Fore planes

Give it a try first...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond,CA

>To see if it works. If not, then I'd shim the blade.

Re: Fore planes

Gary in Central NY

>Fore planes are made to be the first plane you set to the wood, therefore they are made to take a pretty thick shaving. however, I wouldn't be too concerned about it... just use it. someone on here did a survey that showed that the tightness of the mouth is really only a concern in a smoothing plane. all your trying to do is get the surface flat. have fun and good luck.

Re: Fore planes

Dale Lenz

>When I put a Hock iron in my 07 and 06, jointer and fore planes. I had to widen the front of the plane's mouth to accept the thicker iron...Dale

Re: Fore planes

Jerry Nicholson

>The most important thing is that the blade be REALLY sharp. There are a lot of threads here on that subject but remember that the back of the blade is just as important as the bevel. Many experts advise sharpening the blade with a slight camber. A new LV or Hock blade (about $35 plus shipping) would be a lot thicker and would eliminate a lot of that gap. A new blade would also be ground to the correct angle and be ready for final honing. If this is the only application that you will have for your plane, the new blade is probably not worth the cost. A plane isn't the only way to do what you want - you can build a set of rails, carefully leveled, that would let you use a flat bottom bit in a router to surface the bench. Be careful with that plane - you are poised on the edge of that slippery slope!

Jerry

Nobody mentioned...

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>That a $25 Canadian plane of that size is a gloat. Nice find!JR

Re: Nobody mentioned...

Edward J

>Thanks for the advice gentlemen. I just tried the plane out on a few planks, seems OK, but I need to get "the feel" for it before I even attempt on my work top.

A new blade might be in order. The one I've got now is pitted on the back, and was sharpend by the previous owner on what appears to be a sidewalk... I put a new bevel on it with a 6"alum. oxide grindstone and gave it some tlc on a 2000 grit stone with a LV honing guide.

Don't want to gloat, but at the same antique place I also picked up at "transitional" Stanley 15" wood (Jack?) plane, No. 26. Managed to coax a friend to give the sole a few swipes on his 6" jointer, but I'm having trouble setting the blade. For all intents and purposes, it seems like the back iron has been substituted for another. No matter what I do it seems the feed adjust yoke will not get into the little notch on the back iron. Were the older models differently designed, the notch on the back iron moved up higher than on the more modern ones?

Transitional Chip Breaker

Jerry Nicholson

>I just checked one of my transitional planes and the notch in the chip breaker is indeed about 3/4 inch farther toward the top end than on an iron Stanley plane. If someone installed a modern chip breaker, I don't think you are ever going to make it work. Of course, you could try drilling and filing a new rectangular hole in the chip breaker, which doesn't sound like any fun at all! I have a bunch of transitional planes and I just keep them around to look at. The blade is poorly supported in these and I don't want to spend my time trying to make them useful.

Jerry

"Blade is poorly supported"

Bill Houghton, raining and raining, Sebastopol, CA

>I'm confused - one of the arguments made (though not the only) for wooden planes is that the iron is supported on a wooden bed, thus damping vibration. Which is exactly what is true on a transitional. How is the iron poorly supported?

Re: Nobody mentioned...

Edward J

>O.K. that's what I figured, but my knowledge of woodworking tools isn't all that great. I do have an " spare parts orphan", a Stanley smoothing plane with a cracked sole. Could I exchange the frog from this and transplant it in the transitional?

Re: Nobody mentioned...

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>Edward if the smoother is an iron body plane the frog won't interchange. The whole problem is the added thickness for the wooden sole jacks up the height of the yoke and there for the notch in the chipbreaker is further away from the cutters edge in the correct chipbreaker. I'd either cut a new notch for the yoke or hunt up a transitional chipbreaker. That is the only real fix here.JR

Re: Nobody mentioned...

Edward J

>Thanks. Seems silly to have the "woodie" sitting on a shelf without ever trying it. I guess I'll drill and file a notch in a newer chip breaker when I get the time.

Re: "Blade is poorly supported"

Jerry Nicholson

>The blade on the transitional extends about 1.5 inches beyond the bottom of the frog. If the frog is adjusted correctly, the blade will rest on the wooden base - or it might be hanging out in space. So in my relatively uninformed opinion, the blade in a transitional is poorly supported, especially compared to the way the blade is wedged into place on a real woodie.

Jerry

Re: "Blade is poorly supported"

Bill Houghton, raining and raining, Sebastopol, CA

>The frogs on my transitionals aren't adjustable, so I never realized that could be an issue. Thanks for the info.

Re: Nobody mentioned...

James Watriss

>FYI. if you're dumb enough...

I bought a new thin stock A2 blade for one of mine from Lie Nielsen, and they were kind enough to drill new holes in one of their own chipbreakers for me to fit the task, so I have LN blade and chipbreaker in one of my trannies. No extra charge for the drilling, either.

Re: "Blade is poorly supported"

Jerry Nicholson

>Interesting - I just checked 3 Stanley and 1 Sargent transitional. The frog on the liberty bell Stanley is not adjustable but the other Stanleys and the Sargent have slotted holes for the frog hold down screws just like a normal cast iron bench plane, except that they are wood screws. The liberty bell Stanley, due to the design of the cap iron (just like a Stanley #40), looks like it would provide much better blade support than the other transitionals. I hadn't noticed that before! The bottom in mine is so convex (fore & aft) that I would have to take off about 1/8 inch of wood to get it flat enough to use. (It might work as a really big radius compass plane though :-)

Jerry

Sorry Edward we're drifting here...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond,CA

>Where has all the transitional information gone? This should be cut and pasted into an article! I don't know about anybody elce but, this has been really inforimative.

Likewise...

Bob Hackett(Mainely,Bob)

>Those funny hammered looking transitional lever caps are longer as they need to bear on those chipbreakers.

Didn`t we just go thru this a short while back?Where`s Chico when you need him?

MB

Re: Fore planes

paul womack

>I'm presuming it's an old Record #6,

AFAIK all Record planes have "Record" on the casting.

BugBear