The double iron blade

Or a cap iron screwed unto a blade.  I am not going to debate the merit or not of such an addition , simply point out some details I came across while cleaning a bunch of them.

 In the beginning, our planes had only one blade.  Usually tapered in thickness, being thicker at the cutting edge. Said cutting edge was a hardened piece of steel (tool steel) forged welded to a softer iron blade.  Similar to how axes are bited.

Everything worked fine, but the addition of the second blade (cap iron, chip breaker) around 1760 accomplished two things:

- It helped curled up the shavings faster near the cutting action, and
- It trapped water condensation between both blades.  A perfect recipe for rust to take hold.

I'm guessing they recognized that problem early on because for a while they were covering the back of the cap iron (chipbreaker) with some sort of blueish coating.

Take a look at the two chip breaker back.

The older Stanley one (second from left) has a blueish coating.

The newer one to its right does not anymore, they long stop doing that.

But that practice long preceded Stanley.  I do not know if it was the same process (coating) but you can often see remnants of it on older cap irons.

You can clearly see some sort of coating remnants peeling off  (abraded).

Whatever is left is still solidly attached.

So the question is:  Does it helped at all?

Debatable but here is what i often see.

Yesterday while re-conciliating my physical count with my data records, I came across an early Canadian plane, Dawson, from Montreal.  So even if I said I was done and had already cleaned up and put stuff away, you know, I just could not sleep if I did not stop the rust carnage's 

Dawson Montreal

1851-1874

And the poor blade stuck inside.  Its a small smoother.

Look pretty sad, but nothing that i cannot fix.

So put my tally sheet down, looked around and came up with a few more blades

In progress. Still shows brown spots after the wire wheel, 

back soaking after a quick sanding with 80 grit

Recognized the blade?

Evaporust, brushed, wire wheel, spot sanded, rust eraser then wiped and buffed with Autosol

The blade may be practically worn out, but there is still cutting steel at the end and plenty of good metal to raise a good edge.

Talking of worn out blade, that one is definitively pass its best before due date.

So why bother?

Because it is part of the tool history.

All I am after is to stop further rust damages.

Pic in progress

Done.  Also addressed some damages to the edges

I came across lots of damaged top edge, from using a metal hammer harder than the softer iron blade.
That would be just about any decent hammer BTW.  A Brass hammer head  would deform before it deformed the soft iron.  These must be addressed to stop the damages and to render the blade safer to be hit later on.

I often see also lateral damages to the blade, from hitting the sides to adjust lateral.  Which is why Stanley invented the lateral adjuster later on :-)

This one has damages to both top and sides, but it is the cap iron, not the blade!!! 

Here is an interesting details I came across in this short marathon.
How the cap iron is fastened to the blade.

Notice how the screw shrunk.

Interestingly, the bolt diameter and thread sizes seems to have remains

 pretty well the same all along and not just Stanley.

Which just add to the confusion, which belongs to which?  

Hint the bolt should go all the way thru cap iron and be flushed on the nut side.

These last two have the same threads but not cut the same.

Take a look at the base

The screw length changes along the way it was attached.  I have no idea which methods came first in what order, but we all know it finished with the shorter screw to attach a thin steel cap iron to a thin steel cutter.

In no particular historical order

This one, rarely come across this one,  use a separate nut and screw

The nut is filed to slide between the slots of the blade.

Attached

This one is yet different

No more loose nut to loose.  

The nut is solidly embedded into the cap iron

The one most often seen, mostly British tools

The brass dome nut is also embedded solidly 

This is a new one on me.

That is from my Dawson blade

The nut is not attached, but is machined from a thicker stock

Pretty solid, probably the most secured

And of course the Stanley design we are all familiar with.

The top horizontal slot is to engage the depth of cut adjuster.

This design forced Stanley to move the hole location on the blade slot from the top to the bottom.

This design also introduced a small irritation factor with today's unwary woodworkers.
Because we rely on that slot located at the top of the chip breaker to adjust our cutter in and out... Guess what?

It had to be adjustable to compensate for the inevitable wear and tear on the blade which will be sharpened umpteen time in its life.  That's the reason for the slot in the blade.  Problem is, they are a lot of Stanley clones out there but no one ever seems to came up with a standard location ...

Notice anything different??

If you do, that is the reason why it gives you headaches when you attempt to swap blades :-)

And if you thought that the two outer ones were the same...

NO, not even close. Both now on right.

From L-R Stanley's regular bench planes iron (first 3), 

Stanley No 113 compass plane blade, and a transitional plane blade.

In these pics I lined them up by the cap iron edge, not the cutting edge.  The three regular Stanley are various vintages and the hole location changed a bit, but not enough to cause much trouble.
The Compass plane No 113 however will have a hard time to give you any cutter exposed to cut if someone swapped the cap iron or the whole blade assembly with a regular one.  That is because of the flex sole, the frog surface is longer than on regular planes.  Buyer beware.  Oh and also the lever cap is slightly different, longer. Also sometimes swapped on unsuspecting would be buyer.  Finding original spare parts?   You will have better luck lining up to get your bucket of prop wash filled :-)

Similarly, in a transitional plane, the yoke adjuster sit higher on the frog, so the slot location is yet a bit higher.  because the small frog sit on top of a 2-1/2 in thick chunk of wood.

And to add to the fun, others would be Stanley clones used all kind of slight variations in slot location, more pronounced than the slight variation shown.  Oh and they varies location thru the years.  Ever noticed why most modern blades maker have a disclaimer on their Stanley replacement blades? May not fit all models produced thru the years etc

Moral of this story, to keep your sanity and let the plane works as intended, if you want to swap blade, you may want to re-use the original cap iron, just saying.

And since I had the Evaporust bath set up again, I may as well ...

This is what I ended up with and it is all Dawson's fault :-)

And then I drank a Coke to dissolve all the rust I have no doubt ingested.

Like my Dad, I am a Coke man, we both flunked the Pepsi challenge :-)

Dad was so pissed when they tried to changed his Coke.  It taste like $@^# Pepsi!!

Bob, all rusted out from de-rusting umpteen tools saving them from a slow but inexorable death.
You know, they used to say, You are dust you will return to dust when you die.  Well with today's micro plastics being everywhere, soon it will be: You are plastic you will be recycled when you die :-)

Inventory completed...

... well for now anyway, getting tired of soaking blades, brushing and etc. :-)

But jokes asides, these past few days, being left alone, I did a constant marathon and pretty well done most of  my 109 wooden planes.  A few had no blades, had a few spare blades, made new matches.

All the moulding planes: H&R (28), Beaders (9) and all others had their body washed, then wax & Feed.  Blades all de-rusted, lots of sharp ones (my users)
Found two more mildewed ones, now got three in quarantine.

On the bench planes, the most stucked blades, or I should say stuck, frozen solidly blades in their body got fixed for a good match.  Not all, just the worse.  The irons with the most mushrooms top, were fixed,  got out my spare irons, and de-rusted them.  Made new match with empty body and blade assembly.  Their body got washed, Wax N Feed.  Took notes of damages and further work required (find or make new parts) Some that had some body issues, were attended to.

Oh, and got her plant stand de-rusted and repainted also while I was at it :-)
All that say that there should be lots of iron (perhaps a bit rusty) in my blood right now, I quit !! :-)

Start de-rusting with a wire brush in my cordless, but it quickly dies

There has to be a better way.

Took it all apart

Rust paint and clear outdoor Varathane on the wood parts

This is what my poor trusty stainless steel brush looks like after seeing recently:
5 Hand drills, 10 Block planes, about 100 or so planes irons.

The small shanks moulding irons are murder on the brush :-)

I need a new jug of Evaporust and probably should start thinking about replacing my trusty brush :-)

This is the one I used to brush the items out of Evaporust under water in the sink.
If it comes out brown, still rusty, when it stop getting rusty brown item is done, pat dry and off to wire wheel.  After closer inspection following wire wheel, may need some sanding or scraping  to expose fresh  rust under hardened black spot.  Should be flat or pitted, nothing should be standing proud of the surface.

Keep brushing under water until it stops coming out muddy brown (rust)

Scrape hard spots with a razor, they will start bleeding brown rust.

Ready to go to wire wheel

Some rust spots shows up brown after a good wire wheel brushing

You have to break the surface of those rust spots sticking up.

Scrape, sand what have you, back to the wheel

then final soak in Evaporust should get it all

I am happy that I stopped all rust for now.

Obviously a hand forged chunk of blade.

I will need to grind a flat of on top in order to protect my plane hammer

Similarly, happy with this blade assembly 

Last step is to give them a good hand buffed coat of Autosol to protect them

OK, I went a bit overboard on that one :-)

A bit of WD 40 in the screw bolt and re-assembled

Screw damages is attended to

Short work with a file.  I like to use this parallelogram sized file ( Japanese saw file)

It let me put a ever so small chamfer of the top inside of the slot to ensure no damages lip is preventing screwdriver blade to sit fully.  NO, I would not taper the slot.

Finish by blending surfaces under wire wheel.

Besides a shrinking body which could pinch the blade assembly pretty tight, rust can tenaciously attach itself to both metal and wood.  Take a look at the side of that blade

See the hard black stuff on both sides.  That is after soaking and wire wheel.  

They are hard rust nodules and are staying put.  Sanding the sides of the blade  will fix that.

Mushroomed over blade ends should be addressed at this time also.  They are an accident waiting to happen.  Especially when they have been damaged to this point :-(

Big time damages on both sides.

Just waiting for a chunk to fly off when struck

Quick work on the grinder

Finish with a file, then back soaking, wire wheel, done

And lastly, wrapping up damages found, the tip of moulding plane's wedges are fragile.  

When damaged they will cause the plane to Jam, because shavings will get trap 

between the blade and wedge.

See the scratches at the tip?  

That was caused by the lazy habit of using a sharp object to dislodges the jammed shavings. 

Don't be so lazy and remove wedge to clear shavings then investigate

 why they are jamming in the first place.

This one is damaged, the shavings will get trap under

I have no idea what caused this sort of damages ??

Broken tip.  A sure fire to way to caused jams

Now a final word about restoring blades and wedges in moulding planes, especially.

If you go nutso cleaning the blade and sand it all shiny, you have reduced its thickness.

You are then changing the wedge position, it will go lower.

This in turn may force you to alter the tip of the wedge.  A dangerous proposition if you do not know what you are doing.  Those seemingly  simple flat planes all play a role in how they support the blade, how they turn and redirect shavings and etc.

Sometimes, having the wedge go lower is a plus because it let you reshaped a broken tip,  but you can do more damages than good.

Another simpler option is to glue a paper or cardboard shim on the frog surface, to make up for loss thickness.  My vintage Japanese Dai had this done umpteen years ago and it still do the job.

Sometimes your only and better fix is to simply make a new wedge.  If you ever do that you will quickly learn the intricacies of the wedge design.  Either that or you will pull your hair out.  You still got hair, right? :-) 

Meanwhile, back in my cave, time to clean the plane till and start putting them back

Bob, with a big pile of planes and various parts awaiting to be re-united again.

I can now sleep tight knowing they will stop rusting :-)