Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi everyone

The other thread on planes inspired me to go over to my sisters to check
out some things left to us by our dad. I have the following planes (circa
WW2):

- 1 Bailey jointer plane
- 2 Bailey 14" planes
- 1 smaller Bailey, about 10"

None have been used in at least 30 years but have been kept in a tool box
in a cold garage. Brock posted a link to a page on restoring planes in
another thread. I can't seem to find it right now to show you.

Can you give steps on inspecting these once I true up the soles and get
the rust off?

James, I had posted my little experiment with Coka-Cola...

You can check it out here.

Those Bailey planes are very high quality tools. I still love mine and I think it would take a Veritas or a Lie Nelsen to replace it...

To true up the sole you would need a granite slab or something that you know is very straight. Stick on some self-adhesive backed paper and you can grind it flush...

Hope this helps...

Alain Desforges39057.7940509259

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

James,

You got some good stuff there!

This site might be a help in identifying what you have:

Blood and Gore

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Look here and here

And lets see some pics...

Thanks guys. I was feeling a bit proactive, so I took them into a local
woodworking store. Ron, you might know it, Ideal Saw Works, and the
salesman was pretty excited about them. I'm happy to say they're in
great condition, minus some rust. He showed me how to clean them up.
They have rosewood handles, too. I'm pretty happy. I picked up The
Hand Plane Book to learn more.

I'm going to check out the sites you linked to as well.

That must mean you're in the same area as me.. Cool. We'll have to get together and compare notes some time. I'm always up for talking about, building, or playing guitars.

Sounds like you've got some nice planes.

bailey is a design pattern of frog/blade adjustment which stanley bought back in the 1800's. many of their standard iron bench plane bodies carried the bailey name at the nose of the body, though i have never seen a wooden body with the bailey name even though it had a bailey type frog/blade adjuster.

their other major line was their bedrock planes having an improved frog/blade adjustment system, but out of production for 60 or 70 yrs. the bedrocks bring considerable sums in the collectors' market, and are the pattern upon which lie nielson based his bench planes.

if there is major rust to remove you may want to look into using baking soda and a battery charger to clean up the rust. there are numerous discussions on the wed giving the procedure. it is simple, safe and effective, and involves little of your time. while the cooking goes on you are free to attend to your other interests.crazymanmichael39057.9900694444

James...Here's a site that I found helpful when I was restoring several planes that I had won on ebay. It takes you through the step by step process of 'tuning', while still maintaining the 'vintage aesthetics' of your plane...

http://www.yesterdaystools.com/tuningindex.htm

Know of any good sources for a tutorial on stripping off the old japanning (I'm assuming a chemical paint remover would be okay for that) and re-japanning?

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Jon...now that is a controversial subject...taboo to some tool collectors

Re-Japanning is only good when it is done really well and for the most part if you can tell it has been re-japanned then it has not been done well enough.

There were certain model Stanley planes that were from periods where the japanning was applied very thin and because of that it is virtually impossible to find an example that is not peeling.

I have seen tutorials but can not find the link. IT is my understanding is that part of the successful application of japanning is the heating of the tool to bake on the finish...I have never tried it so I can not speak to it.

I may or may not tackle the japanning, but I have some old common bench planes I'd like to clean up and use, and prepare it for decades of more use.

For these particular tools I'm not particularly interested in maintaining a patina, though I can certainly appreciate the desire to do so on a collectable plane, or even a nice example of a well-maintained common plane. The ones I'm interested in re-japanning are (salvageable) rustbuckets and I'm not interesting in maintaining the evidence of years of neglect.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Jon...While researching the different facts about these old planes, I too was curious as to what 'Japaning' was all about. After reading up about it, it just seemed like quite an involved process. More than what I wanted to get in to. The oldest Stanley's I have, I chose to do what Todd says..the minimal! On the one's that I wasn't too concerned w/ aesthetics, I chose the easy way out..Rustoleum! 2 or 3 coats and then I put them under some heat lamps for a pseudo-bake job.

However, if you wanted to get on w/ the technique of applying a true Asphalt Japan finish, I did find this site:

http://www.oldtoolsshop.com/Galoots/pRMorin/html/japanning.h tml

Google "woodworking at Rex Mill" for great pointers on inspecting and fettling planes. Johnny did several for me. MT

Excellent thread, thanks all!