| Blog series by Jerry | updated 07-29-2017 12:09 AM | 5 parts | 20998 reads | 23 comments total |
Part 1: My Stanley - Bailey No. 4 restoration
My very first woodworking hand tool was this Stanley – Bailey No. 4. I bought it from Craigslist for $10.00. It’s about 50 years old, I bought it from the 45 year old son of the man who had passed on and left it to him. He was not a woodworker. I subsequently bought all 6 of his Henry Disston saws for $30.00 which I will showcase in a future blog entry. The first picture shows the condition of the plane when I bought it. The subsequent pics show the restored plane from a ...
Part 3: Good Cheap Scrub Plane
My niece gave me this inexpensive Stanley contractor’s plane for Christmas a couple of years ago. By that time I was already well on my way to becoming a “plane snob” and was really into buying old Stanley Bailey planes, restoring them, and then giving them the Hock or IBC plane blade upgrade, and then tuning them to within an inch of their life, so this just sat on my sandblaster for two years unused and unloved. Today, after trying to flatten a badly cupped board for...
Part 4: Want nice Moxon vise hardware on the cheap?
If you’ve ever gazed longingly at Benchcrafted's Moxon vise hardware kit for $149.00, get a load of this, Grizzly sells really nice cast iron hand wheels for as little as $10.95. You can get some threaded rod at the hardware store for very little, add a couple of nuts and bolts, and you’re there for a lot less money. If you want to get the Acme threaded rod, you can get a 3 foot length of 3/4” here for $16.95 ADDENDUM: Well there seems to be a serious “go...
Part 5: An Amazing Donation from my New Friend Earnie Searing
Earnie saw my recent post about inheriting a vintage South Bend engine lathe. He’s a machinest with a lifetime of experience. He contacted me through a PM here at LJ’s and offered to bring me tools from his shop and to help me understand the new to me engine lathe. Earnie spent most of the day here today giving me invaluable instruction and the benefit of his experience. He also gave me all of the tools and manuals you see in the picture below. My hat’s off to y...
