This one is in pretty good shape. It has some light rust and is missing it’s blade. It also has some very minor pitting on the sole. It should clean-up nicely. A quick trip to the Craftman Studio web site and a replacement hock blade is on it’s way. Attached are some before photos. I will post a follow-up when I have her cleaned up.

Lie-Nielson has a video on setting them up – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWzPPGprW88
and using them – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeE-9pC5jyc

It will be the weekend before I get a chance to play with it. If I have time I will review the plane.

Anyone have the hot dog attachments or any of the specalized blades? I am wondering if they are worth the money.

Thanks again.

Last week Blake posted a project where he did a wonderful job restoring a 1959 DeWalt Radial Arm Saw. I really loved the job he did. Sunday afternoon I was browsing Craigslist and saw an ad for a saw similar to Blakes. I thought about it and tried to talk myself out of it. Deal was it was only $50. I called the man offering the saw and after a short discussion told him I would come up and get the saw.

After a beautiful drive into the foot hills where we saw a number of deer and other wildlife we arrived at his house. It was quite a trick to load the saw in to my Tahoe. The guy I purchased the saw from had a wonderful shop including an old 12” industrial jointer and 24” industrial planer.

Anyway, here are some photos of the saw.

The cabinet has wheels and can be easily be rolled from place to place.

I spent some time rearranging the shop to make room for the saw. I belive I am going to rebuild the cabinet and raise it to match the height of my router table.

Next steps are to rework the top. Shim and level the saw and begin the restoration process. I need to order a couple of books and have found the user’s manual on-line.

Without further adieu here are the tools….

A craftsman backsaw, two bronze spokeshaves, and a buck brothers chisel.

I belive these are bronze and may be home made. The larger shave has a Stanley sweet heart blade. The smaller one appears to have a home made blade. They may be instrument making tools. Anyone have any insight?

Here is a before photo of the plane. It was missing it’s front knob.

The first thing I did was go to Bob Kaune’s Stanley Bedrock Type study page to determine the plane’s type and age. According to this page, this is a Type 6 Bedrock plane and based on blade was manufactured between 1914 and 1918.

When you buy a Bedrock for use, I recommed you get a type 5 or later. The one of the key benefits of a Bedrock plane is the ability to adjust the frog with the blade locked into place. This is a very nice feature and was introduced in 1911. The type study page has a good diagram that shows the design of the frog.

Another identifying feature of a type 5 or later plane is the flat sides. As a side note, this design is the foundation for the Lie-Nielson bench planes. All of their bench planes (except the #1) are modeled after the Stanley Bedrock line.

I have been buying any of the planes that I come across that are in 1910 to 1930 or so manufacture date if they are inexpensive and have usable parts. I evaluate the overall condition remembering that blades, knobs, frogs, etc. can cost a bit if you need to buy one. This approach paid off for me as I had a couple of knobs that are approprate for this plane. Also, I purchased a Hock Blade and chip breaker for the plane. I will set the original blade and chip breaker aside and return it to the plane if I decide to sell it in the future

The next step is to dissassemble the plane and evauate any problems. As you can see there is some light rust in the bed of the plane. Also the rear handle has been broken and repaired. I will leave it as is.

Note the pins that are used instead of screws.

With the frog out you can see the design of the frog mounting point and where the screws are located that are used to lock the frog in place and adjust the frog.

Here it is completely dissassembled. There is some light rust on the body of the plane. Other parts are in good condition. I checked the bottom with a steel rule and it appears to be flat. Given the collector’s value of the plane and overall condition, I am not going to lap the sole or clean the patina off of the metal. I am going to clean the rust from the body and apply some clear shellac to the japanned parts of the plane.

Applying the shellac

Next step is to put everything together. I’m using a little 3-in-1 oil on all of the screws. Then I adjusted the mouth and set the blade. A few quick passes to verify the plane is operational.

And here it is in it’s rightful place along with the other smoothing planes in the set

The Cosumnes River Preserve is about 30 miles south of Sacramento and is easy to get to if you live in the area. It is know for it’s wetlands and for the Sandhill Cranes that nest here. Here is a link to the Preserve’s web site.

http://www.cosumnes.org/

The river

One of several turtles that I saw on the walk.

A Valley Oak

A thistle in the field

I wonder what is inside of this

Thanks for the inspiration Frank!

It is a wonderful plane. Well made. Phil made the blade as well as the plane. It was well tuned when it arrived. I basically set it on the bench, put the blade in, then the wedge, tapped the wedge in. Tapped it a few times on the nose and was off an running.
The plane has a very fine mouth and takes nice shavings. I’ve used it on my shooting board and it works quite well.

Here is a photo of it on the shooting board

And one with it apart

This is a really wonderful purchase and well worth the investment. It will get many years of use in my shop.

Let me introduce the Record 043 to you. I’m show it next to my Lie-Nielson low angle block plane to give you a sense of scale. It was actually smaller than I was expecting. I’m going to clean this plane up and put it to good use in my shop. This one only came with a single blade. Normally they come with 3 blades (1/8”, 3/16”, 1/4”) and metric blades were available as an option. I’m going to have to find additional blades. In the interem, I can use blades from my Record 043.

Here is a view of the front of the plane.

Here is a side view

Again I would like to thank Alf for getting me interested in these planes. Here is a link to a video showing her using a Record 044 to make a groove.

In addition to this, I read an entry in Chris Schwartz's blog about some new planes coming from Lee-Valley this fall. Lee Valley is releasing a new Plough plane based on the Record 044. The Record 044 is one of several planes that are unique to Record. Others are the 040, 043 and the T5.

All of this motivated me to purchase a Record 044 on ebay. This plane is used to cut dados of various sizes.

Front view

It comes with 7 blades and 2 sets of bars for the fence

In my hand for size

With a #4 bench plane

I also won a Record 043 and am waiting for it to arrive in the mail. One of these days I will get a Stanley 45 and take another step down the slippery slope.