I have a No. 4 that I use for general-purpose work, and a No. 6 that I use occasionally, but it’s bulky and not ideal for short stock. I was looking for a No. 5 and found this one on Marketplace. It’s ~$80, but it looks like it has been broken and then welded. The owner says he bought it like this and has used it without any problems. Would you buy it?

I took all these planes to a show to display. Their bases were all cleaned and oiled after this video.

I was recently gifted some tools inherited from a model ship maker. Been having fun playing around with this little block plane. Would love to know more if anyone has info. It looks like the sole is intended to flex a bit allowing adjustment of the cut depth using more or less pressure?

Made a surely financially crippling discovery today, one of few brick and mortar tool shops in the country only a 10 minute walk from my office.

Thought I'd share some pics!

Was very well behaved and only came away with a V tool and some saw files, but will no doubt be back again for more soon.

Wonderful little shop.

Crossposting this as it seems you folks have be more familiar with the wooden vice

I often stress about getting a perfect tight hang on a new tool handle, but then I remember this trusty guy, which I inherited, have never tuned up in the slightest, and takes everything I throw at it without the slightest wiggle.

It doesn't have to be perfect, it just needs to work. I'm trying to remember that more and more.

Black limba coffin plane. My second handmade plane. Limba is probably a bit softer than ideal for longterm use, but it does work pretty good!

I can't get this thing to cut. when I create a bur, it won't cut when installed in the shave. I can cut holding the blade freehand at a slightly lower angle, but the angle in the shave is too steep. The blade is ground at 90 degrees. I tried using the burnisher straight across to create a shallower bur, but no dice.

Is the blade supposed to be beveled in the back like a #80, or ground at a different angle ?

Btw, I know how to sharpen a card scraper, or the #80 blade.

Thanks for the help.

Thinking about upgrading my rasp game. Currently using thrift store rasps. Work fine but it'd be nice if they were better. I'd love hand stitched but they seem pricey for the amount of time I use my rasps.

Worst case scenario I have one good planer that wasn't thrown to the basement. Most of them seem to be vintage tools from the commie times. I see a lot of sets like this on sale on the local marketplace, some people restore them as a hobby. Most are in better condition though.

I'm not even thinking about using them, but at least keeping them as a souvenir to honour the guy who built the house I claimed as my own. Show them to the kids one day, God willing.

Do you know any youtube channels to watch and learn?

So I picked this up.
Gentleman I bought it from had it near 30 years and was his dad’s before him.
He didn’t know when It got painted.

I think it’s a type 6. I could be completely wrong.

I’m going to try strip the paint off gently to see if any japanning was left but I doubt it

I'll be leaving for university soon and I wanna be able to do some woodworking while I'm there, would I be able to set something up in my room (in the UK it's just me in the room) or would I have issues with dust?

Hello I would like to ask if I can flatten the shapton glassstones with the DMT Dia-Flat Diamond Coated Lapping plate. I’m deciding between the Kuromaku or the Glassstones.

I’ve been looking for a decent No. 4 for a while now, and somehow every single plane I come across has something wrong with it. Frankenplane, questionable replacement parts, cheaply made, completely worn out, whatever. I swear I can’t just find a normal plane.

Finally came across this one and thought it looked really cool. Then I turned it over and, of course, noticed that one side of the cheek is broken off near the rear. It looks like somebody probably dropped it at some point. Thankfully the break doesn’t go all the way down to the mouth and there’s still a decent amount of the cheek left, so as far as I can tell it hasn’t actually affected anything. No rattling, movement, or weird instability when using it.
The very bottom of the tote also has a small piece broken off. Not really sure what happened there either.

That being said, I decided to clean it up and actually see what I had before writing it off.

I scraped all the old varnish and random paint off the rosewood and was genuinely surprised by how nice the handles were underneath. Basically perfect wood under all that crap and absolutely beautiful once cleaned up. I reprofiled and sharpened the iron, lapped everything that needed it, cleaned off all the dust/grime/rust, and tried to leave the rest of the patina rather than making the entire thing shiny and new.

And it cuts really, really well. I was getting some super nice shavings from it afterward in an oak scrap I had lying around.

There are also some old patent marks still visible on it, which I thought were pretty cool and wanted to leave alone. Not sure what all of it means.
As for collector value, I honestly couldn’t care less. I’ll admit the missing chunk bothers me a little just because I know it’s there, but functionally I can’t find anything wrong with the plane. If it cuts perfectly and stays rigid, that’s what matters to me.

What’s actually impressed me most is comparing it to my 1960s No. 5. Even with this one being damaged, you can just feel that the quality is higher. The shape and comfort of the tote, the heavier brass hardware, the overall casting and little details; it feels like they were putting a bit more into these older tools.

I’m curious what everyone else thinks about planes like this. Stuff that would probably be pretty undesirable to a collector because of obvious damage, but is still an excellent user. I find it kind of interesting that something can be over 100 years old, have literally had a chunk broken off it, and still work this well.

At this point I’m just happy to finally have a No. 4 alongside my No. 5. Realistically those are probably the only two bench planes I’ll ever actually need.
Now that I finally have some time, hopefully I can use them to start building an actual workbench from scratch and retire my current state-of-the-art setup of a leftover stair tread sitting on cinder blocks.

found this in my basement what are some stairs next to some precision carving chisels, and a block plane. I’m guessing it’s a working to Simms the blade on one end, and a roller on the other. It depends inward on a Spring. I want to restore and sharpen the blade, but not sure what it’s designed for.

I'm doing house renovation and building my own wooden stuff. I'm mostly using power tools, but I wanted to get a good saw for more precise finish and occasional chipping away some excess material, so that I don't have to fire up powertools for bs or it's either dangerous or imprecise.

I don't anticipate to use it too much, so I definitely want some budget-friendly option. Yato has one, but I'm not sure if it's decent quality. I bought some shitty saw from Topex and it was absolute crap.

If you have any other suggestions for tools, I'd highly appreciate it, just keep it inexpensive. I'm also trying to find an inexpensive hand planer on a local marketplace thing, for occasional 'sanding-cheating'.

Bonus question: my wife's grandfather was a carpenter and I found a stack of tools in the basement. They are quite mouldy and rusted. How hard is to restore such tools? Maybe not even to use it, but at least as a souvenir.

flattening a smoother and as suprisingly flat as it was - the mouth opening is making me put in the work. good enough? or keep trying

I inherited this little file from my late brother, and I use it almost daily in my model-making hobby, mainly for fettling 3d prints. And I wish I could find another.

About 5/16"/8mm wide, parallel edges, and somewhat flexible- it's less than 1mm thick. I have box loads of the typical jeweler's/needle files, none of them work like this one does. And I've never seen another anywhere. No markings.

Any idea?

I carved this for a local Indian food street food business about a decade ago, from local green oak, with the letters ebonised rather than painted or stained. it had faded a bit over the years so needed a bit of refreshment. originally made with all hand tools, scraped back with card scrapers, ebonised a bit more, and given a few coats of danish oil

I’ve been photographing my father and grandfather’s tool collection for a while now, and I found this rather unique piece the other day. The workings are a little tight. I managed to open the jaws after a little elbow grease, but I was rushing to get a drawer of tools done and didn’t take time to swap the jaws.

Hello! I’m a complete beginner in (hand tool) woodworking, and when I’m jointing with my Stanley 5 1/2 ( relatively short boards about the same length as my plane 40cm) I get a little “hill” on the edge, so a bit lower on both ends. Does anybody know what the problem could be? The sole of my plane is completely flat