Restoring a rabbet plane

Re: Restoring a rabbet plane

John Aniano in central NJ

Jack,

Can you post a photo or two? I’m not quite grasping the situation. Is this a wooden body or a metal body plane?

John

Re: Restoring a rabbet plane

Wiley Horne—So. Calif.

Hi Jack,

On a rabbet plane, you want the cutting edge to be a bit proud of the plane side, by a few or several thousandths. If it is not, the plane will not cut flush to the vertical wall of the rebate, but rather will start working away from the wall, leaving a radius of unwanted wood in the inside corner.

So all rabbet planes have irons that are a bit wide. You can live with the plane perfectly well the way it is, by hammer tapping the cutting edge until it is at the desired proudness from the plane side, when you go to use it. That’s what I would do. You don’t care if it sticks out the non-cutting side by a sixteenth or whatever.

If you decide it is annoying you, you can grind it back a bit, but remember,

1. To leave the blade wide by some amount, so the plane will work.

2. Provide a little relief behind the edge, so the blade will not pysh itself off the rebate wall.

Personally, it sounds OK to me as is.

Wiley

Re: Restoring a rabbet plane

Mike In Los Angeles

It sounds like the sole is out of square, or is that what you meant when you said the double square says the bed is true? It seems like you’d want to make the sole true to the edge of the iron but like the others I’m not sure if I am understanding

Re: Restoring a rabbet plane

Mike In Los Angeles

If the iron is happy and the sole is happy, I think you have to suspect the bed but it would be way out in the weeds to put your iron that far out of square. Makes you wonder if the iron is from another plane, complicates the question right?

More measurements ..

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

There's this double iron rabbet plane, about 3/4" wide. It has an iron sharpened absolutely square across, but when bedded one corner sticks out maybe 1/16" more than the other. In my experience it's an indication that bed is not at a right angle to the planing axis, but a double square says the bed is true.

Jack, if the bed is square, and the iron is square, then the only other side which can be out-of-square is the sidewall against which the blade is referencing.

Associated with this is whether you have checked the iron’s squareness from a reference side, or not.

And a last measurement would be the thickness of the iron - is it even across the sharp end? One side thicker/thinner will lift up and project one side of the bevel.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: Restoring a rabbet plane

Jack Dover

Ok, tried snapping a few. A phone camera can’t catch it, so you’ve got to trust me

The plane set up as all other planes: the iron protrudes past the body for maybe a thickness of a printer paper at the right side, the corner is crisp and square, the whole right flank is protruding too. The body is square to the sole at least on the right. The iron is ever so slightly flared, but still ground square. I think it the mortise - I mean it has to be the mortise since everything else is square.

Re: More measurements ..

Jack Dover

So the mortise is interesting. Since it’s a double iron rabbet plane the mortise provides a bed at the top and at the bottom, rest was milled out to provide clearance for a cap iron’s screw. Maybe these two areas are not co-planar? Obviously I can’t measure the top part.

The bottom part is maybe a hair off square, but it’s hard to tell. It’s nowhere near a skew mortise and the bottom arris is square, but I just can’t get to some parts of it with a square. Which kinda tells me I don’t really have an option: I don’t have a float that would fit inside and I can’t get to the whole bottom part of the mortise, so no matter what I’d do — it would make things worse, grinding it is.

iOS finally learned how to post pictures from the camera to a browser, so here’s some more pictures.

Re: Restoring a rabbet plane

Jack Dover

The iron is 100% original, worst case it’s from a compatible manufacturer: all German planes are like twin brothers and most of the time parts are interchangeable. Really makes me wonder whether they were made by a single manufacturer for various brands.

I think maybe it’s a little bit of everything? Iron man s slightly out if square, slightly uneven bend in the cap iron, a bed is out of square a little (it’s all machine made, there are still mill marks everywhere), and all this compounded pushes the edge out of parallel to the sole

It’s not like I don’t know what to do. I own a Record 3-in-1 shoulder plane which has to be ground out of square, because the bed is obviously not square across. It’s just this cap iron here needs to be adjusted too and there’s very little hump” left, so I have to make it right on the first attempt.

Re: Restoring a rabbet plane

Jack Dover

Yeah, the side was taken care of. Was quite a bear: it’s a laminated blade and it’s hard — really like this about German tools. It’s the part of an edge where the sole is, doesn’t let me plane a square rabbet. It also protruding at the left, can’t even compensate. Other than that it’s very good, takes a continuous shaving from endgrain, that’s a really great steel in my book

Re: Restoring a rabbet plane

Steve D, in CT

Derek said,

"Associated with this is whether you have checked the iron’s squareness from a reference side, or not."

A lot of planes had irons that decrease in width going away from the edge. You cannot make the edge square to both sides. Stanley irons are like this, at least most that I have seen, and to keep the blade centered on the frog the edge would be square to the center slot.

The taper on the sides would also serve to keep the edge in the cut and not have the side of the blade from riding the side of the rabbet.

I would tune the blade so it takes an even cut the way you want it. Once that is done sharpening will be simple as long as you remove material evenly.

I agree

Bruce, a MN Galoot

I bought a no-name equivalent of a Stanley 100 that couldn’t cut right. I finally looked at how the blade sat on the bed and saw that it was askew. Ten minutes with a small file and it worked really well.

Re: Restoring a rabbet plane

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

I would tune the blade so it takes an even cut the way you want it. Once that is done sharpening will be simple as long as you remove material evenly.

I agree. That is the simplest solution. One I would do.

Regards from Perth

Derek