i picked up a good and old user-quality #8 stanley at a junk shop recently. i am having trouble with the size of the mouth opening and the location of the frog. when i put the blade assebly on the frog and lock everything down, the blade advances and the chip breaker hits the front of the mouth before the blade even clears the sole. if i back the frog away from the mouth to give the blade assembly more room to get into the mouth, there is a piece of casting from the plane body that is between the feet of the frog that prevents the blade from resting solidly on the frog. the mouth on this plane seems very narrow compared to one of my newer #4 smoothers. i would like to put a new, thick hock or LN blade on the #8, but as it seems there isn’t even enough room for the current thin blade i am stumped. is it a major no no to carefully file the mouth wider? this plane seems to have an adjustable frog only in theory since there is only about 1mm of wiggle room in the frog to where i can get the blad assembly below the sole to actually hit the wood i am planing. but then the mouth is so closed that the ribbons of wood just get wedged under the plane body. i am sure i have over-explained this, but i am having a hard time getting the mental image into words. if this post is comprehendable, great. if not, i could post a few pics to help illustrate my problem. thanks in advance for any help or info.
thanks,
david
ps–the blade has been sharpened to within a quarter-inch of the channel that runs down the middle to give the lateral movement lever room to do it’s thing. is this way too far up the blade to make it still usable? is this far past the hardened portion of the blade? can you still find the old style thin 2.5″ replacement blades instead of the new thick ones if i can’t make a thick one work in the small mouth? thanks. all info and help much appreciated.
Replies
Lie-Nielsen makes Stanley replacement blades - that is, they are the right thickness. Check here: http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?cat=512
As you can see, they are not cheap though at $50. I can tell you from experience, however, that they work a treat! Great blades.
As far as your frog issue, I'm not sure i understand how the blade is failing to seat. I would assume that if the plane looks as though it has been used int eh past, it is your set up or the short blade that are causing your problem. I would not file the mouth until I had tried everything else, including a new blade.
I guess the one piece of information I find missing is how old, and to some extent how collectable is this plane. That might be a factor in how permenant of changes I would make to the plane, and it's neat to know anyway. The first link on this page is any easy way to find out:
http://users.ev1.net/~gmuster/TypeStudy/benchplanes.htm
Keep in mind someone was able to use up an entire blade with the mouth at the current width, so it must be wide enough for the stanley blade. So I guess I would focus on why it's not working anymore.
On the other hand, It sounds like you need to replace the blade now, or at least in the near future. In that case, assuming you buy a thicker blade, you will probably need to file the mouth wider anyway. So if you carefully take off a little to get the thin blade working, it might not be a factor in the future anyway.
No matter what, congratulations on the eight.
dstonner,
Do you have a Woodcraft (or some supplier) near buy where you can try a Hock blade in your #8 ? I suspect the old blade is used up and you can't advance it enough to do the job...but trying another blade would answer that question.
Isn't a Hock likely to be too thick? It would mean committing to file the mouth, right?
dstonner
As an avid collector of planes, I wanted to point out a few concepts. Many older planes are "pasted" back together using frogs, parts, etc..... that are not original to that particular plane body. Over the years, the planes were changed ever so slightly. I have 2 different bedrock 605 1/2's. The frogs are not interchangeable. One causes the exact same situation you're having with the other. I've got a small moving box full of parts off of many different planes, and so do most collector's. They'll usually slap a plane together, and sell it on ebay to some unsuspecting newbie who doesn't know what to look for. It ticks me off, but it does happen.
So, some times, filing can be the only way to get the mouth to accept the blade. With a smoother, I'd say that you now have a new 'scrub plane'. With a #8, who cares. If it didn't cost a lot of $$, open that mouth up. With a jointer plane, you don't want a real tight mouth anyway, so you can flatten with a little aggression. I've got a 607 that I put a Hock blade on, and had to open the mouth a little bit with a mill file. It's my favorite jointer plane, and I have "a few", (lol) if you know what I mean. Just make sure that when you open the mouth, you keep it straight, and take a little at a time.
Jeff
thanks so much for the advice from everyone. i had a suspicion that perhaps the frog was not the original one. i'll take another look at the plane and decide what to do after a bit of thinking. i'm guessing i may have to open the mouth up just a bit. thanks to everyone. david
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