A bit of a break

Well, got a bit of flack from my mom for going silent over here on the blog. Honestly I have just been a garage geek with any amount of free time that I have had recently. If I blog about every little bit of it I am sure to bore everyone and also prove myself a major geek in the process.

I need to get out on a ride. Probably will do something about it this weekend. Holiday weekend, I have hopes to get a few things done up and also have some recreational activities to attend to.

I got my No.7 in the mail on Thursday. They have been getting a bit higher in price on e-bay as of late. At least the nicer ones are going more than I care to spend and the rust seized ones are creeping up to about $30-45 at auction close. So I decided exactly what I wanted, a Stanley No.7 in user condition with a corrugated sole. I watched auctions for about a month got outbid on a couple, but stuck within my price limits on each so I don't feel bad about being outbid. Finally one popped up that I was sure wouldn't get too much attention:


A bunch of paint overspray, very minimal rust showing, handles looked decent, but the blade looked short. I had hopes that the paint overspray may have actually protected the plane as well as deterred other bidders. I ended up right on both instances.

The plane arrived in good shape. I put it on my cast iron saw top and got no rocking. I then removed the handles and sanded them down with 180g. After a couple coats of polyurethane they are looking good. I still need to buff them out but I will let them dry a few more days.


I treated the body and the irons/cap to a scotchbrite and wd-40 bathing. The scotchbrite is a bit too abrasive on the japanning, so I will likely skip it there next time. I found that my dremmel tool with a soft wire wheel worked great to remove the paint overspray and not damage the epoxy much.



The end result of about 2 hours of restoration and tuning...










One shot of the growing family of hand planes
Roll call:
Stanley Bailey no.7, n0.5
Stanley others: no.78, 60-1/2, no.29 transitional
Groz: no.4 smoother, LA block
Woodies: unknown manufacturer



That pretty well rounds out planes for general woodworking tasks. There are a few specialty planes that I would like to add eventually (scraper, scrub, 3/4" shoulder), but I will have to put those on the Christmas wish list.

I have been working here and there on the hall table. The legs and aprons for it were milled up last weekend. This weekend it should start to actually look like a table. There were a couple of design changes along the way, but the end result should do nicely. I have been testing out some stains and finishes on test scraps of maple. Getting closer to what I want to finish it in, but still have some more testing to do. This finishing business is real work. I recently discovered that people actually make a living at it. A lot of these guys who make fine furniture prefer to outsource the finishing to the professional finisher. Makes sense. Some guys like to cut wood, others like to paint on it. I don't get that luxury in the garage shop.

That's it for now. I will likely drop a weekend follow-up early in the week. Hope all is well with you guys.