Plane Quality??

Re: Plane Quality??

Jerry Nicholson


>The frogs on my Craftsman and Dunlap planes are quite different from the frog on a Stanley. They do not extend downward from the frog mounting surfaces at all and provide about 1/2 inch less support to the blade. I was never able to use one of these on anything but softwood and came to the conclusion that planes are useless on hardwood. Then I got a Clifton #5 - all the difference in the world! Now I have way too many Stanley planes, along with a couple of LV BU bench planes. I will keep the Craftsman because it belonged to my dad but I won't ever try to use it for anything again. The Dunlap is the one I loan out when someone asks to borrow a plane.

Jerry

Re: Plane Quality??

woodburnbob


>Seems to me you've gone a long way to answer your own question, Dean. They are inferior in part because of all the choices to make a cheaper plane. But your argument addresses only static "features". Have you been using that inferior plane? Are you getting something better than inferior function? If so, you are an infinitely better plane guy than me.

On a whim, I bought a second generation Defiance. Wow, it was pristine. They all are. Anybody who bought one learned quick they don't work. Examine the frog and you'll see why. But they are the most undamaged, unbruised, unused plane bargains out there. It's rare to see one that looks to have been used for more than 30 minutes on Christmas afternoon.

Go over to Harbor Freight and stand around for an hour. You'll see there's a whole segment of humanity that will have nothing but a bargain...at any cost.

Re: Plane Quality??

Bill Houghton, retired fun in Sebastopol, CA


>If you take the frog off, does it rest firmly on machined surfaces down close to the sole? Are they large enough to provide good bearing?

Ironically, I've got a very early Stanley (though not Bailey, I'll acknowledge) plane with a frog that, although it is machined flat where the iron bears, has no bearing at all down by the sole - I've been too busy with other projects to try it out, but I'll be interested to see how well it planes.

Re: Plane Quality??

Dean Boyers


>Bob, you may be right. I haven't sharpened the Dunplap to try it, but the blade is full length. It was not used much. But you have brought up another point. Since I am fairly new at handplanes, I'm not sure how to gage superior performance. I have a Stanley #3 and #5 (both pre war)and I am able to get thin shavings in both soft & hardwood. I have never had the opportunity to try a LV or Clifton, so I don't have a good comparison. I have also wondered if my sharpening is up to par. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

A few things stand out

Jim Reed @ Tallahassee

>on less expensive planes. One is backlash. Turn the blade adjuster wheel to advance the blade. Now back it off a bit. A really good Stanley or LN has little backlash and it takes less than a revolution to back the blade out. Less expensive planes have lots of play and are harder to adjust. Blades are also stamped steel and are soft and cause chatter. Handles are often wiggly. Bottoms are not flat. All of these things affect performance. Even with lengthy tuning sessions, most of the lesser planes do not perform well, especially on harder woods like hard maple. These lesser quality planes are good for house carpentry like fixing doors. Good luck with yours.

I have a Defiance #3

Denis Ch�nard, Orl�ans, Ont.

>My father (a retired mechanic) seems to think that because his mechanics' tools don't rust that carpentry and woodworking tools will be the same... So in effect, a WW tool of his that's not rusted simply means that it's new...

Last year I spotted that Defiance plane in his stuff, thoroughly rusted, and asked for it since it was obvious he wasn't using it... Brought it home, gave it the electrolysis bath, cleaned it up and left it at that.

This spring, when my father visited, I wanted to show him that old tools aren't necessarily dead, and proceeded to very quickly fettle the tool. All in all I took about 15 minutes to do a quick job before starting to take shavings. It did work, I could take thin shavings off a beech board, but the plane made a shrieking sound as it went. No tearout, smooth surface, but the feeling of the plane as I used it was like scratching nails on a blackboard...

In the end, the plane works, with more fettling it will probably be less irritating to use. But I think it will be more comfortable planing pine...

DC

Re: Plane Quality?? ***PICS***

mikew

>Hi Dean,

While agree that a newer, better plane form the likes of LV and LN are great right out of the box, and that the lesser examples from Stanley et al are often poor examples of what a plane should be, often they can still be decent performers. And they can be even better improved with thicker blades and better cap irons from the likes of Hock and LN.

The pictures are of a Stanley Handyman plane which was given to my wife by her mother following a garage sale. These pictures are from before she cleaned it up. Virtually as received in other words. All she did was pop out the iron and hone it on a 2000 grit stone, put it back together, adjusted it and then planed some hard Maple.

If she had tried to take a coarser shaving--a practical shaving or something other than final smoothing--that's when this thin iron would have made its ugly self known on hard Maple.

So my recommendation is always, clean it and try it out. It may just work fine for you as is.

Take care, Mike

I have three of these. Here's a comparison

Dave Thompson

>One of these was my grandfathers.... the other two I picked up along the way. I believe he likely used for general carpentry type work, of which I think it's just fine for.

There were more than one manufacturer of Dunlap planes. I have one which I believe is made by Millers Falls, and the other two which I believe are Sargents. They are different quality planes. The Miller Falls Dunlap has a frog blade bedding as good as any. The sargent bedding is about as poor as they get. The MF frog extends to within an 1/8" from the sole, while the Sargent extends to within 3/4" from the sole. The bedding of the frog to base on the MF is pretty solid. I can see light shining between frog and base on the Sargent. There are other refinements like the MF having a two piece lateral adjustor, while the Sargent is a single pressed steel. The MF has a slightly nicer depth adjustor knob... not sure if it's nickel plated.

I think the MF Dunlap, tuned up would make a fine user. The Sargent may have some more limitations.

Dave

Re: I have three of these. Here's a comparison

Jerry Nicholson

>Mine must be the Sargent version. My genuine Sargent planes appear to be of considerably higher quality than my Craftsman (about 60 years old, with plasic tote and knob), or my Dunlap (probably 45 years old, with fairly low quality wooden tote and knob). And the Sargents don't hold a candle to my old Stanleys. The Sargents will probably go back on e-bay one of these days.

Jerry

I totally agee Jim...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond, CA

>Nice to see your here Dean! Youv'e come to the right place! Sloppy adjusters and bad machineing don't make a good plane. You might have a very nice plane. I don't play with them myself, but good on you!

See my responce about mulit planes (a few threads down)...

Here's a third manufacturer of Dunlap

Dave Thompson

>The e-bay seller says it has written on the blade "Made in West Germany", which I guess puts it somewhere between 1945 and 1989. It doesn't look like my MF or Sargent Dunlaps.

A picture of the Frogs

Dave Thompson

>Dean, I guess you asked about some of the quality differences. Here's a pictures of the Sargent Dunlap frog and the Millers Falls Dunlap frog. You can see with the Sargent that the blade has minimal contact with the blade. It's just around the edges. and really doesn't extend very close to the wood (3/4"). The Miller falls on the right has about as much contact with the blade as possible almost all the way down to the sole (1/8")

This is important with regard to blade chatter. With hard wood, the blade can flex between frog and chip breaker/lever cap. With solid bedding, this is less likely.

Blade characterstics is another functional quality difference.

There are non-planing quality differences too... for example, this Sargent Dunlap has three full revolutions of backlash. The MF Dunlap has about 1 1/3 revolutions of backlash. As comparison, the best I've seen on a Bailey is that on a bronze LN4.5 with 1/8 turn backlash. Of course, this won't make the wood look any better.

Dave

A few things I've noticed

James Watriss

>I have an old #4 and a couple of #3s that came with sweetheart blades. Not sure of the vintage or type, but when I did check, they were probably from the 19-teens. While fettling at school, I noticed the following things.

-Machining quality was much nicer. I was fettling per David Charlesworth's directions, and when I used a marker to test how much of hte frog was actually bedding in, on average the older ones had more contact than the newer ones. And when I used carborundum powder to help grind them together, I did notice that the older frogs slid back and forth as if on a rail. Newer planes I have to manually square the frog to the bed, hoping like hell that the sides are square so that it works.

-Steel is better. Those old sweetheart blades are worth their weight in gold. After a good sharpening I was managing to plane reflective surfaces on maple.

-Comfort. I can't really explain this one. The old rosewood handles just feel nicer. L-N handles are a real good, close second.

I have a small pile of planes at my bench, including some L-N, and an old mathieson infill. The infill is great, but I've found that more often than not, I end up using my old corrugated #3 for shaping, smoothing, edge jointing... The other planes are nice. But that 3 just feels right, and performs exceedingly well.

Re: A few things I've noticed

Joel

>Ohe of the things a lot of folks seem to miss is that having a tool that fits your hand is about as nice as it gets becauese then you use it like an extension of your hand.

When I studied we had a chance to try all the sizes of smoother and figure out what fit our hand. I'm a #4 guy. My teacher was and is a #3 guy. And I think the #3 is vastly under appreiciated these days (even if I personally find it a little small).

Re: I'm just a hobby guy, but

Glenn Madsen near San Francisco

>the Sweetheart-era #3 I got four or five years ago has been a real joy to use, and, for many projects, has been about as useful a plane as I have. The #4s, not so much so.

Re: Plane Quality??

Ernie Miller

>Keep going to flea's picking up $10 planes and one day you will get a nice Stanley fettel it and use it and on that day you will gave a realization of what a realy good user plane is like to use. in the mean time continue to use and enjoy what you have and allways strive to do the best work you can with what you have. I'm not a plane snob Todd H wouldn't waist his time to bend over and look at most of my planes.