25/5/2017

One day in May while sitting in my shop at the end of a long day sipping usquebaugh I found myself staring at this so-called Shaw’s Patent no. 5 Jack plane of mine. It is the Jack plane that I use for heavy stock removal, which means it ends up on the receiving end of some significant elbow grease. As a result, the plane tends to reciprocate the well intended elbow grease with fervent vesication of that part of my hand that flirts with the ribbed edge of the main casting.  It got me thinking that the plane could possibly be modified to amend this particular quirk.

You can read a post on how I restored it when I initially got my discombobulated mitts on it.

As you can see here, the slight design glitch with this Sargent plane is twofold. There is a lot of wasted space between the top of the tote and the lateral adjuster. Also the bottom end of the tote slopes downwards, which has the effect that the side of one’s hand tends to end up on the rib of the main casting. Thus a combinations of these two inadequacies coerce the hand of the user into a position much lower than what is needed.

As you can see in the example below, the bottom part of the tote on this Lie-Nielsen low angle Jack plane does not slope down, but runs parallel to the sole of the plane. This design element stops the hand from sliding down too far. I thought that the Shaw’s Patent could benefit from a tote that employs the same strategy. Together with that I could utilize the dead space between the top of the tote and the lateral adjuster by lengthening the tote, which would also aid the user’s hand to ride higher.

I found a piece of Kaapse Swarthout, that would not suffice for any other purpose. This is by far my favourite indigenous species for producing totes.

It was quite a mission to fashion a tote that would fit the plane and at the same time tick the desired design tweaks. I used a combination of the original tote, the Lie-Nielsen tote, and documents on Stanley totes to accomplish the task.

The final product looks like this. You can see how the top of the tote is now much closer to the lateral lever and the bottom of it has a parallel section to hold the user’s hand up. Another neat little trick I discovered is to cut a leather washer to sit between the sole of the tote and the main casting. It makes a huge difference to the feel of the plane when using it. The difference is hard to explain, but try it and you will know what I mean.

The changes to the tote also necessitated a tweak to the length of the tote bolt. Unfortunately it is a change in the more challenging direction i.e. making it longer.

While I was at it I also changed the knob. I prefer a flat section at the top of the knob for my thumb when gripping the front end of the plane with the rest of my fingers on the sole acting as a fence.

The final adjustment I made was to file down the part of the rib in question by about 1 mm and rounded it. After all that the Shaw’s (re)Patent works like a dream. If you prefer woodworking rather than tool tweaking, I suggest that it might be better to buy a Lie-Nielsen plane from the start.

3/8/2015

I found this single bevel axe head in a “cash converter” store in George while visiting the Garden Route in June 2015. I had to fork out the astonishing amount of R125 for it. (bottom of the first picture)

Some idiot put a bevel on the non-bevel side, but otherwise it was in top shape.

The only mark on it reads “Made in Sweden”.

29/1/2016

First I had to get rid of the unwanted bevel and then proceeded to grind a fresh bevel on the correct side of the head. This took quite a while as I was careful not to overhead the steel, which would result in a loss of temper. You can see how I clamped the axe head to a piece of timber which is shoved against a suitably place object (read foot) to ensure a constant grinding angle.

The handle was made from a piece of Assegaai (Curtisia dentata) using the bandsaw, draw knives, rasps and a card scraper.

1/2/2016

I am proud to report that I did my first bit of blacksmithing to create this cold steel wedge. It was a scrap bit of steel that received an almighty pounding. I do not have a blowtorch (yet), but can report that aggression can sometimes yield products of beauty. The steel is soft enough  to be shaped without heating.

As you can see here, I used a wooden wedge and the metal wedge to secure the handle.

Of course I drove the metal wedge one blow of the hammer too far, which resulted in the timber below the axe head splitting.

As I was not in the mood to make a new handle, I simply installed a wood screw to inhibit a potential extension of the split.

15/2/2016

To complete the rehab I made a nice game leather sheath for the side axe. Now the only thing left to do is to find suitable green wood in Namibia to hew into chair stock.

5/8/2015

Stanley no. 5 1/2 C (ca 1902-1907) rehab

I bought this plane from Jim Bode in August of 2015. It is my 4th no. 5 and 5th Jack plane (if I include my shop made wooden Jack plane). Why, … because I want to be like David Charlesworth, that is why! It is more than an adequate reason to buy another Jack plane in my book. David is such an icon to me, I just love his meticulous and cerebral approach to the craft.

In the interest of woodworking ethics/morality, I should probably say to the beginners out there (who wants to be like me … did I say that out loud?), that you do not need 5 Jack planes. In fact ,you do not need any other bench plane than a single no. 5. The problem is that I like the tools of the trade as much as the trade itself.

This plane seems to be David Charlesworth’s favourite as it is never far from his reach in those famous Lie-Nielsen DVDs. The no. 5½ was made between 1898 – 1958 and this particular specimen is a Type 9, which were made between 1902 – 1907. The pictures below are those taken by Jim, before it traveled to Sub-Sahara Africa.

Kenny at the Prop Shop did the usual bead blasting for me.

I actually prefer the Type 8’s frog receiver to these, but they are still pretty good. Stanley changed the frog receiver in 1902 as indicated by the patent dates in the main casting. They did this to cut the time and cost of production, not as an improvement in function. The slippery slide towards poorer quality at a higher price is probably what led to the emergence of so called ‘tool shaped objects’ that we are so familiar with in the 21st century.This particular plane does not have the frog adjusting screw, which was added to the Bailey series from 1907 onwards.

One of the reasons I like this plane so much is that it does not have anything cast into the area of the main casting behind the frog. I find the smooth surface much more comfortable when putting firm thumb pressure in this area, … you’ve guessed it … ala Charlesworth.

Rust converter.

Anti-rust undercoat.

High gloss truck enamel paint.

12/10/2015

This past weekend I managed to assemble the plane.

Sorry for the poor quality of this picture, but you should be able to see that I did some work to flatten the area where the blade beds down …

… as well as the frog receiver area.

David Charlesworth eat your heart out.

I have already done some work with this plane and it is an absolute gem.

July 2014

I bought this plane back in July 2014 from Patrick Leach. It is a Sargent no. 14C Jack plane. This is Sargent’s equivalent of a Stanley no. 5. It is known as a Shaw’s Patent, after it’s inventor who was assigned the patent for this plane’s adjustable frog on the 3rd of July 1906. If you want to know more you can go here and read Patrick Leach’s so called “Blood and Gore”.

From what I can deduct they were only made between 1910 and 1918. What is confusing though, is that I also found a type study on these planes that dates the different appearances of the trademark on the lever cap. According to that, this plane is a type 4, and is dated as 1919-1942. So maybe that means that the main casting dates back to 1910-1918 and the levercap from a bit later, not sure.

In the picture below it is the plane at the top. It was taken prior to it’s trans-Atlantic journey. The plane actually traveled in two different shipments. I received the frog, blade, chip breaker, tote, knob and levercap in October 2014. The main casting only arrived in February of this year.

15/6/2015

Unfortunately, I did not take a picture after bead blasting, but my usual sequence of steps are well documented in previous posts on this topic. Simply click “Rehabilitation of old tools” category on my website’s side bar for a selection of posts on the topic.

The picture below illustrate the frog’s mating surface on the main casting. It runs parallel to the sole of the plane, which is helpful in that the set of the blade does not change when the frog is shifted forwards or backwards. My only gripe with Sargent planes is that the machining on the two planes I have is pretty poor compared to Stanleys. You might actually notice it in the picture below.

Here I am busy flattening the frog’s mating surface and again the poor quality machining is quite obvious. To be fair, I must also say that the levercap appears to be similar to much earlier Stanley models in the quality (in other words quite elegant) of machining. The frog was plated with cadmium as a rust prevention treatment and aesthetic enhancer.

The horn of the tote needed repair as well. It is the tote on the left in the second picture.

I did this rehab at the same time as that of the Stanley no. 8 pictured with the Shaw’s Patent below.

13/7/2015

I sharpened the blade with a fairly aggressive camber as this will become my aggressive Jack plane used in tandem with a shop made scrub plane. You will notice that the levercap also received the cadmium plating.

The plane’s first job turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. It worked really well, but it was the amount of work that caused the trauma. You can read more about that here.

I have to say that this is a very good plane after a bit of tuning. The design of the adjustable frog gives it a bit of an edge over similar Stanleys. However, everything has it’s pros and cons.

27/10/2014

I bought this Stanley no. 8 from Patrick Leach way back in September 2014. I usually get him to hold on to tools I buy until we have enough merchandise to justify a fixed price shipment. The plane therefore only set foot on Namibian wood (so to speak) by end of October 2014.

It seems to be a so called Type 8, made between 1899-1902. Patrick thought it was a Type 7 as he had it down as ca 1896. He is the expert, but as far as I can tell from my research, it is a Type 8 for having a B casting mark at the bottom of the frog. The Type 7 is supposed to have a S casting mark according to my reading.

Anyway, that is all quite boring and of purely academic interest, although I must admit I find it riveting. Yes I know … loser!

In the picture below you can see it hanging with some other tools in Ashby MA USA. I bought it at a cheaper price (certainly not cheap for you American boys, who can probably buy it at a quarter of the price at a flea market) due to the fact that it has a hole drilled at the heal of the main casting. Tradesmen used to do this in order to hang the plane on the wall. Apparently this atrocious violation of the plane’s integrity renders it as worthless to a collector. I am so very happy that collectors hold this view as it meant that I was able to afford one of the best planes in my working collection.

Here are a few pictures after it arrived at my shop.

In my opinion the frog’s bedding area on the main casting is one of the two design elements of these planes that make them so good. It is parallel to the sole and relatively large compare to later offerings.

As per usual by now, I took the plane apart and divided the parts into two plastic bags. One for bead blasting only and the other for the aforementioned as well as cadmium plating. Once again I have to warn you that philistine practices such as radical restoration would induce an epileptic seizure in your average collector and significantly reduce the value of the plane to him/her once they regain consciousness postictally. I seem to be immune to this particular ailment.

Back from Kenny at the Prop Shop.

I usually treat the raw metal with rust converter first. I have no idea whether this is a good idea, but it seems to create a very nice grippy surface for the layers of paint to follow. That is followed by a layer of anti-rust paint (not pictured) that is orange in colour. Finally followed by three layers of what is called high gloss truck enamel paint.

22/6/2015

As you can see from the date above, this project then went into hibernation for some time. The tote on the right is this plane’s. It received a Woodock treatment after these pictures were taken to make the repair less obvious.

Next came the key mating surfaces. I flattened these carefully with a range of different techniques. What I realise is that the machining on these planes are significantly superior to the later models I have reconditioned. That saying about things that used to be better back in the day rings true in this particular case. You can also appreciate what cadmium plating looks like as the frog received such treatment.

This next picture illustrate the second reason why these planes are so much better than later models. Just look at the large flat areas that supports the back of the blade. As you can see, I did some extra work to ensure that it is super flat.

One reconditioned granddad looking like the business at the ripe old age of 115.

15/6/2015

This is a pre-1900 Stanley no. 66 beader that I bought from Patrick Leach. If you consult the appropriate chapter of his epic work entitled “Patricks Blood and Gore”, you will find that pre-1900 beaders were japanned and later models were nickel plated. I got it bead-blasted to remove all the old japanning before redoing it with my usual sequence of potions. I wrote extensively about this in previous posts concerned with this topic so I will not repeat all that here. The Jack plane in the background is a so called Shaw’s Patent by Sargent, which I am also working on at the moment. I will write a post on that process in due coarse.

I bought a set of beading tool blades from Lie-Nielsen some time ago and they fit this Granddad perfectly. For US$ 45 and a bit of elbow grease I have a new and highly respected classic tool. Those of you who (undoubtedly) thinking to yourself well I can buy one of those for $5 at a garage sale, shame on you. This is just another example of how lucky you are. To me here in the sticks, this is a very cheap option and it does not even include the arm and a leg it cost me to get it here from the US.

In the pictures below you can see where it found a home on my so called Hovering Skeleton Chest.