Bevel to use on a restored #5 plane

Try this

Jim Reed @ Tallahassee

>Start your bevel at 30 degrees and adjust from there. Most of these blades are soft and easy to sharpen. Be sure to round the corners so they don't dig in and ruin your surface. Good luck.

Re: Try this

Stephen Kirk in Quakertown PA

>Thanks Jim. I'll give that a try.

We've got a new fish!!

Todd O. Cronkhite Maine Native in FL. Exile :~(

>Stephen,

Congrats on the family heirloom. I suggest tho that instead of putting this on display once you get it work, (and you will)that you should use it and store it with care. This plane could be the one that launches you down the Slippery Slope of handtools. I'm sure once you make your first curlies you'll be "hooked", hence the fish implication in my title. ;~)

Quick Bob!, we've got a bite, reel 'em in!!

Todd O.

Re: We've got a new fish!!

Stephen Kirk in Quakertown PA

>I think I was hooked when I first learned what a sharpened chisel could do. As I get better at sharpening, I'll probably like them even more. I'm relatively new to woodworking. My shop (as it's coming along) is mostly power tools, but I really do want to learn a lot of the hand work. Besides, I hate sanding and I'd love to just to hand plane work (yeah, I was lurking on the other thread about shaving thickness) These hand tools are gonna force me to put a good vice on my bench and bore a couple of dog holes, though.

I wouldn't store it

Steve Kubien

>I am firmly in the camp of 'tools are meant to be used, not looked at'. I would clean up the family heirloom and put it to good work. The ghosts of the maker and the past users will smile down upon you (if you believe in such things).

Enjoy and welcome to the slippery slope.

Steve Kubien

Ajax, Ontario

Use that thing!!!

James Watriss

>Ditto what the other guys said about grind angles and such. 28-30 should be fine for most work. 25 maybe if you're planing pine or cedar. Grind angles are more dependent on the intended work, not the age or make of the tool.

But whatever you do, don't relegate it to storage or display. The old stanleys were built for USE. I've been looking at a lot of stanleys lately, both new and old, and it seems that roughly after WWII, the quality started to really slide. Most of my favorites are between 70 and 100 years old. They were more solidly built, the machining was more accurate, and they just feel better in the hand than the newer stuff. What this means at the end of the day is that they're easier to tune up, and they work much better than the newer stanley bailey offerings, by far. In many cases, the old steel for the blades was much better steel. There's definately more support for those blades, too. The old frogs don't have all the voids cut out of the face.

If it becomes a serious user, and you someday think the existing blade is quite up to snuff, you can always get a replacement blade of some newer, better steel from Veritas, Hock, L-N... I've had good luck with all 3. That said, I do keep the old blades. The only ones I haven't replaced the old steel in were the old sweetheart blades in a pair of old #3s I have... distinguishable by the "SW" in a heart on the top of the blade.