New sole for an old plane

[Steve]

I've got this old wood-bodied Sargent plane (22") that I'm trying to tune up. I ran the sole over a jointer to clean it up a bit and this openned the slot too much. I'm thinking of laminating a 1/4" thick piece of maple to the sole and re-cutting the slot. There's also a few checks in the old sole right at the front of the slot, so I don't think just shimming the frog forward would be a good solution. Any tips or things to watch out for when laminating on a new sole? Thanks, Steve

[Frank McVey]

Hi, Steve.

That was quite a common fix. Even more common was the process of remouthing the plane, where a dovetailed slip was inserted across the mouth and a new mouth cut.

Adding a new sole is a fairly straighforward job and shouldn't give you any problems. If you use the plane with a shooting-board, you'll want to ensure that the sole is a right angles to the running side, as well as being flat.

Cheers

Frank

[Mike]

Steve,

Follow this link (watch out for wrap):