The Tool Gathering Odessy #9: Yet Another Plane

Upon returning home, I was surprised to find a package waiting for me on the bed. Since I’m only waiting for one tool, I knew what it had to be…my Norvell Shapleigh’s 60 1/2 type block plane. For those who don’t know what a 60 1/2 block plane is, it’s a low angle, adjustable throat block plane. Now that we’ve got that covered, on to the details.

This is yet another eBay find, and I was thrilled to find it. I’m fascinated with the Diamond Edge stuff for some odd reason. My jointer plane and one of my panel saws are Diamond Edge, and Diamond Edge is the brand name for Shapleigh’s Hardware. The Norvell Shapleigh’s stuff is really interesting to be, because it’s easier to date the tools. They are no older than 1912, since the name was dropped after that point. It appears to be no earlier than 1901, so there’s a pretty narrow window this tool would have come from, and that’s just cool to me.

So here I am with an almost 100 year old (or over 100 year old) block plane. Obviously, I’ve got work to do. So, here are the details:

First, the sole. I needed to…wait, that’s not right…the sole was pretty flat already.

Oh yeah…the blade. It was a mes…err, wait, that’s not right either. The blade needs to be sharpened, sure, but it’s actually in really good shape.

The japanning! Oh crap…that was in pretty good shape too.

OK, so I didn’t have to do anything to it. Now, that’s not to say it’s perfect. There’s some slight pitting in a couple of places, but not nearly as much on the jointer plane I posted the other day. Some of the nickle on the cap has chipped off, but not nearly enough to cause concern. All in all, this plane is in fantastic shape.

Well, since it looked ready to go, I decided to give it a try on this unknown board I have sitting here in the office. Well, it did need a bit of adjustment to cut. The blade was set a bit far back, and there’s a bit of a trick to adjust how far the blade protrudes from the mouth. Once I figured that out, I decided to round the edge of the board just for kicks. Well, it shaved wood like a dream. I then flipped the board over and played with a cheap block plane I got from Tractor Supply Co. before I knew any better (it’s actually not that bad a plane). I rounded the edges with the cheap plane, then brought in the Shapleigh’s plane to flatten it back.

Oh man! I wish I could have gotten the pics to turn out from the shavings. Really nice ones! They were fairly thick, but that’s OK. I shaved them nicely and that’s with a less than ideal blade! I am stoked about this bad boy!

So, without further carrying on, here is the newest member of the family:

Don’t hate me ;)

-- "Give me your poor tools, your tired steel, your huddled masses of rust." Yep, I ripped off the Statue of Liberty. That's how I roll!