Hand Plane Tune Up

The following are my essential steps to turn an old plane into a nice user too. Disassemble the entire plane and clean all the parts with Mineral Sprits, Kerosene or some other solvent that will not hurt the Japanning. For more heavily rusted areas, I like to use real fine sand paper to get it off, may take a bit longer, but you can control the amount of metal that is taken off. Then I would use steel wool to get of the rest. I start with 120 grit and finish with 220 with one grit between. I then will lap the sole and cheeks on 120 grit Wet Dry Paper on top of a glass plate and work may way up to 220 grit.. If you stripe the bottom of the sole with a Magic Marker you want to make sure you get good contact in front and behind the mouth and at the toe and hell of the plane. Then You want to get a Flat Mill Smooth File and run it lightly over the face of the frog checking for dings and high spots to flatten.. Now you also want to lightly run it over the surfaces that seat the frog to the base. You can add some loose lapping grit to this and slide the frog back and forth on its seat and check how much these areas touch. If the areas are less than 70% I would sharpen the end of a old file and try scraping some of the high spot off till you get a good area of contact. File or Lap the end of your Lever Cap flat.. this would be the area that presses on the Iron Cap what most people incorrectly call a Chip Breaker. Now do the same to the area of the Iron Cap that contacts the Iron with a File or Lapping it with Sand Paper on a flat surface. You can add a few degree back bevel on the Cap Iron edge so it contacts the Iron on a sharper edge so no chips have a starting point to started working there way in between the Cap and Iron and cause a jam. Also file the front of the Cap Iron so there are not dent of dings for the shaving to get caught on, trust me it helps. That is all that I would do to get an old plane in working order. Some would say degrease this or buff that, or even better wire wheel that. I do not collect planes to sit on a shelf and collect dust, I intend for them to be used. You want shiny, go to LN, you want a great user plane with loads of history, buy an old plane, tune it up into working order, and start making some shavings!!!!

Cheers,
Traditional Woodworks