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I don’t have a surface plate. I flatten my planes with sandpaper bonded to a piece of mdf. I am sure it isn’t “flat” to your specifications. I would be interested in seeing how flat the sole is after using common flattening techniques.

I think the wood is generally more bumpy than the metal!

I bought a No 5 second hand but unused. The sole was bowed like yours. Tried scraping it with a scraper made from an old file but gave up because the constant sharpening was tedious. You make me want return to it. BTW be very careful grinding carbide, the cobalt binder is toxic - heavy metal disease - dust collection at source and wear a mask.

Love it 👌 thank you. Have you seen how the Japanese Kanna planes are set up to use? Very cool hollows to remove any effect a high spot might have on the surface areas. Jamie

Those changes won’t matter. They’re so small. In fact I’d love to see you use the same setup on an actual piece of wood (maybe pine or beechwood) and I’ll bet the wood would show how uneven a freshly planed piece is proving that even the wood itself has inconsistency. I hope that made sense.

Checkout the follow up video short here that directly measures the visible differences between the before and after blue patterns in ten thousandths of an inch. ruclips.net/user/shortsSgJ8aznef1w?feature=share

Hi Richard. I love that you've made this video. I'm at 8:23 and I'd say the heavier amount of blue behind the mouth shows that there actually is more contact in that area and it dies pay to flatten the soles with the frog and iron in. Also worth noting is some people set thd frogs up with the iron just touching (or very close to) the rear bevel if the mouth. In clamping the iron, this could (and I've examples) crack the casting. So it's about the set up, as well as the general pressure in my opinion. I'll continue to lap the soles with everything in place.. Why? Because it's familiar. We push planes around in their complete form, so why not. Great video BTW. I'll watch the rest now. Jamie

When you set the plane up to check with the test indicator (4:27) , you do a lot of fixturing work, since you're supporting it from the irregular side. It's (much) easier to fixture it with the sole downwards - I use a V block at one end and a small screw jack at the other, which provides adjustable angle 3 support. You then run your test indicator on the underside. This is MUCH less clear for expositional purposes, but a lot easier to set up.

It’s interesting that the changes or lack of them is of a magnitude that the woodworker is not working to. I had a Stanley number 6 that was unusable. After watching videos about flattening the sole I put a ruler to it and the sole was concave. I put an old sanding belt on my edge sander. After sparks flying for a while I got it as flat as the metal rule showed. We are not talking thous here. It’s been perfectly usable ever since. It says a lot for my edge sander too😀.

Beautiful work! I've got a couple of old Stanley planes that could use the same treatment. Do you mind sharing where you sourced your scraper blades and scraper itself?

RTX on!

Bro this is awesome

Please, make one for me :)

What are you using to scrape?

Thanks Richard, that looks like a great vice eventually, let's say it has potential ! 😉

Thanks Richard, the bench is coming along nicely, looking forward to seeing the end result. So glad you managed to remove some of the staining, I was thinking it's such shame that after all your hard work there is still that big oil stain at the end, if you have any stubborn remaining stains you could try some Oxalic acid (available from chemists or online) or you could try some bar-keepers friend (widely available) as that contains Oxalic acid too !

Thanks Richard, they came out well, without doing an over-the-top restoration, when I did mine I got away without repainting the front jaw either and I quite like the aged look, mine was a little older and the blue was slightly darker (and surprisingly soft) so I just cleaned it up with steel-wool and solvent and then waxed it. If you want to avoid any further mushrooming from the Tommy bar banging around you can wrap a thick elastic band ( or an offset of inner tube ) around each end !

So you are saying that when I surface grind my planes, I don't need to have my irons in? 😅

Thanks Richard, somehow I lost you for a couple of months but glad I'm back, the bench is starting to take shape now, looking forward to seeing the end result. The Brace and bits were a great find, they're often in poor condition and badly in need of sharpening, which is another skill to learn !

Too much room for error in translating a measure through the dial gauge instead of a direct reading.

That was fascinating! Thanks for sharing your expertise

Ii would suggest that flattening blade in would cause no harm. While a poor casting might move more than a good one. And even a slightly cracked sided coul cause real trouble. So on balance I would do it blade in anyway. It is no extra trouble.

As you've mentioned, flattening a plane to the tolerances you have is quite unnecessary in terms of flatness. However, having a "slippery" finish so the plane will move more freely on the wood is a huge advantage.(some woodworkers will even apply a hard wax to the sole) Also, a lot of hand tool woodworkers use a plane on a shooting board, which requires the plane to slide on its side. So having the side flat, "slippery" and perpendicular to the sole is an advantage.

Such an engineering flex to flattening them by scraping instead of just using 220 sandpaper...

Love this, but it's left me horribly conflicted. I have a huge urge to give it a go, but I know my planes are flat enough! Perhaps one to add to the "Projects to do when all the other projects are done" list.

Maybe not on regular bench plane. But the lever cap does affects shoulder plane sole flatness

dude i feel stupid now too just had this happen to me lol

great thing to consider, now excuse me i need to resharpen my blades on all wooden planes that i use hopefully few thousands wont kill me with humidity expading wood

The "tension" myth is just a hangover from the time of wooden planes. I would be interested in seeing a flatness comparison of wood planes with and without the irons.

AFAIK hand/manual shapers were only ever used in the hobby/model side of engineering.

Would be a cool display piece to have in the shop 😎

Yeah, this is the kind of content I subscribed for 👌

Thanks for this! I too was sceptical but did flattening with the iron in just in case. I wont in the future though! I wonder how much difference having the frog installed makes? I believe that would be more relevant yet likely not enough to worry about still.

Excellent. I believe that's the most accurate demonstration of accuracy exposing the "lack of accuracy in a flattened assembled plane body" myth I've seen! 🙂

Never believed this myth, but I'd always flatten a plane with the blade in so it's a little heavier. Personal preference for the feel. Interesting vid.

Lets face it, we all use planes in workshops that vary in temperature and humidity from just above zero to plus 20s. That will have more effect than anything. If you take humidity readings on a plank of wood the HC will vary from one part to the other, so no matter how flat your sole is it makes little to no difference.

5:10 maybe the cause for that high spot behind the mouth is that the frog rocks on the plane body and only touches on 3 points instead of all 4. Thanks for clarifying, I suspected that it was bs, maybe wooden planes are a different story though.

Спасибо за видео! Удачи Вам!

Fascinating study. Thank you for bridging the divide between the precision of metal machining and the close-enough of wood working.

Hi Richard, I personally don,t think it matters too much, another great vid, stay well mate Regards Mike

I’d say it does affect the flatness but by only a very small degree. (4:09) Such a small degree that it makes my comment seem useless. I base my conclusion on the fact that the blueing is applied lighter on the Iron Out but it shows some small areas (dots really) on the rear edge and just ahead of the mouth yet the Iron In doesn’t show those small dots of blueing even though the blueing was applied slightly heavier. This is such a small difference that it would never affect the function while using the plane. Great experiment which settles the question. Thanks Richard

Finally someone actually quantified the distortion, at least qualitatively! Thank you Richard... but there's a big difference in the material between pre-1940's and post-1960's planes... could material of the plane body is made of affect how it used to bend a 100 years ago?

Thanks for the video. I think this is a hangover from the days of wooden planes. I own several and always flatten with blade in. I also restore older Stanley & Records and own modern Veritas. Ive trialed all and get comparable results. As long as it sharp & the blade is well set then I dont think it matters that much.........wood moves after all.

Cool. Just goes to show how myths can lodge in your mind and be accepted as common knowledge! I'd still be interested to see how flatness is affected by temperature. I.e. summer to winter garage temps can vary quite a bit.

Interesting in the tiny bending at the mouth. Really interesting tests!

Shhhhh. Don’t say “Cadillac” gauge. They far surpass digital gauge accuracy

I definitely appreciate your enthusiasm and attempting to explain this - but I can honestly say I've never been so confused about a piece of equipment in my life. I have less than zero of an idea about what moved on the micrometer - I've watched it 6 times and it still makes no sense. Girlfriend says she's as confused as I am, my neighbor has no clue, and I'm afraid to even ask my dad to make sense of it. I feel like this is April 01st and you're about to release the follow up to this one titled "Yes, I am joking":Like what is the point of this thing? Measure something with a dial test indicator, but you have to be absolutely certain of the height of that - and then touch off on the piece, move your indicator over to to the mystery tool with the largest micrometer dial in the world and spin the knob until something moves, no idea what. And at some point whatever moved touches the indicator, but didn't move it, and then somehow something touches zero and you're at 5 inches. Awesome tool - I'm going to keep mine next to my arsenic sandwiches and my newborn pufferfish snacks

2135316 Point or plane finder, Lawrence V Whistler, Sanford A Whistler, 1938-11-01, - probably sold to Cadillac Gage 2440710 Micrometer height gage fixture, Russell E Bauer, Cadillac Gage Co, App: 1944-10-30, W.W.II, Pub: 1948-05-04 - 2544004 Height gauge fixture, Clarence H Bauer, Cadillac Gage Co, 1951-03-06, - looks like the one in the RUclips.

i wonder if it changes with temp. 2:46 i wonder if it gets more flat at 65 vs 85 degrees