Stanley No 8 Hand Plane #3: Something new, something old, nothing borrowed
I knew before my Stanley No 8 Type 11 arrived in the mail that it would need a new blade and though not-needed, I wanted to put new Bubinga handles on it. I picked up a Type 11 blade that was 7” long on eBay: But there appeared to be something unique about it that I was not prepared to see. There is an “H” on the back of the blade. I have been able to find surprisingly little about that “H” on the blade. While quite uncommon in my searches, I have occasionally come across “H” versions of entire planes. Like this rare Stanley Bailey No 4 1/2 H smoothing plane: Tell-tale is that while they were manufactured in the US, they were n...