Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Restoring and old Bailey Plane
Tom Fink
>One of the planes I recently got from my Dad's collection is an old Bailey with a wooden base. Unfortunately, laying my square on the base shows the sole to be way out of alignment.
Should I try to flatten it? Or just clean it up and proudly display it?
It's about an 18 inch base, nice iron and frog, dirty and with some surface rust. Don't think I ever saw my Dad use it. Probably comes from my Great Uncle David, who was a carpenter.
Tom
Transitional
Jack Guzman from Maine
>Your plane is called a transitional. It's a good plane and pretty common.The beauty of the wooden body is that all you need to do to flatten the sole is plane it or sand it flat.I have one that was so badly worn I added a new sole.I just removed enough material to get a complte surface and glued a piece of hardwood to the sole. Then planed it to desired thickness. The good part of this is you can close up the mouth opening. Use it,restore it. It was intended to be a tool not a piece of art.Of course,this is just my opinion.---Jack
Sounds like . . .
s.mackay@worldnet.att.net
>the first step on a new adventure ! I've always shied away from the wood soles. Might have to look closer when I see one ! Sounds like a neat project ! Have you tried defferent hardwoods ?
Re: Restoring and old Bailey Plane
woodburnbob
>Tom, you should be able to have a really fine working plane with little effort. These transitionals move over wood with nearly no friction and it makes planing more fun. I encourage you to make this heirloom a daily worker. Your ancestors will be proud of you.
Re: Restoring and old Bailey Plane *LINK*
Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)
>Tom
Brian Buckner has a couple of amazing restorations of Transitional planes (amongs other truly beautiful creations) on his website. Link below ..
Regards from Perth
Re: Transitional
tom fink
>Thanks for the support. I'll keep you posted. I'll take a shot at fixing it.
Re: Restoring and old Bailey Plane
tom fink
>Thanks. I'll make a run at fixing it.
Re: Restoring and old Bailey Plane
tom fink
>I'll check the site out later tonight.
Re: Sounds like . . .
Jack Guzman from Maine
>I've used maple and cocobolo for soles.Most hardwoods will work.---Jack
Re: When you do...
Glenn Madsen near San Francisco
>... set aside a good twenty minutes, at least. That fellow has gone seriously down the slope with some VERY nice work on those tools. Something very much to admire/
Thanks for the link!
I can't believe... *LINK*
Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA, sorta cold
>no one has referred you to Patrick Leach's "Blood and Gore" discussion of Stanley planes. The transitional planes start at the link below, and repeat later; depending on which type you have, you may need to navigate back to the home page and then in again. The model number on the transitionals I've got is stamped in the wood at one end.
I've got a nice little smoother, and it's a cool plane.
Part of Patrick Leach on transitionals
Re: I can't believe...
Tom Fink
>I probably could have just gone there myself. I have his site bookmarked and consult it regularly for identifying different planes I see, find, buy.
Tom