Vintage Stanley Planes: Is older really better?

so let's say you're at the flea market and you come across these two Stanley number four plants and they're each $10 which one should you buy clearly they're more or less the same there's stanley number for smoothing plants but as you look at them you notice some subtle differences this one's got a big tall knob in the front this one has a shorter more mushroom shaped knob this one's got a shiny lever cap this one has a dull lever cap and as you look behind and look inside you notice the guts look subtly different between the two of them so which one should you buy well that's a stupid question clearly you buy both of them okay but seriously let's say you've only got $10 so you have to make a choice between these two plants let's cut straight to the chase on this this plain is from about 1890 it's got higher collectible value this plant on the other hand is much more recent it was made at about 1950 it is a post-world War two plane these planes are not considered desirable to collectors and even some users this is right on the verge when Stanley plane production started to take a dive and quality and people generally are not super interested in these later plants so which one of these do you get well if you're primarily a collector obviously you go with the older historically important collectible plane but if your main task is to go home and do some woodworking I actually recommend that you want the newer 1950s plane and there are five really good reasons why reason number one why the 1950 plane is better than the 1890 plane big depth adjuster as you flip these two planes around one of the first things that you might notice is that the 1890 plane the old one actually has a very small depth adjuster it's about the size of a nickel and it's fine works totally fine but if you go over to the 1950 plane the more recent one the depth adjuster is much bigger it's the size of like a half-dollar and it's not a huge difference it's not a deal-breaker where the planes are concerned but when you're actually using them that small depth adjuster is it's not very easy to spin the knurlings on it are kind of smooth especially because over time that soft brass gets smoothed out by people handling it so when you reach forward to adjust the depth of gesture on the 1890 plane you've almost always got to use two fingers and it does take a little bit more torque to get the iron to do what you want over the course of the day's work this does lead to a little bit more hand fatigue and it's a little bit more annoying now in contrast when you go over to the 1950 plane the newer plane that big depth adjuster is really really easy to work with okay because not only does the larger size of it cut down on hand fatigue it's also much easier to adjust with one finger as you're planing along it's very simple to drop your index finger or your middle finger down to that big depth adjuster and just give it a spin in one direction or the other this newer plane also has sharper more distinct knurling on it so it really grabs the pad of your finger as you're moving the other reason that the big knob matters is that it builds up more momentum you can spin it and that wouldn't seem like something that matters but the Stanley plane mechanism has a little bit of backlash in it or slop and that means that every time you change the direction of the wheel you go to back the iron off or engage it more you have to turn the wheel about 1/2 or 3/4 of a turn before it actually engages and does anything to the iron so when you have a large wheel like this and you can spin it you can take up that backlash with just a super quick flick of the finger and then get right on to your fine adjustment when you have a small depth adjuster like this it can't be spun it's just not big enough to build up the force for that so you always have to take up that backlash manually by screwing it back and forth but over the course of an entire day of working you'll really appreciate the ability to just flick that knob take up the backlash and with adjusting over an entire day that ability is going to lead to a little bit of save time and a little tiny bit less fatigue hey I just like to take a second and tell you that this video is brought to you by you my main source of funding is patreon and I'd like to thank my newest patrons Alex Larson and Jason Bailey as patrons they're gonna get early access to all my YouTube videos exclusive access to my patreon content and a lot more stuff as the channel develops so if you'd like to be a bigger part of what's going on around here go over to patreon.com slash Rex Krueger and check out the rewards and benefits that I have just for my patrons and thanks a lot reason number two thicker straighter castings if you put these two planes side-by-side one of the first things you'll notice is that the bodies of the plane are surprisingly different Stanley made planes for a long time and over the course of the company's history that used several different foundries to cast their bodies and they changed the patterns so they evolved as the plane is made now when you look at the 1890 plane the early one you can see the castings are actually very delicate they have a little bit of curvature to them and they're quite thin personally I find it very pretty it's charming when you look at the newer plane the 1951 it's got much more blocky appearance the castings have been beefed up significantly they're much thicker and overall the plane has a straighter sort of blockier appearance to it it's not as pretty but those heavier castings have some significant advantages this plane is a tiny bit heavier than the early 1890 plane but the thick casting makes it somewhat more durable so if you knock it against something or god forbid you drop it on a concrete floor this plane is definitely more likely to survive it's also got a greater amount of precision to it things are just straighter crisper more defined in really every aspect of the casting and I think one of the reasons that premium plane companies have gotten such a foothold in the market is people want more precision in their woodworking tools now go in the premium route makes a lot of sense for a lot of people but if you're looking for a more precise plane one of the things you can do is just go for a more recent Stanley there better cast and better machined and they give you a tighter more precise tool reason number three better frog adjustment if you look at these two planes from the back one of the more subtle details is that the newer 1950 plane has this little metal yoke that connects the Frog to the plane body and a big slot head screw that allows you to adjust the Frog back and forth very precisely if you look at the old 1890 plane you'll notice there's nothing back here it's just blank now I don't adjust the frog on my planes very often but when I do I really find it handy to be able to just stick a screwdriver back there after I've loosened to the frog screws and move the Frog back and forth precisely but this whole arrangement is actually much more complicated than it seems especially when you're setting up the plane for the first time or you're readjusting it after it's gone out of whack there's a lot more going on under the hood than meets the eye so let's take these two planes apart and see what's going on underneath when we look inside the 1890 plane we can see that this part of the bed where the Frog sits is really simple it's just a flat stretch that's been machined in three places for the Frog to sit on and the frog itself is also very simple on the underside just a flat piece with three flat machined surfaces now there's nothing at all wrong with this arrangement there's plenty of bearing space and once you get it in there it sits perfectly solidly the problem with just having two flat surfaces mating this way is there's tons of slop it moves both back and forth very easily but also Wiggles side to side that makes getting the plane set up kind of a problem what I usually do is get a straightedge get it more or less lined up where I want it to be put in the screws that hold down the Frog tighten them most of the way check it again fiddle with it a little bit by hand tighten them a little more check it again repeat repeat repeat until I get the thing where I want it now once I've got that finished it's not a big deal frogs for me are pretty much a set it and forget it kind of thing but getting it to the point where it's nice and precisely set up can be really frustrating if we look inside the 1950 plane you can already see there's a lot more going first off the Frog sits on these four machined surfaces that are spread far apart like the legs on a table that makes it really rock solid it also makes the Frog sit in there pretty Square and level even before you drop in the screws that hold it down you're also going to notice that there's this rib in the casting right here it starts off as Y and then it becomes this flat straight piece now that corresponds to a channel that's cut into the Frog right there so when you put the Frog into the plane it locks into that channel and into the adjustment screw in such a way that there really isn't any slop in the Frog itself I can move it around a lot of different ways and as long as it has a tiny bit downward pressure which you'd usually get from the screws it can't move side-to-side and then the screw on the back gives me extremely precise control over where the Frog is by just moving that screw a couple of turns one direction or another I can figure out where I want the Frog to be forward to back and since it can't really move side-to-side there's very little adjustment I need to make there so when I'm setting these up for the first time I dropped the screws in I get the mostly tight I do my fine adjustment with the screw in the back and then I'm done and then while I'm using the plane I find that these are much less likely to twist a little bit or to go out of alignment if I drop the plane or whack it against something so this frog design is actually a huge step forward and when you think about it it took a lot of investment for Stanley to go through all the research and development develop the different patterns for the foundries and bring this into production so they must have been pretty serious about providing a better and more accurate way to adjust the Frog to go through all of that trouble in my mind this is one of the features that's most worth looking for and the good news is that these features came in relatively early in the product of the plane this planes from 1950 but this frog design came in much much earlier so as long as you see a plane that has a frog adjustment screw in the back you're going to get an improved frog receiver and improved frog design and you don't really have to worry about when it was made reason number 4 hi front knob when you have these two planes side-by-side the easiest difference you can pick out is that the early plane the 1890 one has a low front knob it's kind of shaped like a balloon or a mushroom the later plane the 1950 one has a much higher knob this actually makes a pretty big difference when you're using the plane the low knob is easy enough to grip but as you push forward in you're planing stroke you're gonna rotate your hand and if you've got big old gorilla hands like I do your knuckles are very likely to scrape against the castings of the plane you can kind of adjust your grip it's not that big of a deal but it does get annoying after a while now the newer plane the 1951 has a knob that's higher and has a completely different shape it's very round on top and it has a slim base which means it's very easy to get a hold on and because it's so much higher off the body of the plane as you plan forward your hand is not gonna come into contact with the castings these two things actually make a pretty big difference and make this plane a lot nicer to use the other thing that's worth noting about the high knob is that it didn't come in until almost 1920 and at that point all of the other features that I've been talking about had already been introduced so when you're looking for planes and you're comparing them side by side when you find one with the high knob you're also going to get better frog adjustment large depth adjuster and straighter thicker castings at this point most of the goodies that make the later planes better had already been introduced and you get them automatically when you buy a High Knob plane reason number five kidney bean lever cap now this detail is sort of subtle and it'll take you a little while collecting planes before you probably notice it but the earlier plane the 1891 the hole in the lever cap is shaped like a keyhole it's symmetrical and in the later plane the 1951 it's got an asymmetrical shape it's kind of like a kidney bean which is why people call it the kidney bean lever cap and Stanley introduced this for a really simple reason when you have the older plane of the keyhole style as you back the iron off friction between the iron and the lever cap tends to make the lever cap ride up a little bit and this only works in one direction so when you back the iron up it moves the lever cap back but when you advance the iron it doesn't move the lever cap forward so over a long period of adjusting the iron in and out you could actually get to the point where the lever cap gets backed off so far it just pops right off of that screw how much of I actually had that happen to me in my life as a woodworker maybe once it's really not that big of a thing but Stanley did notice that this was a problem and since it was a really trivial fix they fixed it in the 1950 plane the lever cap has a hole shaped like a kidney bean and what that does is it captures that screw in the top and as you back the iron off nothing changes you can back it off advance it back it off advance it and the lever cap always stays in place this might be the most trivial detail of everything that I'm talking about but it does make things a little bit more convenient over an entire day's work if you never have to stop and undo the lever cap and jam it back down there again and that is something I do with my keyhole plans I do stop undo it shove it back down because I notice it creeping up and that just kind of gets on my nerves the other thing that you'll notice about the 1950 plane compared to the 1890 plan is that lever cap sure is shiny and that's because by this point Stanley started nickel plating there lever caps to make them more resistant to rust and it works this plane is almost 70 years old and while most of the components have a fair amount of surface rust on them the lever cap is an excellent condition now you might think at rust on it who cares you could just take it off it's not that big of a deal but rust was clearly a problem for previous owner of this plane because he's actually painted the lever cap great so he was interested in in not rusting and so with Stanley and maybe you should be too now that we've gone over all differences between the older and the newer plane and I've hopefully convinced you that the newer plane has some real advantages let's look at the planes that I actually use in my woodworking day-to-day these are the five or six planes that are on my bench every day while on making furniture and doing client pieces and as you look at them you'll notice something pretty interesting a lot of them are low knob small depth adjuster old plans the very ones that I'm telling you aren't as good and that you should maybe avoid and I've got these because they're the ones that I found when I started collecting tools and also because when I first got into the Hobby I thought the older ones were better and I thought they were cooler so they're the ones that I focused on and since I have them restored and set up and very carefully adjusted they work great really all Stanley planes from the 1890s until the early 1960s work really well and when I use any of these planes I'm pretty happy with their performance but then sometimes I reach for my four and a half which is a post-war 1940s 1950s plane with all the features I've been talking about and every time I grab my four and a half I'm really struck by just how straight and precise and accurate everything is how easy it is to adjust what a clean straight cut it takes it's not the sort of thing you notice right away when you first start doing woodworking but the longer I'm at this and the more I noticed details the more I see that things like thicker castings and precision machining really make a difference in how well the tool performs another plane I grab a lot is my five-and-a-half this is a panel plane it's a little bit rare and I actually bought it from a collector because I wasn't having a lot of luck finding one and I like this plane a lot the size is really useful a little bit bigger than Jack a little bit smaller than a jointer so it does a lot of tasks but this plane was made about 1900 and it's got all the problems and shortcomings of an early Stanley plane as much as I like it I'm a little bit dissatisfied with the quality of the cut and the overall tightness and precision of the tool I really love the size and the shape but I'm really looking to replace it with a more modern version because I think that will do the same work much better and then I can sell this one to a collector because it's worth a little bit of money now a lot of people who are into tools and woodworking are going to tell you that the older planes are the better and the further back you go the better they are but I just don't think this makes a lot of sense Stanley made really good planes for almost a hundred years and over the time they were doing that they got better at it which makes perfect sense if you're doing something for a long time if you have a lot of competition and you're trying to make money you're almost inevitably going to improve your product and Stanley did by the time they got to this plane in the 1950s they had really worked out all the kinks you could possibly ask for and they were operating at the top of their game so for a lot of woodworkers who might have older bailey style planes and might be getting frustrated with them they might go to a premium plane because those are precision machined very accurate very easy to adjust that might be a great move for some people but if you don't have three or four hundred dollars lying around to buy a common bench plane maybe the first thing you should do is go to a more recent less collectible but better engineered plane instead hope this was helpful thanks for watching

Channel: Rex Krueger

Views: 154,579

Rating: 4.9021368 out of 5

Keywords: handplane, hand plane, stanley, stanley works, bench plane, vintage tool, post-war, machining, casting, collecting, woodwork, diy, shop, cheap tools, make, maker

Id: q80Mu_YymjA

Length: 19min 49sec (1189 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 25 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/dilloninstruments]

I’ve been subscribed to this guy’s channel for a while now and wanted to share. He doesn’t have a huge, expensive shop (which I think makes him more relatable) and lots of his videos are just really straightforward and helpful. Enjoy! :)

Some of my other faves:

• Where to find cheap tools
• Simple Sharpening Setup
• What cheap tools to buy

[u/SoftwareMaven]

While I don't 100% agree with everything (I really prefer the shorter knob, and I have big hands), I agree with his general premise. I have a Type 7 #4, which, IIRC , was around 1906. It's lovely to use, but it is much more difficult to adjust than my later planes.

I'm not sure I'd go all the way to the 50s, though, at least not without careful inspection. By then, Stanley's QA was beginning to slide, so you have more inconsistency, but any plane up to shortly after WWII will be great. I even have a Canadian WWII #5 that I use for shooting. It's a great user plane.

[u/vgSelph]

My absolute favorite plane to use is probably my oldest. It's a type 1, 606. Such a dream to use.

[u/TCDWarrior]

That old plane kinda looks mediocre to bad tbh.