A few weeks ago I wrote about my garage-sale Stanley #80 scraper plane.  Though it had obviously been heavily used it wasn’t very well set up.  So I did a little filing here, a little tweaking there…

Worst of all was the blade:  it needed to be replaced.  Not just because it was pitted and out of square, but also because it was so thin–about as thin as a medium gauge card scraper.  I checked out the Hock blade,  but it cost just a dollar or two less than a brand new #80.  So I made my own replacement blade out of a very thick card scraper.  It worked very well.

Someone responded to my post (sorry, I’ve forgotten who it was) saying that he had recently bought a new #80 and its blade was very thick and stout, much too thick to be used by hand.

Whoever wrote that post, thank you.

At about five dollars I could afford to experiment.  I added a Stanley replacement blade to an order I had at HH.

It arrived today.  The person who wrote about it was correct in every detail:  the Stanley replacement blade was VERY heavy, very thick and stout.  I couldn’t wait to see how it worked.  I stoned the bevel (it needed it) and turned an edge.  I did a side by side comparison test between the new Stanley and the blade I had made on a piece of nasty walnut.  The Stanley worked better!

So, again, whoever wrote that note, thank you.

Alan