Tuning Up an Old Handplane

every plane at some point needs some tuning very important to get it performed the best is to tune it up this is a flea market tool probably needs a complete going over what do I need to do you to check that the sole is flat so it's really acting as a long plane not just a small part of it flat you check the mouth opening that it's nice and sharp and that it's well flattened in that area I'll need to check that the cap iron fits the iron the handles are tight and at the bed of the plane where the iron rests is a nice flat slope and supporting it well and adjusting the Frog so you have a nice consistent fine opening in the mouth to flatten the sole I'm going to use this nice little cast iron flattening plate with a piece of sandpaper on it you could just as easily use a piece of float glass plate glass or sandpaper on your jointer table saw table I keep the plane set up the way it would be a normal use the plane iron backed up slightly and I'm going to use nice even pressure turning the plane around every so often but pressure towards the middle of the plane rather than the ends what I'm shooting for is to flatten the toe in front of the mouth and the heel this area is less important but those three areas are very important turn the plane around every so often and you'll know you're on the right track when you start to see those areas brighten up this has got a ways to go yet especially around the throat you'll know you're done when you hold a good straight edge to it and you see no light at those three important points at the toe just in front of the mouth and at the heel the next area I'm going to dress is the mouth opening I talked earlier about how important the mouth opening is to break the shavings I want it to be nice and sharp and I want it to be slightly angled forward I'm going to file it with a mil file slightly angled forward here so there's more clearance for the shavings I want it to be straight and I want to have a nice sharp corner there don't worry about opening the throat opening too much he's going to adjust that with a frog later on why have the file out relieve all the edges all the way around plane soles so there's nothing sharp no bird I like to make sure the handles are tight there's something that shrink in overtime and they can often get loose but to get a good hold to the plane I want a nice and snug the front knob is the one that is the easiest probably that's just a nice big screw that comes through but if you find that you can't tighten it up you might just shorten this up a small amount because it goes into a into a boss here and there's only so far you can screw it in that's a pretty easy one the next tuning step is to check the Frog make sure that the bed of the iron is nice and flat in one plane you can imagine how important that is to have the plane iron very well supported well bedded in that part of the plane it's going to have a lot of pressure against it if it's not sitting flat it'll vibrate and shatter generally these are well made even historically so probably there's a burr to may be is the most it has in terms of problems I would just check it with a straightedge make sure that it looks like it's not warped or somehow bent why do they call this a frog that's an interesting name for a piece of metal well one idea is it's a frog in your throat or the mouth of the plane the other idea is when you take that piece out it actually looks like the Frog of a horse's hoof let's take the Frog to make sure there's no sawdust or accumulated gunk under it that'll definitely affect the bedding of the iron as well the Frog is not well attached to the sole I like to make sure that this is nice and clean and this is nice and clean as well now be careful when you put these back in is you can over tighten these it's going into soft cast iron if you over tighten them you can strip them to some degree and then your frog will not be very securely attached to the sole and while we have this out I'll adjust the Frog for position so I will leave these slightly loose and the weighted just afore position put the blade back in clamp down and see what kind of throat opening you have well it's quite open so I can come back in here and start to close it up a little bit there's a screw in the back that will move the Frog forward and what I'm shooting for is a nice fine mouth opening somewhere in the vicinity of maybe for this plane a little more than a little less than 1/16 of an inch it's a general purpose tool that looks pretty good right there one more point about frogs there's many different varieties but two general ones that you can run into one that has various points of attachment sort of like this standard stanley bailey frog and then I've got a bedrock frog here you can see much more contact with the sole much more sturdy bedding for the plane as well let's talk a little bit about chip breakers there a little bit of a misnomer when you say chip breaker they don't really break the chip very much they might give a little bit of extra umph to break it but by the time that ship is seen the leading edge of the plane iron it's it's bent what is important though is that the two of these cap iron or chip breaker and plane iron engage very very firmly to one another an era when still is very valuable the iron's got to be quite thin and the chip breaker makes us effectively like a much thicker iron gives it the stability of much thicker iron so I want to bed these together so there's no light between them whatsoever when I grab them and pinch them together as if they're in the working position in order to do that the easiest way to do that is to flap the bottom or the leading edge of the chipbreaker cap iron chipbreaker the same thing I'm gonna use a diamond stone and just do a small amount of honing of it hold it flat on the stone lap it and occasionally roll it over because I want this area all polished and smooth much like a chisel edge here not quite as sharp as it chisel cuz it's soft steel but I want those shavings to go right by the chip breaker or no problem no rust or any sort of burrs to prevent that from happening and then the ultimate test is to check it against the iron now the irons got a flat back we already have done that so when we hold these together pinch them lightly I want to see no light between them any light between them is a gap that a shaving can lodge itself between and clog up the plane or they two of them are not bedded well with each other the plane iron can shatter where do you set the chip breaker in relationship to the edge of the iron well it doesn't need to be super close a sixteenth of an inch is probably a good position for it if you want to get it closer than that that's up to you

Channel: FineWoodworking

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Keywords: 2670427881001, Garrett Hack, free, tuneup, YT1, youtube, TIV622, repair, handplane, Hand Tools, Fine Woodworking

Id: AzDygUaWGj0

Length: 7min 24sec (444 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 11 2014