Resurrection

Jim DeLaney

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Austintown, Ohio
I got this plane yesterday morning at a flea market. Cost me a whole five bucks.

It's a Stanley #3, type 11. Pretty much all original, except for the lever cap.

As you can see from the 'before' pictures, it was pretty much of a rust bucket, but after disassembly, scrubbing off the cobwebs and grime, and an hour or two in a citric acid solution, it cleaned up pretty nicely.

The back of the blade took a bit of flattening, but after that, a trip across the Tormek and it's 'shavin' sharp!'

The sole was actually dead flat. I coated it with machinists' dye and ran it across my granite plate with 240 grit paper and the dye came off in under ten strokes. On to 320 grit, then 400, and it was done.

I like it! Another addition to the ever-growing collection. :D:D
 

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Nice job Jim! Isn't it so satisfying to be able to bring back something that has been neglected for so long? Shame too, when you look at these old relics many of the blades still have the factory edge on them or some botched sharpening job that looks like someone tried to sharpen it on a cinderblock....
But one thing is for sure, they almost always have a full length of blade.
I have a whole slew of hand planes and I only got one that had been used to any extent. A Sargent VBM 414, the blade had not only been properly sharpened, it probably had maybe a dozen more sharpenings before it was gone....
If you ever want to redo the japanning, Sawmill Creek has a tutorial in their archives that I saw some time ago and he recommends black Ford engine paint in a spray can. I have had good success with it and it looks great when done!
 
Nice job Jim! Isn't it so satisfying to be able to bring back something that has been neglected for so long? Shame too, when you look at these old relics many of the blades still have the factory edge on them or some botched sharpening job that looks like someone tried to sharpen it on a cinderblock....

Yeah, Rich, many of them look like they were never used - or only used once - before they were tossed on a shelf in the bard, where they laid for the next fifty years. :rolleyes:

But one thing is for sure, they almost always have a full length of blade.

Probably 80% or more of mine have had nearly full length blades.

I have a whole slew of hand planes and I only got one that had been used to any extent. A Sargent VBM 414, the blade had not only been properly sharpened, it probably had maybe a dozen more sharpenings before it was gone....

The VBM series (Very Best Made) were really good planes. I have a few, but most of mine are Stanleys.

If you ever want to redo the japanning, Sawmill Creek has a tutorial in their archives that I saw some time ago and he recommends black Ford engine paint in a spray can. I have had good success with it and it looks great when done!

Before I was thrown off Sawmill Creek - a week after giving Keith a $100.00 donation(!) - Terry Hatfield recommended a Semour Paints product called MRO enamel. It's a commercial grade coating that sprays on very smoothly and dries to a sheen about midway between semi-gloss and gloss. Until you examine a refinished plane very closely, you can't tell it's not japanning.

BTW, this particular plane had about 95% of the japanning left under all the rust and grime, so I didn't need to recoat it.
 
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That's a bonus when the japanning is good. Alot of mine were/are missing a fair amount of it.
The VBM's were a nice plane indeed, I have one of my great grandfathers 422's. It is partially restored. I hope to get back into it between projects this fall or winter. I have so many planes that need to be restored.....

My Bad! It wasnt sawmill creek. (Had a feeling i was suffering from a moment of oxygen deprivation there...) It was Rex Mill!
Here is the link. I found it to be a great article/tutorial

http://home.comcast.net/~rexmill/planes101/japanning/japanning.htm

http://home.comcast.net/~rexmill/planes101/planes101.htm
 
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