bailey #5

using a good hand plane is a wonderful experience. a sharp, well tuned plane will lift a continuous wood shaving thinner than a sheet of paper with much less effort than you would expect. it will leave a near mirror surface without dust and with only a low, satisfying "purr" to be heard. a dull plane, on the other hand, takes all your effort and turns it into a ruined board so that you can use more effort with a loud and dusty sander to get what is still an inferior product. maybe that's why a good plane can run upwards of 200 smackers.

lucky for us, they've been making good planes for a long time and old ones can be found all over the place. a good friend of mine gave me his grandfather's #5 stanley bailey plane. it was in pretty reasonable shape when i got it- a little rusty, some paint globs on the handle, a chipped blade- but no cracks in the casting or anything like that.

 
a plane like this is definitely worth the repair effort. i used an article in fine woodworking #216 as a guide and now have a beautiful, functional, long lasting tool.

after removing as much rust as i could with naval jelly and then washing all the parts in alcohol to remove any remaining grime and moisture, i got to work on the blade:

this was the original condition. there is at least one big chip in the blade and the cutting edge has been rounded from sharpening. i ground down the bevel to get past the chip:

after some grinding, the chip is still visible on the right side. after a little more grinding, i set to work on the 1000 grit water stone:

the honing jig locked on to the plane iron was a great and rather inexpensive purchase. the wheel on the back keeps the blade at the correct (25 degree) angle. i spent way too much time working the blade down before deciding to take a step back and clean up the body of the blade on fine (320 then 600 grit) sandpaper. i then restarted the sharpening process on a 600 grit oil stone. after stepping back up to the 1000 grit water stone and finally the 3000 grit water stone, the blade was in pretty good shape:

i could have gone farther and gotten a completely flat, mirror finish. but i'm lazy and i gave up once i got to a rather flat, somewhat reflective finish. i then cleaned up the chip breaker on some sandpaper. before:

after:

the plane body was still quite flat, so i just lapped it over some fine sandpaper to take down a few high spots and remove some bits of paint. then i gave everything a light coat of camellia oil to prevent rust, tuned it up, and made some test cuts:

that's good enough for me!