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Stanley #7 Restoration

13K views 25 replies 7 participants last post by  dfdye 
#1 ·
Getting Started

A while back I posted a review of a cheap #4 Footprint plane I bought and tuned up. During the discussion, I mentioned that I was looking to buy a #7 plane, and WayneC generously offered to sell me one of his bargain finds. He warned me that it was pretty dirty, and that there were some minor defects, (but that is of course to be expected of a tool of this vintage) but that it was in good user condition, so I jumped at the opportunity and had him send it along.

A few days later, an extremely well packaged, disassembled, FILTHY plane arrived on my doorstep. After unpacking everything and making sure I had all of the parts, I realized that I had my work cut out for me!

All of the parts were coated with a crud of surface rust, aged on grease and oil, and a TON of dirt and grit.
As you can see from this picture, the Japanning is pretty much shot, so I am not even going to try and save any of it.

Fortunately, the sole looks like it is in pretty good shape (there are a couple of spots of minor pitting and a few scratches, but nothing that will impact performance), but it too is covered with the scaley crud and some rust. It will definitely need some work to get into shape.

One interesting thing I noticed while getting the pieces ready for cleaning was that the previous user appeared to have the blade mounted bevel up in the plane! Not sure what that was about, but the edge of this blade is in TERRIBLE condition and will definitely be getting replaced once the plane is in decent shape.

There are a few more "before" pictures in the photobucket folder, so feel free to look around a little more if you are interested (just click on any of the pictures and they are linked to the folder).

So, on to business! First things first, I degreased everything and tried to clean the surface dirt off of the plane. This was easier said that done, and I had to resort to dental picks for getting some of the junk out of the nicks and crannies of the frog. I tried using a scotchbrite pad for some of the thicker crud, and it wasn't really going anywhere. So, I slapped on some paint stripper since I knew I was going to hit the Japanning with it anyway. After a good soak under some gel stripper, things wen much better. Most of the loose Japanning came off (only a couple of really tough spots are still left) and most of the grease-based crud came off too. Unfortunately, I noticed the beginning of some flash rusting, so I sprayed the plane down with WD-40 to keep things from going backwards.

Here is how things looked after an initial cleaning (before stripper)

It was at this point that I turned to cleaning the lever cap. I was able to get most of the surface crud off with scotchbrite and 220 grit sand paper, and I was about to proceed to the evapo-rust when I noticed how nicely the residual black in the field of the "Stanley" logo looked. I didn't want to lose that look, but I figured if I wanted to get things shiny I would have to make a sacrifice. Then it finally hit me-this plane has EARNED it's patina. There is a difference between cleaning the crud and crap that will inhibit the proper functioning and future well being of the plane, and trying to make it into a brand new plane. It simply IS NOT NEW!!! To try and make it look new would be rather silly!

After a rush of realization, I decided to clean everything possible by hand and keep some of the patina to acknowledge that this is, indeed an OLD PLANE!!! It has some blemishes, and it has earned them through the years! OK, now I know how this is going to end up! I got the lever cap cleaned up to the point that it looked like it should-clean but definitely well worn, and started in on the body of the plane. I used a bunch of WD-40 and 220 grit sand paper to knock off the scaling and brown discoloration to reveal a dull grey surface with a black patina. Exactly what steel of this age should look like!

This is where I left it: one side of the body cleaned with the patina I think it should have, and the other side as it looked after degreasing and light scrubbing with scotchbrite.



Once I get the sides of the plane cleaned up, I am going to finish getting the last few spots of the Japanning off, and repaint the body with rustoleum or an engine paint. I know it's not authentic, and that I went through the whole nostalgia thing a paragraph ago, but it is going to be a user plane, and I am making an acknowledgement that this is a restored object as well as simply being old. I'm going to regrind the base of the plane to make it work better, and I am going to replace the blade and chip breaker. My PRIMARY concern is functionality, so though it may be neat to go through the asphalt application process, that particular aspect isn't too appealing to me.

Well, considering I got this far in one session, I hope to have the plane operational in a few days if I can get back to it and have time to get into a machine shop to regrind the sole. I'll have to wait on that until I get the frog, handles and blade in since I want the body flat when it is closest to operational conditions. It probably doesn't matter, but call me paranoid.

Regardless, I can say at this point that I will definitely have put more time and energy into getting this plane working than my Footprint, but the build quality is indeed far superior, and despite its age, I think it will end up being a more effective "user" than the cheap Footprint. Obviously no data to back that up yet, but hopefully soon!
 
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#2 ·
Nice work! I have a few very early Stanley planes that i aquired when my grandfather passed away a few years back. My family and I have been thinking that they were my great-grandfathers planes. I have an early #4 1/2 stanley black plane and a #18 Stanley block plane with the forked cap on it. I'll be posting pictures soon adn refer back to your blog here when restoration has started. Thanks for the great look into refurbishing the old planes!
 
#5 ·
i really don't use my #7 much i just pull it out and use it to say i used it other than that the highest i go is either to my #5-1/2 or my #6 but not really. anyway i want to see how your gonna take the paint off?
 
#6 ·
Hey Ike,

I'm not sure what most folks use, but I used a pretty aggressive gel paint stripper, and it did a pretty good job loosening the japanning (which is more of a baked on asphalt than a paint). The first round of stripper got most of it with minimal wiping, but I am going to hit it with a brass brush during the next round of stripping, which should commence in about 10 minutes! :)

I'll post the brand of the stripper later on since you asked.
 
#8 ·
cool cuz i have a plane i need to do over i know how to put the japaning back on but i have a recored plane the japaning is blue so i just got some paint to match it but i want something real good at taking off the japaning in one or two shots.
 
#9 ·
Wayne,

I thought about it and looked into it, but none of the methods made much sense in terms of time and $$$ for reclaiming a user. I am going with rustoleum semigloss to prevent the plane rusting and to make it look better (and since I can easily strip it if things turn out terribly), but I was intrigued by the idea of using a car under-body rubberized protective spray coating to simulate that thick, plastic feel of the japanning. I still might do that as an overcoat, but I wanted something with really good rust protection directly on the metal.

There was a TON of rust underneath the japanning when I finally got it all off (more details and pictures of tonight's progress hopefully before I go to bed, but no promises! :)

Ike, I completely forgot to get the name of the stripper when I was out in the garage. I promise I will get it when I put the second coat on in a few minutes!
 
#11 ·
Ike, it is Zinsser Strip Fast Power Stripper. I went into Menards and asked what the most aggressive stripper they had was, and they pointed me at this. The product I linked to doesn't seem exactly like what I'm using, but I am sure it is pretty close.

Fair warning, though, this stuff is NASTY! I got a tiny spot on my arm and didn't notice for a few minutes and thought I was going to burn a hole in my self! My arm itched like CRAZY and I scrubbed like heck to get it off. No actual burning, but it was not pleasant, that is for sure! Also, it seemed to pretty aggressively soften my normal thin nitrile gloves, but my latex gloves seemed to hold up better. Be sure to wear something thick while working with this stuff!

Good luck with stripping and re-japanning!
 
#12 ·
Final stripping and paint

Last night I left off with some stubborn japanning still on the plane, but with most of the lose crud and japanning stripped. Tonight I started off by attacking the last remnants of the japanning with some Zinssner stripper (somebody asked, so here is a picture of what I used)


It was pretty aggressive with the japanning the first time around, but the stubborn spots really didn't seem to want to come off. I had to go to town with a brass brush to get things clean, but eventually all of the japanning came off (well, there were a few tiny spots in corners that I didn't worry about, but we'll just ignore those, shal we?)

There was still quite a bit of rust present, so I took some 220 grit sand paper and tried to get all of it off that I could prior to painting with Rustoleum. I know that the paint has stuff in it that will take care of minor rust, but I wanted to make sure it had to do as little work as possible. A good bit of sanding later, and we were off to the paint shop (AKA my garage floor).

Fortunately the weather is getting pretty nice, so I was able to open up the garage door and paint, but it is still early enough that no bugs came in to see what was up with the lights! I masked off some areas of the frog I didn't want to sand paint from, and started spraying light coats. I always hated spray paint until I finally figured out that if you make a "solid" coat, you put too much paint on in one pass. With that in mind, I put down a nice first coat that had decent coverage, but still left enough metal showing through that I didn't think I would get runs or sags. Wait 15 min, repeat. 5 or 6 coats later (I honestly lost count) I think things are looking pretty good.

Unfortunately, I remembered after the first coat that I had already cleaned up one side of the plane and that overspray would get all over that side. Oh well. I think I am going to wait until I grind the sole to worry about finishing up the sides. Besides, if all goes well, I should be able to re-grind the sides of the plane too to ensure they are square for use with a shooting board. Seems judicious if I am already in the machine shop (I'll be doing the grinding anyway, so its not an issue of cost. That may cut into the nostalgia factor a little if I ruin the patina, but I keep reminding myself that functionality is the primary concern here!

Finally, I wanted to put a picture up of what the lever cap cleaned up to look like once I was finished with it. The part looks so much cleaner relative to how it started, but I can't help being excited that just the tiniest bit of that crud still remains in the crevasses to hint at the history of the plane. (sorry that the flash blew out some of the details, but you should be able to get the point.)

Up next, refinishing the handles!
 
#14 ·
Grunt work

Just like the title says, I did a lot of grunt work tonight. First things first, I cleaned the paint off of the surfaces I should have taped off in the first place. I noticed some of the spots that should have been flat had a little bit of a burr on the edge from getting dinged through the years, so I pulled out a small file and flattened a few surfaces. A wire brush attachment on my Dremel cleaned out of the crevasses pretty nicely, but I did have to resort to dental picks for a few spots. Overall, the paint from yesterday looks fine, but it definitely lacks that deep plasticy rubberized sheen of the japanning. Also, all of the pits from the casting show through, which makes me want to experiment with some other method of painting, but I reminded myself that this is primarily a USER plane, and not a pure restoration project. I may still try some of the heavier spray on products like the engine enamel, but I will test those out on other objects before I try them on the plane (and that will wait until everything else is ready to go.

Besides cleaning up the unwanted paint from the frog and main body, I was able to clean up the sides of the plane and get all of the remaining crud and paint over spray off. Both sides are now a nice dull grey, and look very good. After rethinking of the best way to go about flattening the sides and sole of the plane, I decided against grinding and am going to clean up problem spots with hand filing if I can get away with it. I took a good, close look at the flatness of the sides once I got them clean, and there are only a few high spots around the edges of the casting. Well, that certainly makes filing those down a pretty easy proposition! The flatness of the sole of the plane looks pretty good once you get past the scaling, so I am going to pick up a sharp, new file tomorrow and try to do this the old fashioned way. In the long run, I think it will actually save time vs. regrinding.

Besides that, all of the brass parts got the crud sanded off of them too. Whatever this crud is-I think it is REALLY old oil that has formed some sort of plastic like coating-the only thing that seems to cut it is sandpaper. The good part is that all of the round brass parts got mounted to the cordless drill (one at a time, obviously) and got cleaned up with sandpaper and Scotchbrite pretty quickly.

The wooden handles are cleaning up very nicely, and I'll probably post pictures tomorrow of how they turned out. I stripped the varnish they had, sanded them down to get all of the residual crud off, and am refinishing them with Tung oil. I went to buff out the first coat, and had the terrible realization that I was out of 0000 steel wool! Ouch. I used some 400 grit sand paper instead, but it just wasn't the same. Second coat of oil is on now, and hopefully tomorrow night I'll be able to buff it out (I love paper grocery bags as the final finishing abrasive for oil coats.)

Finally, I put a 2 3/8" A2-Cryo Hock blade on order today. I decided that, while using the original old blade would be neat, I really want this to work well. I am extremely impressed with the IBC A2-Cryo blade I got for my #4, and wanted a comparison with the Hock. I seriously doubt I'll be able to tell a difference (besides the fact that they are different sizes) but I figured it would be worth getting the Hock just for the sake of making the comparison. The old chip breaker is pretty shot too, so I went ahead and ordered a stock replacement for right now. I would like to get a little time in the machine shop to build a custom one (and practice for building one to put in my future infill project) but that will have to wait. Besides, the replacement chip breaker was all of $6, so even if I do build a custom one, I am barely out any money if it just sits on the shelf for ever. Just having the spare around will be worth the price.

Speaking of prices, it looks like the total price of this plane restoration project (body, replacement blade, chip breaker, paint, general shop supplies, etc, but excluding shipping), will be right around the $90 mark. The #7 Groz is $82, but it would need a new blade, and a ton of work also. The #6 Woodriver is on sale for $112 now, but it isn't really what I was looking for. Regardless of the cost, I am having a great time restoring the plane and already can tell it will turn out to be a wonderfully useful too that is a pleasure to use, but I still am left wondering if the most cost and time efficient route wouldn't have been to go with the Woodriver. Just thinking. . . .

Of course this is way more fun, and as I said before, the great story I am getting from working on this plane is completely worth the time and energy invested!

I can't wait until I actually start cutting wood!
 
#15 ·
Great write-up. I thought oh no he forgot to mask the frog and frog mating points on the bod]ye when I saw the photos from the prior blog. I think if I had seen the rust on the body and had wanted to repaint the body, I would have considered electrolytic de-rusting. Good to see that you have worked through it.

Do you think after having done this once that the process will become more efficient for you? Perhaps tilting the balance back from the woodriver some?

Also, related to chipbreakers, I really like hock chipbreakers. They might provide a good design for you to use for the one your planning to build.
 
#19 ·
Putting it all Together

That's right! The plane is put together for the first time since I got it. For reference, here is the picture I got from Wayne when he first offered the plane (my plane is the one in the foreground):


Here is what it looked like when it got to me:


And here is the plane now:







I skipped a few picture taking opportunities (namely the refinishing of the handle and filing/truing of the frog parts), but there are a few extra pictures in the photobucket folder if anyone is interested.

So far, this looks pretty good! I did not re-japan the plane, instead opting for several coats of semi-gloss Rustoleum for time, energy, and money saving reasons. It is not as nice of a finish as it would have been if I had gone for real asphalt japanning, but it works! Seemingly to make up for it, the handles look spectacular. The pictures here really don't do them justice! They glow with that grain depth of oil finished dark woods that makes every woodworker drool! Of course when I went to put them on the plane, the Tung oil on the handles seemed to be just slightly tack, so there is some dulling that I think will burnish out when the Tung oil completely dries. Yea, I know, I got impatient and got what I deserved. If I have to, I can easily pull the handles, rub them back down with some steel wool, and actually let the Tung oil cure next time.

I am wondering out loud, though, if Danish oil might not have been a better option to give a burnished matte finish by rubbing with really fine grit sand paper. Just a thought. . . .

Before I put it in, I tried to grind out some of the nicks from the blade, and did a half decent job of putting a hollow ground on the blade, despite the fact that I am TERRIBLE with a bench grinder. After that I slapped the blade in a honing jig and proceeded to grind a uniform 35 degree bevel with sandpaper. After I got a sufficiently nice primary bevel, I started lapping the back, and noticed that there was deep pitting on the back of the blade. What I had thought were gouges in the blade were actually pits in the back of the blade! No amount of grinding or honing is going to get this edge uniformly sharp. This kills me since I thought it would be really neat to have a good old blade with the old sweetheart logo, but it was not to be. I guess I am a glutton for punishment since I finished polishing the 35 degree bevel and put ~40 degree microbevel on it through 0.5 micron abrasive paper. I know I won't actually use this blade for anything serious, but at least I can say it is as sharp as I can get it.

Moving to the chipbreaker, I was able to file down the really bad spots, but honestly, this thing is in need of replacement too. I was able to find replacement parts pretty easily, so I dropped in an order for a stock replacement chipbreaker and an A2-Cryo Hock blade that I'll pick up through my local Woodcraft in a week or so (I would rather buy locally than order from the web store since those guys are always really helpful, and I want to send them business even if it means I have to wait a day or two longer to get my stuff.)

I had to resist temptation to buy a Hock chipbreaker, but after looking at them for too long, I think I will possibly to probably make my own custom chipbreaker based on that design. So why did I get a stock chipbreaker? Well, it was really cheap (~$6), so I figured it would be worth having around.

Now is the full disclosure time: All is not done! I have not touched the sole of the plane, which is (IMHO) the most critical part of getting this plane right. Here is a picture of how it sits now:

I am going to forgo trying to completely regrind the sole, and instead get the initial crud off with sand paper and try and "flatten" it the old fashioned way with a hand file. Yea, I know how insane this will be, but why not?? The sole is already pretty flat, I am sold on trying to preserve some of the history of the object, and it may even turn out to take less time overall than setting up and performing all of the grinding/milling operations I would want to ensure the sole was flat.

Assuming that a file gets things flat, then it will be the last step of the restoration! All I will be waiting on after this is my new blade and chipbreaker, but those are technically "upgrades." I cheated a little when I got the plane together and tried a couple of shavings with the terrible sole. Predictably, it felt like I was dragging an anchor over the wood. I couldn't get anything resembling a good cut, and there was no way it would be even CLOSE to usable in this condition. I did, however, get my first shavings, and though they were HORRIBLE, they brought a huge smile to my face!

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to post some good shavings that will bring an even bigger smile to my face!
 
#20 ·
It is looking pretty good. I knew the handles would come out nice. I've used schallac to finish my handles.

I'm surprise at the pitting on the back of the blade. Do you have any photos, I'm interested to see what you came up against?

Also, I am surprised you chose as high a bevel angle as you did. A specific technique your using?
 
#22 ·
Grumble Grumble

Well, it had to happen. I started cleaning the rust off the base of the plane getting it ready for filing and sandpaper, and I noticed a couple of pitting spots I hadn't noticed before. I couldn't easily get the gunk off, so I had to get pretty aggressive with a wire brush. I did get all of the scaling off, but underneath were a a pretty gunky arc of pits down one side of the plane. I should have guessed that is what was under the flaky rust spots. I forgot to take pictures, but it looks like more work ahead than I thought.

Grumble Grumble.

While I was at it, I also noticed the sole was out of flat left to right along the sole of the plane. Not really sure how that happened, but I am leaning toward re-machining the sole to get things right once and for all. We'll have to see, and obviously some pitting won't make a difference in performance, but it does warrant a minor grumble.

Still, I'm not daunted! Hopefully I will have time to pick up a new blade tomorrow and finish regrinding/machining the base this weekend. You never know, but it would be great if I had it for a project I am working on with a friend on Saturday. . .

Hmm. . . . What do I have to do tonight again??? :)
 
#23 ·
Call it done!

After a little soul searching (sorry for the pun) as to whether to grind the sole completely flat and get rid of some of the pitting, I finally decided to leave the pitting and just "lightly" flatten the sole of the plane.

It took a while, but after killing several sheets of 60 grit sand paper (mounted end to end on my table saw) I started getting "flat" lapping on the entire length and width of the sole. Boy, that took a long time, and sure did generate a TON of black metal powder. Lapping a 22" long plane is NOT a quick activity! I worked the sole down to 220 grit sand paper, and figured that was good enough.



After a good coat of paste wax to get things slick and to protect from new rust, I slapped in a new IBC A2-Cryo blade and tried things out.



There are (obviously) still pits and scratches on the sole of the plane, but they don't seem to have an impact on how the plane slides across a piece of wood. I flattened a short piece of scrap pine to get the blade depth dialed in, and then went to try it out on a real piece of rough stock. I had been working on a couple of pine end tables with a buddy of mine, so I used a long piece we had left over to give the plane a good workout. At first, I thought I had banged the blade back into the plane somehow, but I quickly realized I was only trimming the VERY high points! I intellectually knew to expect this, but this is honestly the first time I have ever used a hand plane this long, so it was a little disconcerting making the first few passes as to how little contact the blade was making with the wood, even though I had dialed in a moderately aggressive cut. Just as was to be expected, after a few passes, the high spots quickly got knocked down, and I started taking nice, long, smooth shavings from the edge of the board. I was able to find a nice sweet spot for taking moderate shavings to make joining go fairly quickly, but not so deep that I was worried about tear out. I think I can tweak the adjustment of the frog a little and get slightly better tear out control on changing grain (which there was a lot of on this test piece, let me tell you!), but overall it works extremely well!

All of this started with a challenge from WayneC as to whether an old Stanley would be a better buy than a new Footprint or WoodRiver. After getting the plane in "user" shape, I can't really answer that yet! I can say with 100% certainty that the build quality of this plane is head and shoulders above the #4 Footprint I own, and it is better than the Groz planes that I have seen (don't own one, so take that comparison with a grain of salt), but the WoodRivers look very close in quality to the old Baileys, but without the need for restoration and possible blade replacement. All said and done, I put ~$90 into this restoration, including a new premium blade and a few random replacement parts (I am cheating high a little bit here since I didn't use a whole can of stripper, nor of paint, but I had to buy them anyway). Considering that WoodRiver doesn't sell a #7, this is really a pretty lame comparison, but their #6 goes for $140 normally. Is the time and energy I put into the Bailey worth $50? I can definitely tell you I wouldn't expect to sell this Bailey for $140, and I doubt I could sell it for $90, so the net dollar value comparison is no help. Will one perform better than the other? I don't have enough experience with the WoodRiver to tell! Even so, will the performance difference be worth $50, assuming that the WoodRiver actually is better?

I honestly can't answer this at this time, but I do know I had a GREAT time restoring this old plane, and would highly recommend that any one using hand planes go through the process at least once! For me, this was a fantastic learning experience, and introduced me to a ton of information and resources that I would never have encountered if I had never undertaken Wayne's challenge. Whether it was financially worth the money in terms of tool cost got to be irrelavent about 1/4 of the way into the restoration. It quickly became more important what I was learning about how the plane works and what needed to happen for the plane to perform its best! Things I always thought were super important (like having a 100% dead flat, highly polished sole) became secondary considerations, and things I had previously discounted (like the back bevel angle of the blade) were promoted to a much higher priority!

All in all, I am glad to have the plane in a good working order. It obviously (and intentionally) is not perfectly restored, and definitely reflects its age and (unfortunately) neglect over the years. Hopefully it has many good years left, and (fingers crossed) the rust won't come back any time soon!
 
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