Rehab of J. Pearce Wooden Smooth Plane

Last week I wrote about the old J. Pearce wooden smoothing plane I got at a tool auction.  Here is my summary of what I did to refurbish it.  First was the 2" wide iron, which was in pretty rough shape.

The Chapin Stephens Co., Pine Meadow, Conn., U.S.A.

Iron and cap-iron

The iron and cap-iron were both fairly rusty with a lot of pitting.  After getting the superficial rust off with sandpaper, I let them sit overnight in a citric acid bath, then sanded again to remove the debris.  This revealed the extent of pitting I was going to have to deal with.

Pitting on the flat side of the iron

This is after rubbing on coarse sandpaper and extra coarse diamond plate

The depth of some of the pitting really shows after removing some surface metal.  And unfortunately some deep pits are right up by the cutting edge.  I worked this iron for hours (literally), coming back to it after taking breaks to do other things.  I worked both vertically (with the "grain") and horizontally on the abrasives.  Making a little holder that allowed me to put pressure right over the iron when rubbing on the abrasives really helped.  Eventually I got down to bare metal.

Just a few minor pits left near the very edge

When I was satisfied that the pitting was removed from the back, I went through the finer grits and got a nice polished surface.

Mirror finish on the back

Then I ground a new 25° bevel ...
(Note the laminated nature of this iron is clearly evident)

... and honed a secondary bevel at 30°

The cap-iron was in fairly rough shape as well.  Fortunately it didn't need too much work to get the leading edge sharp and mating well with the back of the iron.

Underside of cap-iron showing abrasive wearing at both corners, hollow in middle

And with the iron sharp, I couldn't resist trying to make a shaving.

First shavings

Before taking those shavings, I had flattened the bottom, which was quite uneven.  Then I took a rag soaked in turpentine to clean up the body and wedge.  This made a nice difference while keeping the patina.

The rag shows some of the grunge that came off the body

After letting the wood dry, I squeezed some glue into the large crack where the right side abutment meets the bed and clamped it up.  This seems to be holding so far.

Showing the location of the crack

The glued up crack from outside

A day later I gave it a soaking in BLO, wiping off after about 20 minutes and repeated this procedure the next day.  The wood sucked up the oil like there was no tomorrow!

And thar' she blows!  The plane took a nice shaving from some poplar and it is looking good.

All done - taking a nice, fine shaving

I don't think this plane will become a regular user, however.  The mouth is a bit too big, so I don't know how it will perform on some woods that are tougher than this poplar.

Opening between iron's edge and front of mouth is about 1/8"

I know I could glue in a patch to close up the mouth, but I didn't want to do that on this plane.  Maybe later, though.  After this was finished, I made my own version of the plane and I'll post about that soon.

Until then, stay healthy and safe ...