bob Kaune's Bedrock type study, which states "the frog and bed are designed, constructed and machined to have the parts fit cleanly with very close tolerances". I guess that's not a statement making direct comparison to the bench planes, but I took it to be so.

Which is why I used the "in theory" lead in, as I have no personal experience proving it one way or 't other.

P.

We don't need no stinkin'...

Bedrocks! Just kidding, I wish I had one or two. Gonna have to live with all the prewar gems I got now :-)

How was the trip over Paul?

Re: Stanley Bedrock planes

Just following on from Ralph's comments, I think that Stanley made Bedrock castings for Winchester too. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong

I have a 'low end' bedrock, an Eclipse plane with a bedrock style frog. Not made well enough to qualify as having two closely mating surfaces. Now, if I took their paint off the bed, it may be a diffrent story.....

Re: We don't need no stinkin'...

Nice to see you land here Paul! Trip over was painless, hope most of the NH'ers make it over as well.

P.

Re: Stanley Bedrock planes

As I recall, Bob Kaune in his detailed history of the Bedrock Types mentions that Stanley made Type 4 Bedrocks for both Keen Kutter and Winchester in the 1920's. These are virtually identical to the Stanleys excepting some cosmetics. The Keen Kutter Bedrocks were numbered K2 through K8 (note:single K only) and the Winchesters were W2-W8. I have a K4 1/2 and it's a great plane.