Wood bench planes ailments

After completing the pile of H&R's and beader's I had out in the man cave, I thought the next pile I must move (before Jean lose patience :-) are the wood bench planes.
Well, their irons are a lot bigger than moulding planes and take more time and return trips to the Evaporust bath.

Bench planes have their own issues that we have to deal with.
Being a bigger blade ( says 1-/38 to 2 plus inches wide blade) that is a lot more "rust food" area and easier to take hold in small depressions.  Yap, they can rust badly.  Add the chip breaker: Double irons they used to called them when they first came out late 1700's, and we can trap even more moisture... longer.  Perfect storm scenario in my climate.

When rusted, they will very often  take tenacious hold on the wood surfaces (frog area, wedge) and can be very hard to remove.
You then need Ommph in persuation (shock the blade assembly/wedge to break that bound)
But PLEASE NO metal hammers, use a wooden mallet of some sort.

Just like metal hammers, a larger striking face would leave less "imprint' damages and potentially cause less damages like chipping chunks of wood.  If you hit near an edge, you could cause chip out, careful.  Aim carefully, control your breath... :-)

Personally I used a 16 Oz British style Carpenter mallet

the most, cause that is what I have the longest.  

Bought it in 1987 along with my first set of Record Marples wood chisels.    

Or my LV 18 Oz Carpenter mallet.

Which incidentally is what I often use to adjust my bench woodies

If you are thinking, wow that is a big jump in Ooomph power compared to the dainty little plane hammer you shown us before...You would be right, but I also use a few more a lot smaller than the ones just shown :-)

That dainty one,  I use on all my moulding planes and occasionally 

it will come to play for fine tuning a bench plane.

This is the one most used on my wooden bench planes.

Woodcraft's shameless, cheap copy of a Glen Drake original tool :-(

The flat portion double as a blade assembly cap screw screwdriver

 A Warrington pattern hammer make a good plane hammer

but be careful hitting wood.  Better yet use your carpenter mallet to hit the body.

This one is a 8 Oz hammer, great for small blade adjustment.

The flat peen is not to be used as a screwdriver, like the Woodcraft above, 

but it comes in handy to hit a blade close to the wedge

Besides rust, another cause of stuck blade assemblies and wedges is the natural swelling of the wooden bodies.  Regardless of surface finishes on the body, wood expand and contract to achieve moisture equilibrium with its environment.  Some wooden planes to be found are pretty dry, they have not seen attention in a long time.  Clean, oil them the wood will thank you... by swelling a bit once its thirst has been satisfied. That small expansion can lodge a blade assembly pretty tight.
But it should not if the wood and blade are a good fit.

When too tight and forced, typical damages done:  The side abutment 

either break or is pushed out on the side.  

I previously epoxy glued that damage.  Strong and it works.

This crack in the heel will have to be closed with glue, either gel Krazy glue or epoxy

Judging by the width, I will use epoxy.

If left uncheck, it will one day crack away when hit with a persuading ooomph.

That is one place where we don't want sharp arises left. 

chamfer or rounding the heel will help it survive longer with less damages.

And yes, strike button helps a lot also, but all you need is an errant blow...

By a good fit I mean that the blade assembly need some clearances  on its side when sitting on the frog surface.  It needs it in order to be able to laterally adjust the blade.
OK, but we can still use it as is?  Yes, but you are better be excellent at sharpening a square edge !!

So you need some wiggle room.  If you need lots, go back to the sharpening bench instead, learn to sharpen better. 
Not much, but it need some wiggle room...

... After, the wood has been cleaned of dirt and rust accumulations, oiled/wax (I use Feed N Wax) and acclimatized to your shop.  DO NOT wax the frog surface, it could impair wedging action.
... After the iron has been cleaned de-rusted, including its sides.

Then and only then, should you resort to surgery to fix a problem.
Shave some wood or file the sides of the iron??

First I would give the iron closer examination.  What is the cutting edge width?
They pretty well had standard sizes blades, if you have a bastard, it probably was buggered up.
Does the blade has parallel edges? Any uneven roughness on its edges?  They were often stamped from a blank, and have the scar to show it.

Lets have a closer look at the blade assembly.

It has been cleaned and de-rusted

Interestingly, the flash often spot some rust you can barely see.

Blade is fine, cap iron need one more soaking 

Back sides.  Notice the square nut  stuck in the cap iron, it would be sliding 

along the slot in the blade as it is adjusted to each other.

You would want a good fit Right?

See anything wrong with this picture?

Cap iron is off centered and sticking out on one side.

Centering is dictated by the nut and slot alignment.

Square nut does not quite fit inside cut out on blade, 

so you cannot cinch it down  all the way.

Yet, it is tight at the critical point in front.

Don't let the shadows fool you.

Besides all that, it still fit and work as advertised.

So there is hope, it will look better and still work after I'm done with it. :-)

So obviously we have a make up blade cap iron assembly, not original.

I would address those blade problems first before touching the wood.

Look closely at the frog and sides abutments surfaces in raking light.  Often rusty metal leave hard rust nodules embedded in the wood surfaces.  A light scraping action with a blunt (well sharp but at 90 degrees or so :-) chisel will take care of it.   What, you don't have such a chisel ?  Of course you do, we all do.  Take one of your chipped chisels and grind away the damages.  Congratulation, you now have one ready. 

After these two steps, 90% or so of problems would be fixed.  I say 90 ish because there is always that one and this one isn't it ? :-)

Next comes the perfect marriage of the blade assembly unto the frog surface and held perfectly tight by a wooden wedge.

Seems like a good fit. 

Wedge fit tight on both abutments and the blade.

Tight lines and no snags when running my finger to catch.

Yet that is the one with the miss matched iron/cap iron

OK, more close inspection of wedge surfaces.  Look for rust inclusion as above, check for damages surfaces, where the plane hammer hit (mushed over edge, or chipped), the end which sit on the blade assembly is a good fit with the style of chip breaker used:  Flat, or curved like on metallic planes. 
Not all planes have a double iron or were intended to.

The black areas on the frog and the back of the wedge are rust deposits.

Should feel smooth to the touch.  Feels for any rust nodules sticking up.

Blunt square chisel is preferable to sand paper, in my own experiences.

One: It picks up small things sticking up, that you would not feel with the sandpaper, 

and Two: It remove very little.

Then there is always the possibility that you have a substitute wedge or blade or cap iron, or a combination of all the above to make you loose hair faster.  If / when it happens, I would not touch the wood to correct, I'll wait to get a better matching pair and forget about hair transplant.


When everything is cleaned of rust, wood and blade, and it all fits together reasonably well, it's now time to  give the sole a good look.  There was no point fixing the sole if we cannot get the blade/chip breaker, wedge to play nice together, plane would be useless.

Often the sole have been long shot to snoot (heavily used, worn out etc)

Ooohh look at that gaping mouth.

The blade is roughly level with the body, it would close a bit once 

blade is advanced to cut but it will never come close to have 

the tight mouth required as a smoother.  

A good candidate to have a new sole added, about 1/2 inch should do it

Why do I guesstimate 1/2 in??  Because new ones are about 3 + inch thick.

This one measured at 2-1/2 in thick.

That 1/2 in difference is the reason for the gaping mouth

This one is a good 3 in thick

That is a good tight mouth.

Again blade is somewhat flush with sole.

That would close to nothingness...

Note the shape of this smoother.

How flat and how square to the body sides?
We are not machinist, but wood worker.  Unless the sides were flat and it is used on a shooting board, it does not matter.  Heck you can have a boat shaped smooth plane.  Often called coffin shape smoother's.  Pic above.

The thinner the shavings you expect to pull off, the flatter the sole becomes critical.  Hint, I rarely pull off see through fluffy shavings in real life... If it looks flat, no twist, it is flat.  If you can adjust blade cutting edge square to the sole (parallel), it is all set to go.  Blade advance is adjusted on the go...

Often the sole is worn thin enough, caused by wear and tear and repeated flattening thru the years.
If you cannot finely adjust your blade to an almost closed mouth aperture, IF it was a smoother, it is worn, and could use a new sole (added on).  Jack planes never had tight mouth to start with, and Fore and Joiner could benefit from a smaller mouth, but not as critical as for smoother.   

The 3 inch thickness I mentioned above does not always hold true with Razee planes.  That form was specifically designed to shed some weight.  They were often used overhead, in boat building, hence the lighter weight was appreciated.

A razee ship carpenter plane from around St-John New Brunswick

Maker unknown, Craftsman made?  But provenance is believed to be from a long closed shipyard.

This is a 30 inch long jointer.  It would be a lot more heavy at a 3 inch thickness

Behind it there is a 28 in jointer, in the regular shape.

at 3 plus inch thick , even with being 2 inch shorter, it is a lot heavier

That 28 in jointer comes in at 3-1/2 in thick.  That is practically unused.

Most newish ones I've seen are in the 3 to 3-1/2 in thick range. 

 I heard of 4 in, but that would be rare in my book.

The thick part up front on the razee plane is about 2-1/4 in thick

Scooped down to 1-1/2 in in the back.

Shaved a lot of weight.

Wood species unknown, but not beech.  Something close to oak perhaps??

So how do you know looking at the sole was is acceptable or not?
The mouth aperture is the most critical part of the sole.  Next we want coplanar., not necessary flat, can have hollows (Not convinced? look at Japanese planes), but high points from toe to mouth aperture to heel must be coplanar EG in line with each other, same height.  Most everything in between can be hollowed.

Depending on the type of planes: Smoother, Jack, Fore or Jointer the size of the mouth aperture varies, according to usage, but you want a clean crisp line, especially in front of mouth.

Typical mouth damages, mostly chips out.

The front of the mouth is to the Left in this pic.  

It is the crucial one, must be flat and straight, no chips.

Would work fine as is, but I would address the chipping in the back.

Glue and knock off sharp edges.

Again how crisp and flat will varies with vintage, uses and abuses. You can always add a new sole if required to fix a variety of ailments, including adding a hard, oily exotic wood for longer wearing.
But just plain old beech will outlast you unless you only have one and you uses it every day...
But then again you could get ran over by a bus, so it could still outlast you. Just saying :-)

Another way to fix a bad mouth is to insert a piece of wood across the sole wedged in the sole.
Usually with a sliding dovetail. 

This piece of hard wood is dovetailed in the sole in front of mouth.

You can use that to close a gaping mouth without having to resole the whole plane.

Or to simply fix a damaged mouth.  

Look how much the body has shrunk compare to the piece, inserted across the grain.  

Was even at one time, can you visualize how tight it could squeeze the blade. 

This smoother is a handled one.  I don't come across that form very often.  Does not mean they are rare, just not often seen in my usual tools hunts.

Typical blackened surface left by rust from blade

Notice the strike button on top, in front of mouth.

That would be required because you cannot really hit

 the heel of the plane to retract the iron.

That handle or tote is not inserted, but rather carved from the body blank.

They naturally cost a premium over the more common coffin or rectangular shaped ones.

Talking of strike button, some ill advised person sanded this body and made a mess.

The strike button on the heel (not often seen) has been power sanded flat.

Only way to fixed that would be, to bore it out and make a new dome strike button

 out of some hard wood

The front got sanded, but fortunately we can still see the maker stamp: 

 A. Monty Roxton Pond Qc.

That is why the body look so pale, it is sanded down to the original beech.  

Some remnants of colour and finish stuck here and there.

Was originally stained a a light reddish yellow

like my other Monty planes I just happened to have :-)

Other than that you get your usual damaged totes.  Even if its only a broken tip, I encourage you to fix it.  A well fitted handle or tote to your hand feels right and wont hurt you.
Not to mention that the better the fit with your hand the better the feedback

Just like your typical metallic plane broken horn or tote.

With one glaring exception!!!!

This is a transitional, on all wooden plane, the handle or rear tote 

is inserted and glue to the body, no metal fasteners.

Typical handle excavation in plane body.

Hard to see, but the lower round part of the mortise is angled inward.

This mean the handle must be inserted heel first then tilted forward. 

 It add insurance securing the handle to the body. 

Sometimes that inward recess is at the front of mortise.

Handle would be inserted front first

Nonetheless, if you have the bad habit of holding your wood bodied plane with just one hand on the handle and let it swing by your side.  One of two things is going to happen eventually.
1- The handle will break.  There is not much wood grain holding the handle circumference, you are asking a lot.  But, it should be a clean break :-)
Just remember there are no bolt thru the handle, you will drop the plane and damaged it and or yourself trying to catch it.
 2- The handle will slip out of its mortise, glue fails
There were no wiggle to attend to prior to dropping it was it ??
That glue joint is pretty old by now, was no doubt animal based glue (reversible hide glue)  Chances are pretty good that joint is no longer as strong as it once was, and not all makers made that special recess mortise wall.

All that to say, strongly advise to always hold with two hands.  And make sure the handle is well secured. Uses hide glue to repair, because it will stick to old glue residue.

As a rule Jack planes have open handles, like on metallic planes and Fore and Jointers have closed handles, more like on saws.
There are of course exceptions.  There is always the one isn't it :-)
As a rule 15-18 in long Jack
20-22 in long Fore
24 and up Jointer or Joiner

Jack plane, 16 in, Razee, open tote.  2-1/2 in thick up front.

I know, it look thicker than the one below, but it is not. 

Parallelism, angle of POV can trick your eyes  .  

Fore plane, 20 in, Razee, closed tote

3 in thick up front

Side comparison.

On the left 3 in  on the right 2-/2 in 

Both from same maker A Monty Roxton pond.

So now armed with this knowledge, you should be able to look at planes pictures and guesstimate wear and tear (less than 3 in thick (height of plane against object around it), except in Razee).
Differentiate between Jack, Fore and Jointer
And when you finally put yours hands on it, you will
know how to address most problems.

Now get out there and rescue one will yah? :-)

Bob, left alone with the dogs for a few days.  Got my tasking orders, but should be able to make quicker progress on my "ahem" inventory...?? A suivre :-)