Sandusky Tool Co. Rabbet Plane

Sandusky Tool Co. was in business from 1869 to the mid- or late-1920's.  I used to think it was named for a person, but it was named for the city in which it was located, Sandusky, OH (about 50 miles west of Cleveland).  This rabbet plane started life as a 3/4" wide plane.  It was a little shy of that when I got it, but it's thinner now after I had to plane one side a bit to get it back in shape.

Sandusky 3/4" Rabbet

The logo on the toe.  Looks like it also has a "146".

On the heel: I think this originally read "3/4"

Thanks to the Internet Archive, I could find a 1925 Sandusky catalog, and there was a #146 skew rabbet plane shown.  The 3/4" size sold for a whopping $1.40, though that was probably a lot in 1925 dollars.

The plane needed some truing up.  The sole was not flat - it was a bit high just behind the mouth.  And the right side was twisted such that behind the mouth, the plane body stuck out about 2 mm more than it did ahead of the mouth.

High spot on the sole behind the mouth

You can see by eye how much higher the body was
by my finger than it was ahead of the mouth.

I planed the sole and right side flat and square to each other.  I did these things with the iron installed, but safely out of the way of my bench plane iron.  With the iron and wedge installed and tightened, a check of flatness on the sole gave a different result than when the iron was out of the plane.  I didn't bother truing up the left side of the plane.  That doesn't make any difference in how I'll ever use it.

Sole and right side square to each other

For the iron, I ground a new bevel and ground a little of the right side so it would sit in the plane right.  When set up as I've read it should be, the right side of the iron should sit proud of the plane body by a few thousandths of an inch.  I went though a few iterations of grinding and fitting in the plane until I was happy with how it looked.

I also noticed during these fitting steps that the iron's bed (back wall of the mortise) had a step that didn't allow the tang to move right of center.  So I fixed that with a chisel.  Fortunately that didn't affect the fit of the wedge, though I might still mess with that a bit.

After sharpening and honing the iron, I made test cuts in pine and oak.  Both came out good, though it's always a challenge to get an unfenced rabbet plane started.  I prefer to cut the rabbet a little shy of the width line, then clean up with sideways cuts to the line.

Cutting a 1/2" x 1/2" rabbet in pine

Cleaning up the side wall, pulling the plane back toward the camera

I think this will be a nice plane.  It's practically perfectly quartersawn and the grain patterns on the sides are beautiful.

Update: I've used the plane a few times now and it's a real winner!  It outperforms a homemade 3/4" straight-across-iron rabbet plane that I made long ago.  The skewed iron really makes a nice difference.