 I needed a 20" wide board for the built-in project I'm working on, but like most people, I don't have access to 20" wide boards. At least not in my price range. So the solution to this problem is to edge glue two or more narrower boards together to make a single wide panel. I prefer to do this with as few boards as possible so I choose the widest boards I can that will result in the panel width I need.
Before gluing two boards together, it is vital to know which direction the face grain is running. If you get the two boards glued together with the face grain running in opposite directions, planing the final surfaces true after the glue has dried will be difficult due to opposing grain at the glue joint.
 Notice here that I've marked the grain direction of the two show faces as well as the two joining edges. The direction of the edge grain is also important to know as it is helpful to have the grain on both edges running in the same direction when match planing the edges. However, this is not always possible with every pair of boards and becomes more difficult when edge gluing more than two boards. It is not as import as having the face grain running in the same direction and also flowing together well. The edges will be hidden in the joint so a little tearout will not be seen. If you cannot orient the boards with the face grain and edge grain running in the same direction, choose to run the face grain in the same direction if the appearance of the final panel will allow it. The appearance of the final panel should be the main priority. You want the grain from the two boards to flow together on the show faces so that the edge joint almost disappears after glue-up. If your final panel will be painted like mine, this is less importand and you can orient the boards with the face grain running in the same direction regardless of final panel appearance. On my boards, I was lucky to be able to get the face grain and the edge grain of the two boards running in the same direction.
The first step in creating a seamless edge joint is to plane the show face of each board flat and true. This will be the reference face so it must be fairly flat. Slight cupping is ok as long as it can be clamped out when the two boards are placed face to face, however, for this process, flatter is better. It is only necessary to plane one face at this point, the show face. The bottom faces of these two boards are still in the rough.
 After the faces are planed flat and true, orient the two boards how they will be in the final panel. Next, fold the two boards together like a book with the show faces touching each other. In this picture, the edge facing away is the edge that will be joined together. Notice the rough area on the near edge of the upper board. This will be cut away after the panel is assembled so I'm not concerned with it now. This is a good place to use damaged boards like this.
 With the two boards face to face, align the edges to be joined as best as possible to minimize the amount of planing. Use a pair of handscrews to hold the boards in position and place the pair in your vise or clamp to the front of the bench. Notice here how the edge grain of both boards is running in the same direction. I got lucky here but if I couldn't get them running in the same direction I would take a lighter cut with my try plane to minimize tearout in the edge that was being planed against the grain.
 I start with the try plane to clean up the rough sawn edges and plane both edges at the same time. This plane will also begin to straighten the edges. The iron is cambered slightly as this plane is also used to true board faces. I don't like to glue panels up right from the try plane due to the cambered iron. I could just use my staight ironed jointer, however, it is set for a very light cut and therefore would take a lot longer to clean up the rough sawn edges. Starting with the try plane, I can take a thicker shaving to clean up the edges and then refine the edges for gluing with the jointer.
 After cleaning up the rough sawn edges with the try plane, I refine and straighten the edges with the jointer. This iron has a straight edge for a tight glue joint. Again, plane both edges at the same time. A good practice when match planing edges like this is to begin planing only the center few inches of the boards. When the plane no longer takes a shaving, lengthen the stroke slightly. When the plane again stops cutting, lengthen the stroke again. This creates a slightly concave edge. Finally take full length strokes. At first, the plane will only cut at the start and end of the stroke (the high spots along the edge). Gradually, the shavings will begin to lengthen until you are taking one long full length shaving from end to end. When you get to this point, stop. You are done. The edges of the two boards will be straight.
 A common misconception when creating an edge joint is that the edges of both boards need to be square. When jointing by machine this is true as the reference is the machine's fence. However, when edge jointing with hand planes using the match planing technique, the edges do not need to be square. The reason for this is that any angle created by the plane will be cancelled out when the two boards are opened back up.
The picture demonstrates this with a very exagerated angle. The angles of the two board edges are clearly not 90 degrees, however, the resulting angle between the two boards when the "book" is opened up into a panel is 180 degrees, or a flat panel. This is because the angles created during match planing are complimentary. This method works every time as long as the thickness of the two boards together is not wider than your jointer plane's iron.
 Here's the final result. These boards are not glued up yet. The top board is just sitting on top of the bottom board. The joint is tight, there is no light showing between the two boards. The resulting panel is flat and the show face will require very little cleanup. All that will be left will be to plane the rough sawn back side of the panel after the glue dries and cut the panel to final dimensions.
Recently, one of the first planes I ever bought, a very nice Stanley #65 low angle block plane, had to be retired. The adjustment screw threads in the casting stripped, leaving the adjustment mechanism unable to function. For awhile, I adjusted it like I do wooden bench planes, however, this was a good opportunity for a proper replacement.
 When I saw this plane online, I took a chance on it without actually seeing it in person. From the pictures I saw online, it appeared to have a lower bed angle than a typical bench plane. In addition, there is no tote, and no mortise where a tote would go. I was guessing, but I thought it was a strike block. Well, when the plane arrived earlier this week, I was thrilled that my guess was correct. What I had bought was the precursor to the modern block plane.
In the 18th century, this type of plane was referred to as a strike block. Later in the early 19th century it was referred to as a straight block, presumably, because the plane had no tote like other bench planes of the period. Later in the 19th century, these planes became known as miter planes, as their primary function was to trim the end grain of miter joints. Today, metal versions of these planes are much more common than this early 19th century wooden version. Stanley later made a version they numbered #9 and called a coachmaker's block plane.
 My strike block is pictured here with my stripped out #65 and a #5 jack plane to give you an idea of it's relative size. My version is about 10" long, though 18th century versions were usually closer to 12". Unlike a modern block plane, this plane is bedded with the iron bevel down like a typical bench plane. This identifies it as likely being an American made plane (which it is). English versions were typically bedded with the iron bevel up but at a lower bed angle like today's low angle block planes.
The effective cutting angle on both types of planes is the same, however. A typical low angle, bevel up block plane is bedded at around 12 degrees. With the addition of a 25 degree bevel on the plane iron, the effective cutting angle is around 37 degrees. My plane, typical of American made planes, is bedded bevel down at an angle of 35 degrees.
Today I cleaned it up, honed the iron and tried it out on some pine end grain. The finish left behind was super smooth and polished. The plane cut just as well as a bevel up low angle block plane. I am extremely happy with this replacement. Anyone want a low angle #65 with a stripped casting?
Few planes cause as much confusion for today's woodworkers as the try plane. Depending upon who you talk to, what part of the world they are from or what text you are reading, this plane may be called the try plane, truing plane, long plane or jointer plane. In addition, some folks will recommend these planes be honed with a slight camber while others will insist on a straight edge. So why all the confusion? In my opinion, the confusion began from the naming conventions used by the manufacturers of the metal bench planes when they first appeared on the market.
I'm going to pick on Stanley for a minute only because they are the most common. Stanley identified their line of bench planes by number, #1 through #8. They also named these planes so that users at the time would be familiar with their intended use. The problem is, that Stanley based their naming of the planes only on a particular plane's length. Over time, the true meaning of what made a fore plane a fore plane and what made a try plane a try plane got lost. This is a common example of what can happen when people in a marketing position with little real knowledge of a subject are allowed to make decisions related to that subject.
I discussed Stanley's #5 and #6, and their shortcomings, in my blog on the fore plane. This time I'm going to pick on the #7 and #8. Stanley called their #7 (22") a try plane and their #8 (24") a jointer plane. They based these names on the relative length of the plane. In all fairness, the #7 does make a very good try plane and the #8 does make a good jointer, when they are set up correctly. This is where the confusion begins.
 Peter Nicholson, in his 1845 text The Mechanic's Companion states that the purpose of the try plane is to "reduce the ridges made by the jack plane, and to straighten the stuff: for this purpose it is both longer and broader, the edge of the iron is less convex, and set with less projection...." On the other hand, the jointer "is principally for planing straight edges, and the edges of boards, so as to make them join together; this operation is called shooting, and the edge itself is said to be shot."
This makes things a little more clear in the distinction between the try plane and jointer. Nicholson does give lengths for these planes as well, but as with most measurements of the period, these are generalizations and not rule. A try plane and jointer plane could potentially be the same length. The true difference in these planes is in their purpose and therefore their setup.
As the try plane is for trying (or truing) surfaces after the jack (or fore) plane, it's iron is cambered, though less than the fore plane, so that it does not leave plane tracks on the surface, which is wider than the plane. The jointer on the other hand, while resembling the try plane in appearance and length, is actually a joinery plane, not a surfacing plane. It's purpose it to straighten board edges and especially to "make them join together" in an edge joint, hence the phrase "jointing the edge." With this in mind it makes more sense for a jointer to have a straight iron like other joinery or fitting planes (e.g. rabbet planes), not a cambered iron like the surfacing planes (fore/jack, try and smooth), because the iron of the jointer is wider than the surface being planed.
Now don't confuse jointing the edge with trying the edge. If an edge needs to be squared to a true 90 degrees (for example, the front of a case which will have a face frame applied), a trying plane actually makes this process easier. The plane can be shifted side to side to take a tapered shaving, with the thicker part of the shaving being taken from the higher edge. However, when making a joint between two boards, one wants a flat edge for gluing. This is the purpose of the jointer plane.
Jointed edges need not be a perfect 90 degrees if the two boards are match planed. When match planing, the money (show) faces of the two boards to be joined are placed together and the mating edges are planed at the same time. When planed together, the boards can be opened like a book and the angles of the edges will be complimentary to each other, resulting in a flat panel, no perfect 90 degree edges necessary. If you don't believe me, draw it out for yourself and see how it works (I may make match planing a future blog). A cambered iron cannot make this joint as well as a straight iron.
Hopefully, this clears up some of the confusion surrounding the try plane. You can see now that a #7 and #8 both can actually make very nice try planes or jointers. It all comes down to how you set up the iron.
This weekend, I faced, jointed and dovetailed the board for the top of the built-in cabinet that I'm currently working on. I took some pictures of the process I use for facing the board just to show a brief overview of the process.
 This is a picture of the top board for the cabinet in rough sawn condition. I have rough cut it to length here to facilitate easier facing and jointing. The board is 4/4 poplar, 12+" in width and about 33" long. The plane I start with is the fore plane. The one pictured is about 17" long and the iron has a gentle camber. The cambering of the iron helps to ease planing and also keeps the corners of the iron from leaving tracks in the surface of the board (which it did anyway as the iron was just freshly ground and honed for this board and I obviously did not camber the edge enough). This plane is set to take a relatively thick shaving. However, it should not be so thick that you have trouble pushing the plane.
 I begin the facing process by planing directly across the face of the board. The holdfasts behind the board are secured to the bench top, not the board. The board is not fastened to the bench in any way. There is a planing stop on the left end that the board is butted up to and it is also butted against the holdfasts. I plane toward these stops, which keep the board from moving as I work. This setup allows me to change the position of the board very quickly without needing to unclamp the board or readjust a vice.
Planing across the board first serves to remove any cup from the face. I like to work the concave face of the board first. I find it easier to remove cup than crown. By planing across the grain, the plane only cuts the high edges, gradually bringing them down to the height of the center of the cup. I adjust the position of the board a couple of times to reach the areas that are blocked by the holdfasts. Once I am taking full length shavings across the board, I know the cup is removed. The length of the fore plane ensures this.
 After I'm done planing across the grain withthe fore plane, I switch to the try plane and plane diagonally and along the grain to finish the job. Here I'm using a 22" long try plane. Again, the length of the plane aids in flattening the face. The plane will only cut the high spots until the board is flat. The iron of this plane is also slightly cambered, though less so than the fore plane as the try plane is set to take a finer shaving. I continue to plane end to end until I am taking a full length shaving from one end to the other across the entire width of the board. At this point the face of the board is flat.
I don't continue any further unless I'm working on a final show surface for something like a table top, which will receive a lot more scrutiny. In these cases, I'll make a few passes with a finely set smooth plane. In most cases, however, the surface left by the try plane is acceptable as is and requires no further work before applying a finish.
 The final check with the winding sticks shows that the face is flat and has no twist. Following this process typically removes any minor twist in the face without constant checking, however, it is always good to make sure any twist is removed before you scribe your final thickness to the other face. If a board is badly twisted, I typically won't try to plane it out, rather I will save the board to be ripped down for smaller parts.
Once the board's face is flat and not twisted, it can have the final thickness scribed onto the ends and edges from this face. The process is then repeated on the other face with the additional step of doing the final try planing to the scribed line to ensure a board with consistent thickness.
The whole process of flattening this face (not the second face) took me a total of 8 minutes, including the time spent stopping to take these pictures. I didn't time myself to brag as I am not that full of myself and I don't think that this is really a major feat. Rather I firmly believe it is a result of the process and using the proper tools for the job. Our ancestors would consider this just another part of the process, as do I. The real reason I timed myself is just to demonstrate that working effeciently with hand tools is not as hard as it is often thought to be. Would I want to do production surfacing this way? No, but that's not the way I work. I'm not in a production environment.
Mostly, I tried to demonstrate the process for someone new to the craft who doesn't think they can do it without power. I hope this encourages these folks (and maybe even a few of the seasoned power users) to give it a try. With the right tools properly set up, there's no reason anyone can't do this.
Ask two woodworkers how to face (flatten a face of a board) a rough sawn board using only hand tools and you're likely to get three different answers. There are almost as many opinions on how to perform this seemingly simple task as there are different types of hand planes. Inevitably, at least one of those answers will recommend the use of a scrub plane as the first plane of choice. There has even been a video made recommending just this procedure. The common (mis)conception, usually originating from someone who doesn't actually perform this task with hand planes, is that one needs to progress from scrub plane to jack plane to jointer plane to smooth plane.
 When I first started working wood with hand tools, I bought into this theory as it was the common advice generally spouted fourth on the hand tool message boards (my only source of information at the time). So I went out and found myself a nice old Stanley #40 scrub plane, sharpened it up and had at a piece of rough sawn stuff. When I finished "scrubbing" the face of the board, I was horrified at what I saw. The board had deep, narrow troughs and gouges all across it. It certainly was no closer to being flat than when I started.
 I had hope, however, that the advice I had received on the internet was good advice and so I forged on, switching to my handy Stanley #5 jack plane. I used the jack plane across and diagonal to the grain and the board began to look better. Soon, I had removed all the deep troughs left by the scrub plane and replaced them with shallow waves from the slightly cambered iron of the jack plane. Feeling more confident, I moved on to the jointer plane, planing diagonal to the grain and then with the grain, finally bringing the board face flat.
I was so proud of myself that I flipped the board over and went at the other side with the scrub plane, and repeated the whole process until that face was flat. When I was finished, I was sweaty, but proud that I had dressed a rough sawn board. The problem was that I had taken a 4/4 board (about 1+" thick) and turned it into a board that was just over 1/2" thick!
This got me thinking about the whole process I'd read about online. Did I do something wrong? No, I set up my planes like I had read and followed the process I had read. So was something wrong with the process? Maybe I'd better do some more research.
 Fast forward to today, and I now know better than to touch the scrub plane. In fact, I sold it soon after that experience when I read some better information. The problem was in fact the use of the scrub plane. Most of my facing time and effort was spent removing the damage I had done to the board caused by the use of the scrub plane. Because it left such deep hollows, I had to spend a lot of time and remove a lot of material with the jack plane. This of course results in a much thinner board and a lot of unnecessary work.
There are a lot of theories about the intended use of the scrub plane. The modern scrub plane appears to be modeled after an older continental European plane commonly used to quickly remove a lot of stock from a board. Chris Schwarz wrote an article on his theory of the scrub plane's origination. It is a well thought out article with a lot of historical evidence to back it up. After reading it, and from my experience facing a lot of lumber with and without the scrub plane, I do agree with him that this plane was NOT designed for facing rough lumber. You can read Chris' article here.
 When you look at historical texts on the craft, such as Joseph Moxon's 17th century text Mechanik Exercises, or Peter Nicholson's 1845 version The Mechanic's Companion, you see no mention of the scrub plane. In the traditional English system, there was no scrub plane. Reading these texts further reinforced what I had learned the hard way. The first plane used in the process of facing the stock is the fore plane (also called the jack plane in Nicholson's text). According to Moxon, the fore plane is so named because it is used be'fore' the other facing planes, which are the try (or jointer, more on this in another post) and smooth plane.
Now there are those who will criticize my use of the scrub saying that it is not meant to plane the entire face, only to remove the high spots, which would be identified with a straight edge. This is a weak arguement in my opinion. I've tried it that way as well and it takes a rediculous amount of time to constantly check for high spots and only plane those areas. The use of the fore plane, which is twice the length of the scrub plane, takes care of this problem. The fore plane's length is a major asset and it's secret to quickly bringing the face of a board to relative flatness.
Because the fore plane is 16" - 18" long, it rides over the low spots and only takes a shaving from the high spots, no checking necessary except to make sure the face has no wind (twist) with a pair of winding sticks. You do not, however, need to constantly check for high spots. When you take a full length shaving from end to end and edge to edge, your board face is flat. With a slightly cambered iron, the plane leaves shallow waves, easily removed with a few passes of the try plane. If the surface is acceptable after the try plane, you are done. If you need an ultra smooth surface, such as for a table top, you can follow the try plane with a few passes from the smoothing plane.
Stanley made two sizes of what may be considered a fore plane, the #5 and the #6 (or the #605 and #606 if you prefer the bedrock series). They also made several transitional planes in these sizes. The problem as I see it with these two planes has to do with their relative sizes & weights. The #5 size, which Stanley called a jack plane, is 14" long. In my opinion, this is a little short for a fore plane, but will do in a pinch. The weight of the #5 is good for a fore plane however, as it is not too heavy when using it for extended periods of time taking thick shavings (jack/fore planes should not be set up to take super fine shavings, as some would have you believe). I have used a #5 as my fore plane for years, however, I now prefer a wooden fore plane, for reasons I'll discuss in a second.
By contrast, the #6 size, which Stanley called a fore plane, is the perfect length for a fore plane at 18". The problem with the #6 is it's weight. At about 8 pounds, this plane is down right exhausting to use as a fore plane for any more than a dozen or so strokes. And anyone who says that the plane's weight is an asset has not used it for taking the thick shavings typical of a properly set fore plane for any length of time. I had a #6 and tried it out as a fore plane. I quickly reconfigured it to be a short try/jointer plane as it was simply too heavy to use as a fore plane.
Which brings me to what I now use, a traditional wooden fore plane. Mine is 17" long but weighs less than my #5. It has a thick tapered iron and is just a joy to use. I actually enjoy facing lumber with this plane, a task that previously was just a chore. If you like the idea of a longer lighter weight plane like this, but you are terrified by the thought of learning to set and adjust the iron on a traditional wedged plane like this (it's really not that hard), try a transitional. These are lighter than their full cast iron counterparts but still maintain the Bailey style adjustment and iron securing mechanism.
In a future post, I'll go through the facing of a board using the fore and try plane. However, in the mean time, if you have been using a scrub plane for this task, try it my way and see what you've been missing. I can now take a 12" wide by 36" long board and face it (one face) with my fore and try plane in about 5-10 minutes, a job that took 30-60 minutes before when I used the scrub plane.
I haven't done any planing of the built-in the last couple of days, but i have spent a little time in the shop. I just got a new addition to replace the Sargent 1080 combination plane I sold. I never really liked the combination plane much. It was finicky to set up, the skates were thicker than the fillets of the bead irons so it wouldn't cut beads without binding, it was heavy and really is not an optimized tool for any of the tasks it claims to be able to do. As they say, jack of all trades but master of none. Plus, these things just have way too many parts to get lost.
I know that there are folks out there who love their combination planes, but I am just not one of them. I instead decided to go with this beauty.
 It's a plow plane made by Bensen & Crannell, Albany, NY. It was probably made in the early 19th century, but has some features of 18th century plows, such as the wooden depth stop, as opposed to the more typical brass depth stop, and a fence attached to the arms with wood screws rather than the more common through bolts and diamond shaped brass inlaid nuts.
I cleaned it up, lapped, ground and honed the iron and took her for a spin. WOW! This is what a plow plane should be. The only problem it has is that the wooden thumb screw that holds the depth gauge at the specified height has all but one of it's threads sheared off, making it useless. However, because this type of depth stop has no shoe like a brass depth stop would, it really won't be used very often anyway as it can't be used until the fence is set a good inch away from the skate. When plowing the more typical grooves like those to accept drawer bottoms and raised panels, the depth stop would not contact the wood anyway as it would be off the edge, so in most cases I'd be working to a scribed depth.
 The fact that the depth stop is so far from the skate leads me to believe that this was likely a joiner's plane and not a cabinetmaker's plane. Joiners would need to make grooves much further from the edge of the board, such as those for entry doors and window sashes, therefore, having the depth stop further away from the iron wouldn't be a concern. In addition, this plane doesn't have all the brass customarily found on cabinetmakers' plows. Still the plane will function quite nicely in my cabinet shop. I have no worries about working to a line.
It did only come with a single 1/4" iron, however, since this is the most used size in my cabinet work, that's fine for me. Plow plane irons are easy to find and add later anyway. I think I'll just use it as is for now. Even though the wooden thumb screw is not functional, it stays in the plane. If I feel the need later, I'll try to carve a new one as suggested by Stephen Shepherd. It looks to be a 7/16" screw with about 12 tpi so this will have to be hand carved as I don't know of any thread boxes on the market that come in this size. Suppose I could make one, but I have furniture to work on!
The one thing that does puzzle me is that the screw appears to be the original length as the end is smooth and has the same patina as the rest of the plane. However, the screw in it's current length is too short to reach the depth stop block. I am not sure if there was originally a floating filler piece that would be pressed up against the block by the screw or not. There was a cut off piece of #2 pencil floating in the hole between the depth stop and screw when I took the screw out. It was apparently put there by a previous user to do just that, but this is obviously not original. If you have any thoughts on this or if you have a plane with a similar depth stop you can look at for me, I'd appreciate your comments.
 Over the last week and a half, I have begun working on a built-in cabinet for our living room. This has been the largest and most daunting project I've taken on to date. Planing 12" wide by 8' long boards is no easy task, and is made especially more challenging when you have a 7' workbench. Notice the pile of shavings building up on the floor (sorry for the blurry picture). This isn't even half of them.
The challenge here is moving the boards more than anything. Planing them isn't difficult, just time consuming. In my case I would plane 2/3 of the board, then shift it down on the bench and plane the other third since the board is a full 12" longer than my bench. The benefit of doing this by hand, however, (in addition to the cardio workout) is that there is no need to plane both faces before you glue up your panel. This is possible to do with power tools too, you just have to think outside the box.
In the case of these two panels, the side facing out is planed, the side facing the wall is still in the rough. Working this way saves a lot of time. Why plane both sides twice? I planed one face of the 12" wide board, then planed one face of the 8" wide board. The two flat planed faces were placed together and the mating edges of the boards were match planed (planed together at the same time). This results in complimentary angles when the boards are mated and all but gaurantees a flat glue-up. Once the glue has dried, some light planing cleans up the first face and then the panel is flipped and the rough face of the panel is planed.
Even panels this size, while difficult to move around, can be sucessfully glued up with minimal fuss using this technique. The added benefit is less planing and you also save final panel thickness as you are not planing away any more material than necessary. I don't know what the final thickness of these panels will be, but I don't really care. It will not be important in the final piece.
Do a search on the net or the hand tool message board of your choice and you'll find volumes of information on cleaning, restoring or tuning hand planes...metal hand planes. Most of these articles don't discuss the care and feeding of old wooden planes. In the last few years, I have taken to these old woodies and come to prefer them to my collection of old Stanley bench planes. There's just something about the wood on wood feel, the ergonomics of the old woodies and the nostalgia of the 18th and early 19th century cabinet shops that these tools have about them.
In order to provide assistance to any one else who has been bitten by the woodie bug, I'm going to present here my method of cleaning and tuning these planes. Keep in mind that I am no expert on this, and I am not a collector so my tools are being set up for use. However, I have cleaned wooden planes this way for several years now and they all continue to look nice and, most importantly, perform very well.
The demonstration plane that I'm using here is a 19th century molding plane manufactured by Auburn Tool Co. It is stamped #155, which according to the catalog is supposed to be an ovolo profile (called quarter round in the catalog), however, my plane appears to be missing the fence that would provide registration of the plane as well as the outside fillet on the profile. I suppose that it could have been planed off by a previous owner, however, there is no evidence of this on the plane nor the iron as both appear to be in original, unmodified condition. The profile of this plane looks to be more of a thumbnail with fillet like one would find on period drawer edges. If you know anything about this please leave a comment.
At any rate, here is the plane as received. Dirty and dull with the remnants of a price sticker stuck to the top. Hoever, there are no end checks, no damaged wood and the blade profile looks to be correct. I doubt this plane ever saw much use.
The iron looks to be of the laminated type, which are my favorites. Look closely at the picture below and you can see a dark band of steel at the top of the iron. This is the hard cutting tool steel. The lighter metal of the iron body is a softer wrought iron. This is nice because it makes these types of irons easy to reshape with a chainsaw file if the profile of the iron needs reshaping. This one does not, so I'll leave it alone. These laminated blades are also nicer to hone and work with. You are really only honing the hard steel at the front which makes it easy to do. I really like old laminated irons. The first thing I do when I receive these planes is to take the wedge and iron out and inspect the plane for damage. This one is in great shape, no cracks, full wedge, no major pitting in the iron. Next I take some 0000 steel wool, an old toothbrush and mineral spirits and clean the wood and iron. I'm not trying to scrub away the years of patina that have built up, I'm just getting rid of dirt, grease and residue left by stickers and such. If the stock has any paint splatters (they often do) I may try to lightly scrape them off with a cabinet scraper, being careful not to remove any wood.
On thing I never do is sand the plane stock. I don't know if I'm just paranoid or not but I feel that if you expose fresh wood, you take the chance that the stock will want to move, potentially warping, which ruins the plane as a user. Besides, I don't want the plane to look new, I like the patina of the old, used tools. It's part of the history of where the tool has been and the work it has done.
Once the plane stock and wedge has been cleaned and the excess solvent wiped away, I apply something to the wood to give it a nice sheen and feel. I'm not really applying a finish per se as I know that any finish will wear away with use, I just like the feel of a nice oiled wooden plane stock. Watever you do, do not put any kind of film finish on them like laquer or varnish and nothing with silicone oil in it (most furniture polishes have silicone oil).
I have used a commercial product in the past with decent results. It is a mixture of orange oil, beeswax and carnuba wax in a solvent base to keep it in a semi-liquid form. It is sold as a furniture wood preserver, though I doubt it does any real preserving.
The probelm with these types of products, I'm told by a fellow hand tool enthusiast who is far more knowledgable of these things than I am, is that they are mostly petroleum distillates. I have a problem with this for two reasons. First, petroleum based solvents are not very environmentally friendly and second, they are probably not the greatest thing for the wood either (I know, mineral spirits is a petroleum distillate, but my local supplier doesn't carry pure turpentine, which I would certainly prefer).
Mr. Shepherd's recommendation is just to use boiled linseed oil thinned 50% with turpentine. Unfortunately, I don't have any real turpentine, so not wanting to leave mineral spirits on the wood, I just used unthinned boiled linseed oil on this plane. The result...
I like the look and the feel very much. I think I will use the linseed oil from now on, though I am going to try to find real turpentine to thin it.
While the oil dries, I work on the iron. This is where I sometimes get a little non-neander. Hey, I said I build furniture with hand tools only, I don't necessarily do metalworking with hand tools only. When needed, I use a drill press with a soft wire wheel to clean the iron, or other metal parts. Be careful not to over do it though, even the soft wheel can scratch if used too aggressively.
This iron only needed the removal of minor surface rust, which the wire wheel removed in just a minute or two of work. Next I polish the back of the iron. I don't worry about flattening the entire back of the iron, I just want to get a nice polish at the cutting edge. I really don't like sandpaper for sharpening, however, for lapping the backs of irons and chisels, it is faster than stones and of course causes less ware on the stones as well. I start with 80 or 100 grit depending on how bad the iron is and work my way up to 600 grit. Then I strop on my leather strop charged with green honing compound.
The final step is to hone the bevel. If the iron needs reshaping, do this now with a fine chainsaw file. It is really not as hard as you think. Color the back of the iron with a black magic marker, wedge it in the stock and scribe the sole profile onto the iron. Then just use the file to adjust the profile to the scribed line. This iron needed no reshaping so I went straight to honing. I hold the iron steady in my left hand and move the slip stone up and down over the bevel until I have a nice polish across the entire profile. I start with a soft Arkansas slip, progress to a hard Arkansas slip and then to a shaped strop or a wooden dowel which I have scribbled green honing compound on to act as a strop.
After the bevel is honed and polished, you are done and ready to take your new plane for a test drive. I'm going to wait until the linseed oil on this plane dries before testing it out though.
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