Dan's Hobbies » block plane

Stanley 102 reborn

Dan — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 03:38:40 +0000

The weather is finally starting to turn here in central Illinois, and since I don’t have any major projects in the works, I worked on refurbishing this old block plane over the last few weeks. It’s a Stanley #102 type 2, so old is the keyword, because it’s at least 139 years old. I didn’t take a lot of photos during the refurb, but i did get the before and after photos below.

Waterstone flattening

Dan — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:42:45 +0000

I finally broke down and purchased some waterstones so that I could take my sharpening skills to the next level. In my opinion the only real drawback to waterstones is that they don’t stay flat. Thus as soon as I placed my order, I spent a little time searching the net looking for the best flattening method. Lots of methods exist, but the two most common are: a coarse diamond honing stone, or sandpaper on a surface plate.

While diamond hones will do a great job of quickly removing material they are notoriously unflat, and thus in my opinion not acceptable. I have a surface plate, and while it is flat, I don’t like the idea of constantly having sandpaper glued to it. Additionally a 70 pound surface plate isn’t very portable. What I finally decided on (shown below) was a hybrid approach.

I took a 1/2″ thick chunk of aluminum plate, and cut it to size (slightly larger than my stones). I then lapped if flat on both sides, using sandpaper taped to my surface plate. Yes I said taped, when you lap a surface this size, you don’t really need to worry about the paper lifting up and rounding over the edges like you do when honing a plane blade or chisel. It’s actually beneficial if the edges are a little rounded over (1/64″ or so), as this will prevent you from slicing open your fingers or hands on the sharp edges. Finally I used spray adhesive to adhere 220 grit sandpaper to each side. PSA sandpaper would be better, but no one in town carries it.

What I have now is a dead flat surface that I can use to flatten my waterstones. When the sandpaper looses it’s grit, I can pull it off and apply a new piece. Additionally, I could use this as an extra course honing stone, if I need to re-establish a bevel, or take a nick out of a plane blade.

Refinished #15 Block plane

Dan — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 07:19:05 +0000

As promised, Here are some shots of the refinished Stanley #15. I’ve only spent about an hour using this plane, but I like it’s size and lateral blade adjustment a lot more than I do my #60-1/2. Within a minute of putting in a new Hock blade, I was using it like a miniature smoother, and taking full width transparent shavings in scrap cherry. I also like the size of the #15 better, it’s greater length and width fit’s into my hand better than the #60-1/2.

Stanley #15 Block plane

Dan — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:25:57 +0000

I haven’t spent much time in the shop the last month or so because of a big project at work. Thankfully that project is now over, and I’ve been able to get into the shop again. One of the projects I want to get completed before Christmas is refurbishing the Stanley #15 I picked up on eBay about 6 weeks ago. I picked it up, because I wanted A regular angle block plane to supplement my #60-1/2. I’ll probably do the refurbishment after I finish Rebecca’s Shoe Rack. The following shots (I went a little overboard) are as I received it from the seller.

Shoe Rack (Pt. 1)

Dan — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:12:48 +0000

Last weekend I started making Rebecca some stack-able shoe racks for her closet. I wanted to make them from materials I had on hand (cherry), so after an hour or so of fiddling in Sketchup I came up with the following design. The design is pretty simple, it’s made from 1″ x 3/4″ stock. Something I strive for in all my projects is a minimization of fasteners, thus I only used Dado-and-Tongue, & Slip joints, to hold the racks together.

The following series of pictures shows the progress I have made to date.

The Grizzly tenoning jig made the repetitive task of cutting all the slip joints easy once it was dialed in.

After gluing together several of the ends, I have decided I really like slip joints as they make making square joints almost fool proof.

After a few tries, I figured out how to use my new low angle block plane to clean up the slip joint end grain, without causing tear out.

A tenon planed down close, that is now ready for some sanding. I probably could have made another pass or two with the plane on this particular one.

One joint planed down, and sanded smooth (only 23 more to go before the end pieces are done).