Cleaning up a Stanley 45.

[JimReed@Tallahassee]

Your skate issue sounds serious. I would take the blade out and run the skates on AO sandpaper to level them out.

[Rick Barton]

Your skate issue sounds serious. I would take the blade out and run the skates on AO sandpaper to level them out.

Jim, that's exactly what I did and it made a world of difference. I'm just now going to post a few more photos.

[Rick Barton]

Check it out, this actually would be useable if not on a short piece of scrap. I more or less got 2 or 3 issues ironed out and this was the result with the tongue cutter.



One big issue was the skates. The front pair weren't level, or on the same plane as the rear pair. So I took the cutter out and marked the bottom edge of the skates with a sharpie and then ran them over 120 grit paper until both the vanished ink and my Starrett told me they matched up.

Another issue is the arms for the fence don't hold the fence board 90 degrees from the side of the plane. That's not helpful, so I planed a bevel bottom to top across the entire fence until it registered properly. That too helped a lot.

Issue 3 was actually a couple of problems originating at basically the same source. When I cleaned the plane up I used a pretty liberal amount of Ballistol on all the threads and the enclosed moving parts which is mainly the cam lock deal that holds the blades in. Anyway I got too much oil in it and it wasn't grabbing properly thanks to slippage so with each heavy swipe down the board the cutter would get pulled down just a slight bit. Not good, so I disassembled the mechanism and dried 99.9% of the oil out of it. That helped. That same mechanism has the bad habit of cocking small blades slightly cockeyed right at the end as it really starts clamping. That sucks but I'm not sure what to do other than watch it and not let it do it.

Okay, so after I was happy with the tongue cutter I switched to a small 3/16 bead cutter. As my luck would have it this small cutter, as I alluded to, has presented its own set of issues to figure out. Of course I didn't help things along much when I set the auxiliary skate slightly out side of the edge of the bead cutter. That doesn't work for $#!&! And man do things not work well when its set up like that.




So anyway, I'm slowly getting this "thing" figured out. I think I understand now why some people curse the 45 & 55.

[JimReed@Tallahassee]

I don't use the middle skate for blades smaller than 1/4". The 3/16 bead might work OK without it if you hold the fence tight to the project.

[Rick Barton]

I don't use the middle skate for blades smaller than 1/4". The 3/16 bead might work OK without it if you hold the fence tight to the project.

I'll give that a shot tomorrow morning, Jim.

I really appreciate yours and everyone's input on this.

[bandit571]

IF you can get your hands on the manual that used to come with this plane....it is full of "How-tos" on how to set up for all the 7 operations a 45 can do. 
Check to make sure the skates will close up tight to each other....sometimes, the bolts holding the spurs stick through too far, and hit the other skate.   I usually take the spurs out, unless I need them for a dado.  

Rub the bottom of the skates will a small candle,  even the cutter.     You can also rub the candle on the fence.   Just be sure to hang on, it tends to speed the plane up...

Beads: work from the far end back towards the "start" until you get things cutting.   ALL weight should be on the rear handle, the closer you get to the end.  .   IF there is enough surface on one side of the cut, use a depth stop.....otherwise, the cutter will cut too deep. 

The fence has two settings, sometimes like when doing a rebate, ora tongue, you need to lower the fence and have it under the cutter. 

Skates need to be in line with the outside edges of the bead cutters, they add support and prevent chattering.  If the cutter sticks out a little bit as long as the skate clears in the cut, no binding should happen.  

Trying to think of anything else

   
Edge detail....fence was below the cutter, and right up the the cutter's outside  'Quirk"'s edge

   
Run the plane down both edges of a corner.....until this bead appears..

[Rick Barton]

IF you can get your hands on the manual that used to come with this plane....it is full of "How-tos" on how to set up for all the 7 operations a 45 can do. 
Check to make sure the skates will close up tight to each other....sometimes, the bolts holding the spurs stick through too far, and hit the other skate.   I usually take the spurs out, unless I need them for a dado.  

Rub the bottom of the skates will a small candle,  even the cutter.     You can also rub the candle on the fence.   Just be sure to hang on, it tends to speed the plane up...

Beads: work from the far end back towards the "start" until you get things cutting.   ALL weight should be on the rear handle, the closer you get to the end.  .   IF there is enough surface on one side of the cut, use a depth stop.....otherwise, the cutter will cut too deep. 

The fence has two settings, sometimes like when doing a rebate, ora tongue, you need to lower the fence and have it under the cutter. 

Skates need to be in line with the outside edges of the bead cutters, they add support and prevent chattering.  If the cutter sticks out a little bit as long as the skate clears in the cut, no binding should happen.  

Trying to think of anything else

Edge detail....fence was below the cutter, and right up the the cutter's outside  'Quirk"'s edge

Run the plane down both edges of a corner.....until this bead appears..

Thanks, Bandit. I'm trying to absorb all these tips.

[barryvabeach]

That same mechanism has the bad habit of cocking small blades slightly cockeyed right at the end as it really starts clamping.


I use to have that same problem, now,  I load the blade, use a small strip of wood held to the bottom of the skates to set the depth of cut , then use my fingers of one hand to push the top and bottom of the plane blade tight against the body when I tighten the blade clamp.  It sounds a little difficult, but after doing it a few times, it ends up being pretty easy to do.   

Glad you got the skate issue resolved, if they aren't right, the plane won't do much.

Final tip, if you have a digital or dial caliper,  check the distance between the two skates  at the toe and heel when they are locked in place to support the blade, the numbers should match, if not, try to adjust the moveable skate then tighten and recheck.  Then check the gap between the fence and one of the skates at the toe and heel.  Sometimes I need to push or pull a little on the fence to get it to lock parallel to the skates.  

[Rick Barton]

That same mechanism has the bad habit of cocking small blades slightly cockeyed right at the end as it really starts clamping.


I use to have that same problem, now,  I load the blade, use a small strip of wood held to the bottom of the skates to set the depth of cut , then use my fingers of one hand to push the top and bottom of the plane blade tight against the body when I tighten the blade clamp.  It sounds a little difficult, but after doing it a few times, it ends up being pretty easy to do.   

Glad you got the skate issue resolved, if they aren't right, the plane won't do much.

Final tip, if you have a digital or dial caliper,  check the distance between the two skates  at the toe and heel when they are locked in place to support the blade, the numbers should match, if not, try to adjust the moveable skate then tighten and recheck.  Then check the gap between the fence and one of the skates at the toe and heel.  Sometimes I need to push or pull a little on the fence to get it to lock parallel to the skates.  

Ah, more things to keep an eye on. Thank you for the input, Barry.

[Rick Barton]

Good grief.


Okay, I tried going without the auxiliary skate. That didn't seem to pose a problem at least not that I know of. No, I'm now having an issue with the skate on the main body of the plane. Its kind of humbling how long it took for me to notice this, but evidence was there to see early on.

But first; here's the depth of the 3/16 bead cutter. Probably in the neighborhood of a 1/32 or so.



As you can see here I set the skate as close as possible to the outside of the cutter, in fact I can catch the cutter edge with my thumbnail but that's about it really.



But, the problem is; that even set this close to the outside of the cutter edge, the inside of the skate still sticks into the opening of the bead opening and therefore not allowing the cutter to cut any deeper than about a 1/64th of an inch. darn, I wish I had noticed this sooner, its easily fixed by slightly widening the width of the flats so the skate can clear, but jeesh I wasted more time than I like to admit trying to figure this out.




Anyway, I'll modify this cutter a smidge in the morning and give it another shot.