Replies

1. 
   blewcrowe | Apr 25, 2007 08:34pm | #1

   Bill, what I do is tack glue some silicon carbide sandpaper to some float glass, but I've also seen the same method on a piece of granite, hardwood or mdf if it's really dead flat. If the bottom is really bad you might want to start with 100 grit and work your way up. I do 100, 220, 400, 1000, and 2000, then follow up with wax.

2. 
   JohnWW | Apr 25, 2007 08:41pm | #2

   What you have is called a transitional plane, a wood body with a Bailey mechanism, it isn't a Bedrock which had a cast iron body.

   John W.

1. 
   spitfire | Apr 25, 2007 09:20pm | #4

   Thank you John, yes Bailey I stand corrected.  It has two large wooden acres which attach the frog to the plane wooden body and then of course it has the knob which adjusts the depth of the iron and iron cap.

   I think it is all original. 

   Any idea as to how old it is?  The metal portions are painted black original paint and If I had to guess age I think 1920's - 1950's ?? 

   Did I pay too much for it?

1. 
   JohnWW | Apr 25, 2007 09:39pm | #5

   This is where to go for anything you could ever want to know about Stanley planes:

   http://www.supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan0.htm 

   Your plane is in probably in the #21 through #37 category, but there are some in the #100 range also.

   Be forewarned, he doesn't have much good to say about transitional planes, but then again he doesn't have much good to say about most planes, even the Bedrocks.  Highly entertaining however.

   Don't know about pricing, I buy almost all of my tools at tag sales where the prices are set by the whim of the seller rather than market value.  The best resource for real world pricing is E-bay.

   John W.

1. 
   spitfire | Apr 26, 2007 03:12pm | #8

   John,

    

   I checked again last night and on the toe it reads Bailey then underneath 27!!

   the iron says Stanley PAtAPL 19.92.

    

    

    

    

2. 
   mvflaim | Apr 25, 2007 09:41pm | #6

   $16.80 is a good price for a transitional.. you didn't get taken thats for sure... it's probably about 80 years old give or take a few years... 

3. 
   mvflaim | Apr 25, 2007 09:08pm | #3

   if you have a transitional plane with a wooden body, you can flatten out the bed by running it over the jointer a few times taking very shallow passes.

    

4. 
   AdamCherubini | Apr 26, 2007 01:48am | #7

   I'm not sure how power jointers work. What I'd want to do is remove an equal amount of material from both corners. I'd do that with a hand plane (which you may not have). I think there's a difference between holding the twisted piece by one end and machining flat to that surface versus what I described.

   Transitionals have gotten a bad rep, partly because of Patrick's blood and gore. They have a lot of advantages. Before I mention them, I find its helpful to remember, Leonard Bailey, who invented the Bailey plane, wasn't seeking to improve the performance of wooden planes, only decrease the cost of their manufacture. Making wooden planes requires skilled woodworkers and a large amount of handwork. Transitionals kept the best features of wooden planes, while using castings for the complicated portions inside the throat. All-metallic planes were the next logical cost reduction since they allowed the entire plane to be cast then assembled with totally unskilled labor.

   So the nice thing about transitionals is that they provide excellent support for the iron all the way to the sole. The trick is to align the frog with the wooden bed. Only the bedrock (and current LN) comes close to supporting the iron as close to the sole.

   With the frog set back against the bed, you may find the mouth is too wide to handle reversing grain. The mouth size is best reduced by gluing in a wooden patch.

   Wooden planes are easy to work with since they are lighter and have less friction, especially on wet or sappy woods than metal planes.

   So rather than being thought of as a transition from earlier lower quality wooden planes to higher quality metal planes, transitionals today serve as transitions from fussy metal planes to wooden planes. My guess is that folks who try them, like them and become curious about all wooden planes. After you've straightened a sole and patched a throat, you've developed the skills you need to refurb very inexpensive all wooden planes and turn them into top performers.

   Good luck with plane.

   Adam

   
   

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   Edited 4/25/2007 10:54 pm ET by AdamCherubini

1. 
   lwilliams | Apr 27, 2007 03:50am | #9

   "...So rather than being thought of as a transition from earlier lower quality wooden planes to higher quality metal planes, transitionals today serve as transitions from fussy metal planes to wooden planes...."

   Actually, Baily introduced his metal planes two years before he came out with wood bottom planes. This is a pretty good indication the metal planes didn't exactly take the woodworking world by storm. Wood bottom planes were an attempt at offering Baily's adjuster and thin irons in a more palatable form. "Transitional" is a word some collector came up with because they falsely assumed the metal planes were some big advancement.

   I feel the reality is that as long as wooden plane makers were closely related to the woodworking trades, the planes represented what those trades needed and wanted. By the mid 19th Century I doubt many plane makers had any experience in the woodworking trades and a lot was lost. As wooden plane manufacturing became big business and attempts were made to introduce mass production techniques, the quality of the product suffered dramatically. For the most part, mid to late 19th Century planes are a poor imitation of their 18th Century counterparts. Wooden plane makers actually contributed to their own demise by trying to lower their labor cost. Actually, I guess they were successful. By the time of the Great Depression in the US, their labor cost was nothing but then so was their production.