Gloat, somewhat belated

[Allen Windhorn]

My father got a good offer on his house, and he's cleaning out in preparation for moving to an apartment. So he's bringing down boxes of stuff from the attic for us to haul off, and one of them is full of planes, including molding planes, a couple of routers, and a tongue-and-groove plane. I presume they were Grandpa's, so they've been up in the attic the last 40 years or more, and Dad KNOWS I do woodworking. On the other hand, I may finally be old enough to actually appreciate them and have some idea how to use them.

Unfortunately, most of the blades are badly rusted and pitted. Can they be ground down to a new surface, or will they have to be replaced? Do I go to a blacksmith for that? Or just use them for decoration?

Regards, Allen

[bridger]

they're completely ruined.

send them to me for disposal.....

they may or may not be salvageable. I'd ask somebody in your area with some expertise. try the yellow pages for sharpening shops, or find a woodworking club with some old guys who have used these tools before. don't let anybody grind on them until you're sure they have a clue....

alternatively, take pictures, lots of pictures, and post them on alt.binaries.pictures.woodworking. we'll see what we can come up with.

[Andy Dingley]

Electrolytic derusting, then sharpen. Googling this newsgroup will reveal all.

[patriarch]

Allen Windhorn wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Congratulations on the passing of the tools, and the heritage that goes with it.

Try dropping by woodcentral.com, in the hand tools sections, both the messages and the articles. There's a lot of good maintenance & cleanup information there.

As the others have said, don't be in a big hurry with these. They don't need to be really beautiful in order to work well. Some of the drastic measures aren't needed, and dramatically reduce the value.

Worst case, you can buy excellent replacement blades from a number of mail order or local suppliers. If they are Stanleys, you may even be able to get some parts from Stanley.

Patriarch

[rcook5]

They're obviously totally ruined. Nothing you can do with them. So just send me the whole box and I'll figure out some clever way to recycle them as living room decor.

Oh yeah. You suck!

--RC

Sleep? Isn't that a totally inadequate substitute for caffine?

[My Old Tools]

Pick up Mike Dunbar's book on restoring and using old tools. He provides alot of detail on wooden hand planes and how to make them work, including making blades.

[Allen Windhorn]

Thanks to all for the fine advice. I'll look carefully at the book(s) and website(s) mentioned. If I'm going to own them, I'm going to learn to sharpen, tune, and use them.

The blades in these, at least, may be home-made -- they look pretty crude.

One seems to be for cutting a groove inside of something round like a barrel rim. It has a couple extra "parting" blades on it.

I'm going to take pictures and post them in hopes someone can identify them.

Thanks again.

Regards, Allen