Dunlap #3726 Bench Plane - I Think

I was given this plane in pretty rough condition by a guy who really didn't know anything about planes.  One telltale sign was that the iron was upside down when I got it (bevel up).  And while I know a fair bit about planes, I knew little about this particular brand when I started on this one.

The plane as found

Something look funny here?

Maybe the upside down iron explains why the cutting edge 
was so chewed up!

It's an oddball size - it has a 9 1/2" long sole similar to a Stanley #4, but the sole's width is 2 1/8" and the iron is 1 3/4" wide, like a #3.  Initially, the only identifying mark I could find on the plane was the remnant of a DUNLAP decal on the broken tote.  From a Dunlap type study that I found online, a #3 size plane has the 1 3/4" wide iron, but the plane should be only 8" long (or 9 1/4", depending on the source of info).  Go figure.

I found two websites that were very helpful in researching this plane.  According to justtheplanefacts.com and aplanelife.us, Dunlap planes were manufactured for Sears by either Millers Falls, Sargent, or possibly at one time by a West German maker.  Some details point to this plane being made by Sargent in the 1940-41 time frame, but I think it is probably a bit later than that - maybe the mid 1950's (reference the Dunlap type study on the A Plane Life site).

Here's the plane fully disassembled, complete with broken tote
and bent tote screw/post

Initially, I could find no identifying marks on the casting, iron, cap iron or lever cap.  The only marks I could find are a casting number on the frog (5272) and a raised "MADE IN USA" mark on the main casting just below the adjuster knob.  However, since I started writing this, I cleaned up the iron and it's got DUNLAP APPROVED BL stamped clearly at the top.

DUNLAP
APPROVED
BL

Here's the iron all cleaned up, but not yet sharpened.
Note the hole for the cap-iron screw is at the top, unlike Stanley plane irons.

I had to grind back to the blue line before grinding a new bevel and sharpening

According to the sites I referenced, the "BL" and the cap-iron screw hole location are indicators of a plane made by Sargent.  So is the upside-down U-shaped lateral adjust lever.

As for the plane's casting, I took sandpaper to the sides and sole.  They looked horrible, but cleaned up fairly easily.  A wire wheel in the drill was used to clean up all the hardware.

The body was really grungy and the sole was horribly rough

But it cleaned up nicely

The tote was broken, so I cleaned up the mating surfaces and reglued it.  I'll have to see if that fix holds over time.  Originally, the tote had a decal or two on the left side.  Unfortunately, more than half of it was gone.  It looked like there was once another decal up where the middle finger grips the tote, but it was missing completely.

The still-broken tote showing remnants of a decal

Here's another interesting tidbit.  The yoke was a two-piece construction, as opposed to a casting.  It still works fine, but it's interesting that the two "fingers" of the yoke can move independently.  That's no big deal; when the plane is assembled, the adjuster nut keeps them aligned.

The two-piece yoke

Here showing how the two "fingers" can be misaligned with each other

When I finally had the parts cleaned up and the iron sharp, I put it together, adjusted the frog to get a reasonably tight mouth, and tried it out.  It made a shaving, but the shaving was like an accordion.

First shaving all crinkled up

I'm aware this could be caused by the cap-iron being too far forward.  Some adjustment helped, but not enough.  I also noticed a rippling effect when face planing.

You can see the ripples

So there was some juddering of the plane as I planed along the face of a board.  To me, that points to issues with how well the frog and plane body keep the iron firmly in place.  Here's where I really had to do some work.  The surfaces of the frog and plane body where they meet were painted or japanned, and were not level, so the contact between the two was poor.

Pointing to one of two spots where the frog sits.
These needed to be filed/sanded level and flat.

Same with the frog seat

Frog seat filed flat

After this, I was able to get a better edge shaving, but there was still a big problem.

Got a much better edge grain shaving ...

... but when planing the face grain, CLUNK!
The plane stopped in it's tracks and dug in hard!

Here's the problem with this plane and it's a serious design flaw.  And it's also why I think the plane was made in the '50's - you know, after plane makers "forgot" how to make planes that worked well.

The frog of Stanley planes has two flat areas that mate with two flat areas on the plane body.  The frog "seat" and the frog "toe" both should be milled flat and mate precisely with corresponding spots on the plane body.

Locations of the frog seat and toe

In this plane, not only is there no milled spot on the plane body for the frog toe to mate with, but the frog toe doesn't even come in contact with the plane body at all!  It's basically cantilevered out over the plane body, just behind the mouth.  Without support there, it's no wonder that the frog and iron don't have enough support to plane face grain.

This is a piece of cardboard, probably about 1/32" thick

Sliding the cardboard under the frog's toe.  I could have fit
3 or 4 of these cardboard pieces in there.  And this was with
the frog bolted firmly in place!

I've started trying to make a piece of wood that will fill that gap, but I don't hold out hope that it will fix the problem.  But for this plane to work, I believe there needs to be firm support for the toe of the frog.

Summarizing, there are a couple of details that gave hints about the maker and age of this plane, thanks to the type study provided by A Plane Life.  The position of the iron's keyhole, the "BL" on the iron, the inverted U-shaped lateral adjust lever, and the two-piece yoke all indicate a plane made by Sargent.  The lever cap had been nickel plated, though the plating was removed when I cleaned up the plane.  The nickel plating indicates a plane possibly made in the 1940-1942 timeframe.  Other details include the double threaded 12-20 rods that hold the tote and knob, the brass waist nuts holding the stained hardwood tote and knob, and the three-ridged knurling of the adjuster knob.  But even with these clues, I can't help suspect that this plane was made in the mid-1950's due to the shoddiness of the design.

This is an odd plane for sure.  If there are any collectors of Dunlap planes out there and you're interested in this plane, please let me know and I'll be happy to mail it to you free of charge.

Some New (To Me) Tools from the PAST Show

At the end of January, I went to the PAST tool collectors show in Fremont, CA.  Usually I don't come home with anything, but this time I did grab a few things.  I'll show them below, but first let me show this router plane display that one of the guys brought!

A collection of mostly craftsman-made router planes

None of these planes was made by Stanley or Preston or Millers Falls, or any other maker that we typically think of when we think of router planes.  These were mostly user-made tools and they were pretty dang cool.  The longest one was 14" long.

On the same table was also a display of an unusual Disston saw - a #196 "docking" saw.

Disston #196 Docking Saw

There's nothing about it on the Disstonian Institute site, but some other search results indicated it was used for heavy construction, like timber framing or railroad work.  It has crosscut teeth and a heavily breasted tooth line.  Someone at the tool show suggested the name came from its use on the docks, perhaps crosscutting dock boards to length.  The metal handle was interesting - possibly due to its getting rough use.

Anyway, moving on to what I picked up ...

A couple years ago I bought two larger auger bits - 1 1/8" and 1 1/4".  I found a 1 1/2" bit at the show and grabbed it for $10.  It's a Snell's-Jennings bit, no idea when it was made, but it was in near perfect condition.  It was already sharp - both spurs and both cutting lips.  And when I got home and made a test hole I was very impressed at how clean the entry rim was.  This was a great find because I have had some trouble using expansive bits for larger holes.

A beautiful, clean 1 1/2" hole

SNELL'S
JENNINGS'
6

That's a really clean hole!

I'm a sucker for incannel gouges.  One of the sellers had a table where everything was $8.  There was a box filled with chisels of all types and I grabbed four - two small incannel gouges (that will add nicely to the larger ones I've got), a bent gouge, and a 1" bevel edge chisel.

The lineup

The two incannel gouges were from Spear & Jackson and New Haven Edge Tool Co.  I just need to clean and sharpen them and I think they'll be a great addition to my shop.

SPEAR & JACKSON
SHEFFIELD

The S&J was about 9/16" wide

S&J curvature approx 9/16" radius

NEW HAVEN
EDGE TOOL CO.

About 7/16" wide

Curvature of 9/32" radius

The bent gouge is from Ulmia.  It's 13 mm wide with an approximate 1/4" radius curvature.  I don't do much carving, but this one will be a nice addition to the carving set.

ULMIA 

It's about 1/2" wide

This shows the amount of bend

Finally, there was this 1" socket chisel.  I don't need another 1" chisel, but this one is a T. H. Witherby.  If their chisels are as good as I've heard their drawknives are, this will be a real winner!  It's got a little pitting on the flat side, but I think I'll be able to get that out.  I found a good article about Witherby by Brian Welch here.

T. H. WITHERBY
WARRANTED

You can see the pitting here

Not sure why, but I do prefer socket chisels

That's it.  Some nice additions to the shop.  Now I have a little work to do to get them up to working condition.

What's Going On With the Unplugged Shop Blog Aggregator

It's been several months now that I've had problems with Unplugged Shop, the site to which many of us go to read woodworking blogs.  For long stretches the site doesn't update with current blogs, and when it finally works again, it's short lived and then doesn't update for another while.

I'm probably not allowed to use this image, so I'll just say it's trademarked
and thank them for the use of it.

In addition, my blog doesn't seem to be included anymore on the Unplugged Shop aggregator.  I've contacted them about it to get reinstated, but I don't know if anyone monitors that site anymore.

I don't mean to be an ingrate because this has been a free service that they provide and I truly appreciate it.  I can only imagine that it takes more work than I realize to keep it running.

Does anyone out there know what is going on with them?  Please comment if you do.

Rehab of a Sandusky #68 Moving Fillister Plane

Any time I rehab an old tool, I think about whether or not to leave as much patina as I can.  In the past I've been more in the camp of trying to make it look like new, shining up the brass and other metal parts and cleaning the wood thoroughly.  Lately though, I've been more apt to just make it useable and keep it looking like it is 100 or more years old.

With this old moving fillister, though, there was enough work required to get it fettled properly that I decided to clean it up all the way.  This is a #68 Sandusky moving fillister plane that initially looked like it was in pretty good shape.  The only thing obviously wrong was that the nicker iron was missing.

Overview

Markings on the front

Close-up of the right side showing depth stop and the dado that should house a nicker

The heel end stamped with former caretaker H. W. Campbell

The 1 5/8" wide iron was in pretty decent shape

This shows the angle of the cutting edge
required due to the skew of the iron in the plane

There was a little damage to the aft end of the boxing -
not enough for me to worry about

I started with the body of the plane, specifically the sole.  I was mainly checking to see if it was flat, but what I saw was a HUGE amount of twist!  I had to plane that out and it didn't take long.  Then I looked at the right side, which I wanted to be square to the sole.  It too had a HUGE amount of twist, so I planed that out, too.  Planing those two surfaces and making them square to each other had the additional benefit of crispening up the corner between the two.

Plane held in vise upside down, winding sticks showing twisted sole

Plane lying on its left side and winding sticks show twist on right side

Got both surfaces twist free, flat and square to each other

While I was planing, I also flattened the fence (only the face that mates with the plane's sole) and made the edge that rides on the work square to that face.

Squaring up the fence

Cleaned up the brass inserts and screws

Planing the surfaces that I did leads to predictable consequences.  First, since the fence is now a little thinner, the screws holding it to the body bottomed out in their holes before tightening the fence completely.  I didn't want to deepen the screw holes, so I added washers that would bear against the fence's brass and that fixed the problem.  But now the screw heads protrude just a little bit beyond the bottom of the fence.  Not really a problem - it just doesn't sit upright as stably as before.

Second, planing the right side of the plane body made it so that the dado that would hold the new nicker iron was not as deep.  Before planing I had measured it at .137" deep.  The steel I'm using to make a new nicker is .125" thick, so I thought I might have to use a shim to get the cutter to be at the level of the plane's surface.  But I planed enough off the right side that the .125" thick nicker would have been proud of the surface.  I ended up routing the bottom of the dado to make the cutter level with the surface.

The dado for the nicker.  Note how it is tapered in its length
as well as its depth, getting wider at the bottom.

Some notes about how to make a new nicker

Getting the nicker close to the right shape

But because I planed the right side of the body, the nicker sits too high

So I used a small router to deepen the dado.

To complete the nicker, I hacksawed and filed a notch that
allows one to remove it from the plane

Then shaped the cutting edge on the grinder

Then heat-treated and tempered it and gave the edge a final honing

The plane's rabbeting iron didn't need too much work.  After removing any rust with abrasives, I reshaped the cutting edge to mate well with the plane's sole.  Another consequence of planing the right side of the body was that the iron now extended too far out the planes' side.  So I had to grind and file that back to be in line with the plane's side and the nicker.

You can see how much the iron extends past the planes' right side (top in photo)

Grinding a new cutting edge was tricky due to the angle of the edge

You can see the laminated iron in the bevel

First test cut: rabbet cut along the grain - nicker removed

Second test cut: nicker used here to cut a cross-grain rabbet

A couple of test cuts gave nice results.  But I really had to be diligent about pressing the fence against the workpiece when cutting with the grain to avoid getting a rabbet of tapered width.  The small test rabbet cross-grain using the nicker was great.  It really worked well.

After all the work was done, I gave the wood two coats of BLO.  It's been drying 2-3 weeks now, and here's the final product.

Glamour shot

After I use it a while, I might find that the wedge needs work to fit better.  There's a slight gap down near the iron's cutting edge.  It didn't seem to affect the test rabbets, but I'll keep an eye on it.