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Hi

I have been careless with my planes, I left them in the garage through winter and they have picked up some rust, most of it has sanded off but I have very slight pitting on the soles. I never did true up the soles of these new planes so I think it is about time. Am I asking too much remove the pitting, is it achievable ?

Do you know of any good video resources for lapping plane sole's ?

Regards

John

Get yourself a good piece of granite or very flat surface to lap the sole. I would not worry about the sides pitting - if they have indentations (pits) it's not a big deal. The important part is that you sand it flat regards of the pits - you don't have to get the pits out to be able to use it.

That are a number of good guides out on the net to tune your plane. Let me know if you don't find one - I can send you a pdf.

_________________
It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

I took a weekend course with
Tom Kealy at Axminster Tools. His method involves getting a piece of float glass about 15 inches long, lay it on a flat bench and use slips of paper under the glass anywhere it will go in to ensure flatness. Attach 80 grit wetndry paper with spray adhesive preferably the stuff on a roll to get a decent length Withdraw the blade but otherwise leave the plane assembled. Rub the plane on the sandpaper forward and back, centre your thumbs to get even pressure. Take care not to rock it at all, go steadily. Check the flatness with a good quality straightedge holding it against the light. If the base is flat it wouldnt take long but flattening can take a long time!

Axminster tools do a float glass piecefor 19.95 but I expect you could find an offcut from a glass supplier more cheaply.

There's no need to remove the pitting. As long as the toe, mouth area, and
heel are coplanar you're fine. Sandpaper works, a mill file is faster to start
with, if the sole is way out. Carborundum on mylar film with a surface plate
(or flat glass) beneath is a good method.

CW

A finish carpenter friend of mine advised to get the DMT diamond black color or rough grit sharpening (stone) and use that to lap plane bottoms. So far it's worked for me. I just lucked out a few weeks ago and found an old rusty Bedrock #5 for $24.00 at a local re-use store. After using that DMT on it it works like a dream. Definitely my best plane now.

_________________
"Preoccupation with an effect gives it power and enhances the error"
from "Your Owner's Manual" by Burt Hotchkiss.

The pits on the plane body won't matter. I'd clean the rust off as best possible- steel wool, a wire
brush, etc. If you're worried about further rusting, use Navel Jelly or one of the rust conversion liquids
available at auto body paint stores. That will remove all current rust, and using good storage techniques
plus keeping the planes clean should prevent any reoccurance. Several good techniques listed above
for tuning the planes. If the blades are deeply pitted near the edge, you'll need to grind them back, or
get new blades. The heavier replacement blades (Hock, etc), are a good upgrade for the planes also.

_________________
Gene

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason- Mark Twain

I live on the coast and the salt air plays havoc on older tools. Whenever I receive a shipment of something with silica gel packs in the shipping container I throw them in my tool drawers. To refresh them simply bake them at a low temp for a coupled of hours.

_________________
(alias: gasawdust)

I'm one of those who don't think the pits are much of an issue--except for cosmetic considerations.
Remove the rust and then follow one of the suggestions you've received about lapping the sole. As has been suggested, make the important contact points co-planar. I would do this with the iron and chip breaker installed, but backed out of the plane mouth a little bit. While you're doing all this, it would be a great time to tune up the frog, chip breaker, etc. Lots of info on plane tuning available on the web.

For some reason, I find that whenever I lap a hand plane sole on sandpaper I can never get it perfectly flat. The edges always seem to get sanded more so than the middle. I can get it good enough so that the area around the mouth is flat, but it is still kind of annoying, and I can never get it as flat as say a Lie-Nielsen plane, and not even close.

I also find this problem when attempting to lap the back of a chisel or plane iron on sandpaper. For some reason I end up making the back even worse, as the areas towards the edges get sanded more than the middle areas. I use one of the flat granite blocks from woodcraft.

Does anyone else have this problem, and is there a way to avoid it. Because of this, I only lap my chisels and plane irons on diamond stones and water stones, but this takes a long time. I would love to have a better method for making an old stanley plane or an old chisel perfectly flat!

I learned from Alan Carruth to sand in a figure 8 pattern if you want to get things flat. IIRC, he said we have a natural tendency to rock things toward the edges when sanding on a flat surface, so if you use a figure 8 pattern you will be sanding the middle twice as much and this should correct the error. Whatever the reasoning, it has worked for me on wooden parts I've needed to sand flat, so I'm sure it would work on a plane, as well.

Matt