Cleaning up a Stanley 45.

[doobes]

I bought this old girl at a farm auction for $5 and have never done anything with it. It seems a shame not to give it a whirl, so I'm cleaning all the crud off and will sharpen the cutters ect.

Does anyone know if the Veritas plough plane cutters will work in the 45?

$5? This thread seems to be a drive by gloat.

As such, you have earned the highly desired:

you suck!


 

[Bill_Houghton]

For anyone looking at a 45, be sure the skates on the body and the sliding section are straight and not twisted; check both along the bottom and along the side.  The design puts a lot of stress on a center section (where the blade/cutting iron) is installed, and if this gets bent, the plane is not much use.  I've got one sliding section that was broken and welded by someone who failed to keep the skate aligned while doing the weld.  Along the bottom, the skate now rises to the center from each end; a straight edge put along the side of the skate shows it's warped there, too.  Fortunately, I found a straight one at a later yard sale.

[Arlin Eastman]

Some day we will get hopefully a nice old one with scroll work or any would be nice with all the cutters.

[Alan S]

Don't bother with "all the cutters" if you want them to use. Mine are not pretty but work fine, have a reasonable set of grooving, fluting, and beading cutters, and cost $20 each. They are available at that price if you don't ask for completeness or pristine appearance. The $5 price the OP found was exceptional, but $20 for in incomplete one isn't so rare.

[bandit571]

used my #45 last night..

   
Grooves made in Pine, and

   
In Ash.    Mine came with 24 cutters.....have added a few others since then.  BTW:  there are cutters for the Stanley #55, that will NOT work on either the 45, NOR the veritas thingy.    As the 55 had one skate you could raise or lower, to support the outside edges of those type of profiles...

[Rick Barton]

$5? This thread seems to be a drive by gloat.

As such, you have earned the highly desired:

you suck!


 

I guess I should have mentioned the purchase was made about 23 years ago.


No I went to the auction to bid on a Powermatic planer and a Dewalt radial arm saw, I won neither. But at the end of the auction they sold off a few old hand tools. This 45 was one of the last items. No one wanted it and the auctioneer said if he couldn't get $5 for it it would go on the scrap heap, so I bought it.

[Rick Barton]

Okay, lots of good input.

 I got it all cleaned up and lubricated and put back together. I sharpened up the tongue cutter and gave it a whirl. Not so good. I just touched up the 2 cutters and quickly learned it has at some point in the distant past been ground off kilter.
  I'll fix that issue on the grinder and try again. I also learned the fence isn't 100% parallel vertically with the two skates. I think this can be remedied but its not exactly optimum.


I'll have some photos and a further report a little latter.

[JimReed@Tallahassee]

Well I love my #45 and have two bodies in the user box. One of them permanently houses a 1/8 cutter because the #45 will chew a 1/8 groove quicker than you can get out your router and set it up. Make sure your blades are sharp and practice on clear (no knots) construction lumber. Remember that the plane has no sole so you need a softer touch than you use with your bench plane. Set the cutters to take wispy light shavings.

Sharpening blades
Grind then square if needed and then reestablish the bevels to sharpen. Hone them and don't forget to remove burrs on the sides. I sharpen bead blades with screwdriver shafts and drill bits. Just find the appropriate size and wrap it with AO sandpaper.

Any 1/8" thick cutter should work in your #45 although the adjuster might not work for Sargent cutters. No problem because the adjuster is not critical for use--you can set the depth by hand just fine.

Good luck with your #45.

[bandit571]

2 years ago, went to a get together, down in Vicksburg, MS......while I traded a few tools, and did a lot of rust hunting on that trip....I brought back one item, that was given to me, for free.   The only stipulation was that I rehab it back to life, and repair the original wood box. 
Box was a FUBAR,  thank to the USPS using the shipping box as a football.    Some 3/8" poplar to make an exact copy of that box was done.
So, what was in that box?

   
In it's original box. a Type 20 SW Stanley No. 45.....with 90% of all it's parts.    Missing the screwdriver, a manual, and one or two other parts..this is the 45 I have been using ever since.    Seems to have cleaned up nicely.    24 cutters are all sharpened.   I needed a match cutter, and picked a smaller one as well.  There was even a table set up, to do a wee bit of trading...
 

   
So, I guess I lucked out,, when I got my #45...

   
Original box on top of it's replacement.    Got as close as I could...


Wish to thank "Doe" of Toronto, Canada, for sending that plane to me.   And...she even liked that new box.

[Rick Barton]

Whew, so yesterday I tried this business again. I got my MKII out and ground the tongue cutter perfectly square and then honed it quite sharp.

Applied it to a piece of fairly straight grained poplar and actually made some shavings.



As you can see they're a wee bit heavy. And that was the problem I was having, it was too heavy or nothing. Weird.


So I decided to check on something and figured out what the deal was. The front skates, both of them, are not level with the back skates, they're off by around a 64th or slightly more. This means if I put more pressure on the front it takes a heavy shaving or if the pressure is on the back it takes next to nothing. You'd think you could just set the cutter depth to the rear portion of the skates, but that causes a huge problem at the start of the board when its only the front skates making any contact.


I dunno, maybe its supposed to be like this, but thus far its giving me fits.


Another issue I discovered is that the fence isn't square vertically with the skates. Since there isn't much fence anyway, it makes it pretty easy to rock the plane if the cut requires much pressure at all.

So, as an easy reversible experiment I decided to take off the factory rosewood fence and try a larger one. I figure a larger bearing area that I'm not afraid to modify can't hurt at this point.



I'll see in the morning if this new, larger fence makes any appreciable difference.