Setting up and using a hand plane.

I dug up an old Stanley #5 hand plane. I don't really know much about them, but it looks well built. Anyway, I took it all apart and cleaned it up, then put it back together in what I THINK was the correct way. This is what happens when you do stuff over the holidays and get distracted.

My problem is it doesn't seem to "work". It feels very sharp (how sharp is sharp?). But when I run it along the edge of a piece of oak or pine, it just sort of skips along and digs in. Also, the wood it does dig off just gets all bound up in the gap around the blade.

Can anybody give me some pointers on how best to set up and use this?

-Jim

Reply to
jtpr
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Reply to
Andy Dingley

Tom in KY, sometimes ya' just gotta' go back across the pond. OH!! you forgot to mention,,(It's a Jack plane Jeff).

Reply to
squarei4dtoolguy

First, view the video at

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and see if it answers any questions. It's brief to say the least but it may give you a clue as to what's what.

Is the blade sharp? Good place to start:

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(sharp) with chipbreaker (honed as needed to sit air-tight against the blade) set about 1/32" back from the blade edge, blade is installed bevel-down btw, frog adjusted so that the cutting edge is VERY close to the front edge of the mouth (like 5 to 10 thousandths of an inch or even closer). Start with the blade retracted and advance it while pushing it along a piece of polite wood until it just starts to cut. Use the lateral (side-to-side) adjuster to cant the blade until it's cutting all the way across and you're there.

Once you've got it set up properly, there are other things to do to improve performance (like flattening the sole and truing up the mouth.)

Did it work? If not, let us know. This group can talk a problem like this nearly to death and love every minute of it.

Good luck.

Reply to
Ron Hock

Ron Hock wrote in news:NIKdnWD1Kri82FjenZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@adelphia.com: [snip of many good suggestions]

As far as that goes, let us know if it *does* work. We like that too!

Reply to
John Thomas

One of the things that I wasn't really prepared for when I started using planes was how little movement of the depth adjustment wheel makes a difference. If you start with the blade fully retracted but close to the mouth then creep it out a tiny, tiny bit at a time you'll get an idea of how it works, and it will let you correct any skew in the blade.

That said, it's unlikely that you could get a decent edge on the iron without the right equipment and a good idea of what to do with it. You didn't say how you sharpened it.

Reply to
Gordon Airporte

Sandpaper, float glass, and steady hands... or the Veritas sharpening jig.

djb

Reply to
Dave Balderstone

GREAT ADVICE, Went out, dug up all my planes and followed the advice of this post and now they all work great!

Thanks guys

Rich

Reply to
Evodawg

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