That said, there is no doubt that the old-timers, the craftsmen from another era, had the right tools and skills to do the highest quality work. And Tony, your wisdom is priceless and much needed. Our task is to preserve this knowledge, make it approachable, relatively affordable, and if we deviate from perfection along the way, it’s fair to point this out as Tony does so well here, but I certainly don’t think that we should avoid the acquisition of some skill or use of some technique because we don’t have the perfect tool for the task.

Tony’s comment follows:

An interesting and helpful demo for up and comers. Don’t mistake a scrub-plane blade as a worn out smoothing blade though. Scrub iron requires considerable skill to sharpen well. So do straight planer blades and caps.

Keith, though having other obvious skills, has adopted however one very common and very poor practice of using the incorrect screwdriver and it will show on the screws. Each screw slot especially on vintage planes MUST have a screwdriver of the absolutely correct fit. Few today in our “off the shelf” age know how to sharpen a screwdriver correctly..the tip must be the termination of a correct hollow grind…flat ground screwdrivers reflect an ignorant, i.e. untrained or careless user.

Using tapered screw-drivers rather than hollow ground correctly finds them riding or slipping upwards to bite at the visible surface of the head of the screw, making it look awful and sometimes slipping right out to do other damage or injur someone. …

The turning moment SHOULD be at the BOTTOM of the slot.

Keith uses an incorrect length of screwdriver and with an incorrect style of grip. Older screwdrivers were not made by ignorant fools with primitive resources…as were not Strad violins…these people used hand tools to produce excellence and with skills rapidly disappearing fast we have few to teach skills.

The grip on older drivers were less often round than a sort of “teardrop” shape…this gave a comfortable palm pressure and good leverage to turn the driver. Today almost without exception screw-drivers have round plastic handles, leading to bad habits, poor finish of screws and injury to he product and use.

Keith is promoting and I applaud him, those skills and tools almost gone from our far-to-busy society where ‘home user” electric tools are imported from china and where steel quality is reduced to encourage “throw away”.

Apprentices today are rarely taught how to CORRECTLY sharpen screwdrivers or HSS drills for example…they haven’t a clue and learn from cheap junk drills for example, with flat lands, many of which cannot drill an hole although claimed to be “steel drills”, well they may be but the materials they can cut don’t include it.

After that “awareness” commentary…Keith probably selected the screwdriver as he wanted to get close to the screws to reduce slipping…yet immediately it was evident it failed…. and to get to the throat adjusting bracket….The screw-driver is simply the incorrect type…he ought to use a “vintage” type, maybe up to 12 inches long, because the CORRECT grip and the CORRECT sharpening will give all the CORRECT control he needs. Moreover…the plane should also be secured in between three pieces of timber screwed the the bench in a “U” pattern, when dismantling …to hold the plane with one hand and screwdriver in the other is asking for problems.

(Keith’s note: In the following, I’m assuming that Tony is not suggesting that I don’t care about my tools, but is making a generalized comment. I’ll note that the damaged screw head on the frog shown in the video was not caused by me, but was the condition of this almost 100 year old screw at the time I acquired the plane.)

The correct way to the throat adjuster screw is NOT to do as shown but is to remove the tote and the hardware for it and use the correctly sharpened, precisely fitting screw-driver whose grip comes outside of the rear of the plane sole, giving a direct turning moment and not an offset. These planes’ screws are usually ruined in appearance by people who don’t know or care about using tools properly…they’ll claim to be great carpenters but are not good tradesmen. Today these spare-parts are not down at the local store and Stanley for example, had its own threads…trying the wrong one can strip out the casat iron.

(Keith’s Note: … and I give Tony the last word…)

I think Keith will take this on board, it may never have occurred to him, as to most of us. When you are dealing with planes, make a point of finding and using the correct dismantling tools. And keep them aside from your other daily work tools. ..99.9% will not, but when instructing it adds “finesse” to also educate people WHY the tools of the era when cast iron planes were ‘invented’ by Bailey are the tools which should still be used to this day. Seek out those old 19th C early 20th C carpenters/cabinet-makers screw drivers in overall lengths from 6″ to 18″…learn the correct sharpening practice and do it carefully. In some cases you will need a blacksmith to redo a worn tip first. Cheers Tony

1) 1/16 (average) to 1/32(for fine work) of an inch from edge of blade to cap iron(rides on top of the blade)

2) Blade to the front of the throat 1/16″

3) Adjust the blade so it just projects from the surface of the bottom of the plane.

but when you do number 3 doesn’t it change the measurement of number 2?

Keith’s Note: The blade distance should remain constant regardless of the blade projection.

Keith’s Note: Congrats on finding the planes. To renovate the plane to working condition, just work methodically dismantling, cleaning, and truing things up as shown in the video.

By using shellac, you are applying a non-destructive finish that can be removed later. That’s one way to go, which will only minimally alter the original patina – if you want to preserve the vintage look. There is no right or wrong way to do this really – especially for “user-type” planes that are not particularly rare. I suppose it’s debatable how rare or collectable most pre-war Stanley planes are.

Keith’s Note:

I’m not a vintage plane expert, particularly regarding the collecting of rarer planes. But as a tool user, I can say that if you stick with the pre-war (WWII) Bailey and Stanley planes, you can’t go too far wrong. They are workhorses and are very well made.