Sanding Complete! Sort of...

So we left of sanding to 80grit.  Now we move on to 120.  But this time we sand 90 degrees to the direction we sanded last time.  This makes it really easy to see where you need to sand more.  

Keep sanding until you can no longer see any scratches in the long direction. Next do the cheeks, same gig.

Looking good!  You deserve an Otter pop or two...  Now on to 220 grit.  Same idea, rotate 90 degrees and sand until all scratches in the other direction are gone.  Then to finish off, for a 'brushed' look, sand along the edge of the sandpaper in one direction parallel to the edge of the sandpaper.  Go slow and as straight as possible and you'll end up with a fantastic looking finish like this one:

 hmm... something went wrong and I didn't get a picture of the final sanding pass to get the brushed look, but the pictures of the cheeks are right. 

And we are done!  Turns out that getting a good flat surface ended up cleaning up all the big scratches and gouges out of the sole, but I left some in the cheeks so there is some evidence of it's previous life. 

Time to start getting ready to replace the Japanning.  Japanning was a tar-like paint which was very durable and used as a protective coating on many tools before more modern coatings were invented.  Many folks that restore planes will just use a rattle can of black paint and call it good.  Some claim a decent color match, but in my opinion it just doesn't look right.  Japanning has something of a brown tint to it and a look that had some depth.  It also floods out the details of the roughness of the casting, paint doesn't quite do that.  So I'm going to try to reproduce that original look.  After digging about on the information super highway, I found a recipe that should get me the look that I'm going for.

I can't do an exact recreation as the chemicals and processes used to make the original are not available to purchase and/or are too dangerous.  The base material in Japanning is Asphaltum, and as the name suggests, it's a tar like material.  You would melt down the Asphaltum, thin it with solvents, and mix it into a binder which would help to harden the material.  Since I don't think Laura wants me to mix up that stew on the stove, I've found something that should do the trick. 

There are a few recipes floating about, but this is the one that came up most often.  If you care for more info, read here:  http://www.woodcentral.com/articles/handtools/articles_117.shtml

The paint recipe is 3 parts Asphaltum, 5 parts turpentine, and 3 parts boiled linseed oil.  The thinking is that the turpentine will act as a solvent and slowly break down the asphaltum powder into a goo.  Then when applied the turpentine will slowly evaporate leaving the asphaltum and BLO.  Then you cook it all in an oven and in theory you should be left with a very hard and durable coating that looks very similar to the original. 

 Asphaltum powder can be found on the interwebs sold as glisonite.  Can be found in artist supply stores.

All the needed supplies.  I didn't care to ruin Laura's good measuring spoons/cups, so I opted for a tiny red plastic cup... You know, the kind that you use for teaching small children to drink out of a cup... this cup would have no other purpose....

Mix per the recipe, remember that turpentine smells awful, and let it sit for a few days.  In the mean time, work on finding a cheap/free toaster oven.  This should be a pretty stinky adventure.  Also, time to remove all last bits of rust and tape off areas that aren't to be coated. 

History

If this is your first time here, go to the very first post and read in order to get the whole story.

An oral history of Leland Coles was recorded on tape and transcribed by Dianne and Laura.  There's lots of great stories in here, but it's much too long to put it all, so I'll pick a few interesting stories to share.  If you could sum up a persons life in a few short sentences, Leland would be this:  Grew up as a hard working farmer in Utah.  Lived a tough life growing up and had to work hard to earn meager wages but didn't complain about a lack of riches or niceties.  Met his future wife at a dance and later married.  Together they had one child (Laura's grandmother) and adopted a son.  They lived in many houses, apartments, trailer houses, in Utah, Arizona, and for a short time in Hawaii.  He spent alot of time keeping nice gardens and volunteered with the Eagles club.  Later in life they became active in the LDS church and volunteered much of their time serving in the temple and as missionaries at the Ogden Temple Visitors Center.

Here's some excepts from his life story.

Irrigating sugar beets, June 13, 1952. Mack Hansen, Elwood, Utah

 "We lived on the edge of a canal, so to be able to learn to survive around the canal we had to learn to swim.  When you became the age around three years old you'd start wondering and being inquisitive.  They'd all get out and go swimming and we were always swimming in the canal and there was seldom anyone drowning who lived near the canal because they warned about it and were always given instructions and they knew how to swim so they weren't afraid of the water and they'd never play in it unless they were going swimming.  And if they did play in it or fell in they knew how to get out.  When I was about six years old my sister Lois was with me we pulled a little two year old girl out of the canal that was from Brigham City and was visiting some people about two or three miles north of us.  At the time we had been herding cows on the ditch bank and we had a whip with us and I reached out and got the body to come in to the bank"

Street scene of Tremonton, Utah showing businesses including, People's Market, Y Not Eat, Parco Gas, hotels and drug stores. c 1920

"Dad in the summer would always contract beet thinning and hoeing the potatoes or helping in the hay.  This was our regular summer work.  We'd go around and take care of other people's beets, we'd thinned several acres of beets.  This was the way we'd earn money to send the boys through school."

"When I was five years old I had to herd cows in the hills.  Again, my dad contracted to take two or three families cows with them and /I had the privilege of taking them and I'd have to stay with them all day.  I had a horse and a dog with me at all times, and the horse, it didn't make a difference if I fell off, it would always see that I'd get back on.  And if I did get off, it's always go to a fence or something to help me back on.  The dog could kill a snake in two whips of his head.  It would grab rattlesnakes or ant type of snake it didn't matter.  I'd always take a whip and I could kill a snake with a whip if I needed to."

"...when I was about six or seven years old I had the experience of driving a team of horses on a harrow, walking behind the harrow.  I did this all day for about three and a half days, harrowing out 160 acres of ground."

Train load of beets for shipment to sugar factory near Tremonton, Box Elder Co., Ut., c.1910.

"In 1925 we moved to Ogden... We didn't have very much work.  Roy and Otto (his brothers) went to work as a salesman in a clothing store in Salt Lake for a while.  (around 1928-1929)...I just started high school and worked around for farmers.  I remember working fro our neighbor.  I watered his hayfield and beet crop and whatever he would had and then help him put up his hay.

"When we were in high school, we used to walk from Harrisville to Five Points to catch the bus and go to town on Wednesday and Saturday nights.  We would dance at the White City, which is now a bowling alley and a recreational center.  If you went before 9:00 on Wednesday nights you could get in for nothing and on Saturday nights if you went before 9:00 you could get in for a dime.  This was mostly our recreation besides going to shows once in a while and we didn't go to shows very much because they were 10 to 15 cents...  We always had a pretty good crowd there and this was the biggest way that most of all the city and county kids started going to dances and having fun for their own selves.  I sure used to have good times at these dances...

I remember one night I got on my bicycle and rode down to one of my friends towards Five Points, it was Clyde Yearsley.  I got there and he was all dressed up and he said he was going to a dance and meet a gal there and I said well you don't want me along and he said sure come on anyway and he talked me into going.  So I dashed back home, changed my clothes, and told my mother where I was going.  I got back to Clyde's place in time to catch the trolley car and get to the dance.  After we got there I said there usually wasn't a good crowd on Wednesday nights, but this was the only time this gal could get off and I wanted to go with her and she had a car.  ..(we) picked up a girl and when she got on Clyde kind of grinned at her and spoke to her and he she had known him.  He said, "Well, there's one you can dance with."  I said, "There'd be two with her and your girl so it won't be a lost night."  We went to the dance and there's always someone you know and I knew quite a few and we introduced them back and forth so Clyde got Laura to dance with him and brought her over and introduced me.  Her name was Laura Urry...  We saw each other at dances later and I took her out a few times..."

White City dance hall

"After I went with Laura for a little while I finally got crazy and got a job.  We got married.  To get the job you had to be married.  I got the job and then we got married after I had the job and was secure.  During the summers of 1931 and '32 my brother Otto and Tom Harris, a fellow who lived out in Harrisville with us, and myself had a trio and we'd go around to different places and sing, especially ward reunions.  We got quite a kick out of doing it.  Tom Harris and I really enjoyed it, we were always together singing.  Of course I played the musical saw too and we used to go around and entertain quite a bit this way."

"One day when I was thinning beets, it was May 13, 1936 Claudia was born and that was a great day for me.  I was really pleased with it and we decided to name her Claudia which was the favorite players on the radio program that I had seen and we would listen to all the time usually come on at night."

"(Claudia) gave us some problems one of her greatest favorites was to get my house slippers and run around the house and she'd trip over things and trip over the shoes.  Once she drove her teeth through her lip and toungue and we took her up to the doctor one night and he looked at her and told us "You've got to keep that kid out of those shoes.""

"We had one time after the bakery job I worked nights...  It got so that Laura didn't like that part of the work, being away at night all the time.  I finally got another job and decided to work them both.  I went to work at 8:00 in the morning and got off at 5:00 and then I didn't have to go to work until 11:00 at night.  So I worked two of them for about three months and when I decided I was going to get a little better job during the day, I didn't see any reason why I shouldn't keep it, but if finally didn't work out.  It was a really good job for us, but when I came home at nights, Laura had had it with the baby so I'd take her for a walk and sing to her.  We had quite a few talks together.  She'd just look at me and really enjoy it.  And I think all in all we enjoyed bringing her up."

He went on to work many different jobs from farm jobs, to delivery jobs, washer repair, and finally got a job at a hospital as a mechanic.  He worked there for 35 years.

More sand

LeLand Coles is Laura's great-grandfather.  Leland was born June 17, 1913 in Bothwell Utah.  Bothwell is a very small community about 20 miles north and a bit west of Brigham City were Laura and I grew up.  I'm guessing that he may have been born at home as there is no hospital (that I know of) in Bothwell.  Here's a bit of history of that part of the world: http://www.boxeldercounty.org/bothwell-history.htm

The 1920 census shows that he lived with his family in the Rawlins Precinct in Box Elder County.  I'm assuming that is the area of Bothwell.  It listed his father as a farmer, but then the 1930 census showed that Leland lived with his family in Harrisville Utah, his father again listed as a farmer.

Leland married Laura Urry July 16, 1935.  If this blog thing works, you should be able to see the full size image of his marriage application.  It lists that his occupation is 'Dairyman' and lived in Sunset Utah.  The 1940 census puts him in Bingham County Idaho. 

There are lots of holes to fill in this story, more to come.... Laura just handed me a typed oral history of his life.  Time to get reading!  More on that next time.

Back to work on the plane.

I decided to use Dykem to help me find the peaks and valleys.  It's nearly the same thing as PVC primer, but more blue and it's supposed to be more durable on metal.

After a few minutes of sanding with 80 grit, the front part is starting to flatten out and I've nearly removed the concaved bit in the back.  It's hard to see the blue in the picture, but its there.

After a while longer, the Dykem isn't visible, but you can still see the worst areas of pitting at the front and a just a tiny bit of pitting in the back.... slowly getting there.

Got bored with the sole and moved to the cheeks.  Dykem shows my low spots.  Turns out this goes much faster when you don't have such a large surface area to work.  Even most of the large gouges came right out. 

Not too shabby!  Note, this process tends to go fastest when you consume liberal amounts of Otter Pops, Fred Meyer store brand are by far the best.

The other side needed lots more work with that really large gouge.  Not quite as clean as the other side, but it will do.

Time for a sanding break.  Time to strip off the old japaning and what I think is shellac on the handles.

 Apply liberal amounts of stripper to all the painted/coated surfaces. 

Scrub with wire brush.  Realize you should be wearing eye protection.  On you way to get your fancy safety googles, realize that you have flicked stripper all over your legs and it now burns.  Alot.  After rinsing your hands and legs with water, get your solvent resistant gloves on.  Safety first.

 The handles had a real thick layer of very yellowy goopy finish.  It looked just like shellac flakes before you melt them in solvent.  With all of it removed, the wood looks pretty good.  It will just need a light sanding to get out some of the minor scratches.

But the wood is very porous, so I'll have to think about how I'm going to finish them.  I'd like to not use modern finishes. I read that the handles are probably rosewood. 

Frog and sole all stripped clean.  Now you can easily read the No 10 1/2 marking. 

Went back to sanding a bit more and

Almost there!  I might move on to 120 grit, but it really could use a bit more work with 80.  There's a few more scratches that I'd like to get out and juuust a bit of pitting in the back.

I don't think I'll ever get all the big scratches out.  A part of me wants to leave them in to show that this was a tool that was used.  Most likely it was very heavily used as part of farm life.  I wouldn't say that it was abused, it wasn't broken and mostly well kept.  So I want a bit of that legacy to live on.  The other part of me wants it to look as pristine as it was right from the box.  My arms and back are telling me to leave the imperfections.

The Beginning

The Plane

This is a story about a project and a person.  I'm not really interested in heavy duty geneology research like my parents and older sister, but I am fascinated by the stories of other people.  This story will be told by means of a tool.  This summer we visited our family in Utah.  While we were staying at the Thompson's, I noticed a box of old tools in the garage.  I was a bit surprised to see an old hand plane in the box, knowing that my father-in-law is not into woodworking.  After asking him about it, he told me that the tools belonged to his grandfather, Grandpa Coles. 

 I asked if I could take the plane and Dale was very generous in allowing me to take it.  My first thought is that I wanted to know more about the man that owned the plane.  My next thought is that it needed some work.  I enjoy working with my hands.  I'm not a great woodworker or craftsman, but I love the satisfaction that comes with completing a project.  I've built many things around the house and none have fallen apart yet, so I guess there's that.

Last Christmas I was given two of the best gifts I've ever been given.  One was an extremely nice pen from my brother Jon, and the other was an equally nice Stanley Sweetheart No. 8 smoothing plane.  It's an absolute work of art.  Laura was incredibly thoughtful, I never would have asked for something like that, but she had the insight to know that would be a gift I would enjoy.  One of the many reasons why I love that woman, she pays attention to every detail and knows me all too well.  I've really loved using that tool.  So when I saw the plane in Dale's garage I got real excited.

So I plan to restore it, and tell the story of Grandpa Coles while I'm at it.  It will take me quite some time to get this job done, but it will be fun.  Lets have a look at the plane:

 

It's seen better days, but all in all, not in terrible shape.  There's some rust on the sole and chipping in the Japaning (the black coating of 'paint').  The sole isn't cracked, the handles are intact, and it looks like the iron has room for sharpening.  

Lots of deep gouges in the sole, but nothing that can't be worked out.

The original finish on the handles, there's a bit of cracking in the varnish, but the wood is solid, so that's a good thing.

 No. 10 1/2 marking.  After a bit of digging, it turns out that this is a Carriage Makers plane.  It's a bit different from a standard smoothing plane in that the iron (the blade) extends past the wings of the sole and is flush to the width of the sole.  This means that the sole arch is a bit weaker.  These planes tend to be cracked and broken at the arches as soon as they are dropped.  No cracks at all.  This isn't a super rare plane, but it isn't very common either.

From http://www.supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan2.htm
"#10 1/2 Carriage maker's rabbet plane, 9"L, 2 1/8"W, 3lbs, 1885-1964.

This is sometimes called the 'smooth rabbet' since it is the same size as a #4, however in some of Stanley's earlier propaganda this plane and the #10 are both simply called a "Carriage Maker's Rabbet". The usual problems with the #10, and the other bench planes, are also found on this guy. The most common form of damage are cracks and/or repairs to the cheeks of the tool, located just above the cutouts for the cutter.

The earliest models have an adjustable mouth, very much like those found on the common block planes, but the entire section of the sole ahead of the iron moves. Adjustable mouth versions are much scarcer than the non-adjustable mouth versions, and were only offered for about the first ten years of the plane's production.

The mouth is adjusted by turning the front knob, sliding the knob forward or backward, and then tightening the knob; this action moves the entire sole ahead of the iron. The casting that receives the front knob's screw is sometimes broken so take the plane apart to inspect this. The repetitive adjustment to the mouth also puts wear and tear on the rosewood knob; many of them are split or are chipped at their bases. I've seen some of these early models with a metallic disk under the knob in an attempt to overcome the chipping that the knobs suffer; this disk appears original and is similar to the one used on the #62.

This plane always came with the lateral adjustment lever - if you see one that doesn't have one, it's likely from an earlier #3 or #10."

 It was manufactured by Stanley from 1885-1964.  Purely guessing by the look of it, I'd guess that it came from the 40's-50's.  My reasoning is that the varnish of something newer would not have that style of cracking.  But who knows, just guessing.

 Well, there she is.  Lets get started.

Completely disassembled.  It was slightly disturbing to find old spider egg sacks inside.  I very much dislike spiders, unless they are on fire, then I'm completely fine with them.  First step, get the rust to go away.

After soaking in Krud Kutter for a couple hours, most all the rust went away.  Looking much better.

Some slight surface rust here and there, but not too shabby.  Now lets start with the sole.  The bottom of the sole needs to be flat.  Very flat.  If it wasn't, it would be useless as a plane.   The sides of the sole need to be square and flat as well.  Rust has pitted the surface and years of use and abuse has left many gouges and scratches.  To clean it up, I spray Super 77 onto the back of a sheet of sandpaper and bond it to a granite tile.  That gives me a flat surface to use to hone the surface of the sole.  Takes lots of patients and elbow grease.  I started with 80 grit but realized that wasn't going to cut it.  So went back to 60.

 After destroying a sheet of 80 grit, it was still a long ways from flat.  You can see that there is a concave bit in the sole.  Fortunately that's not as critical, but the area right before the iron slot is looking pretty bad.  So back to the paper with 60 grit.

 This time I've used a sharpie to act as a guide.  As I sand the surface, the low spots will still have sharpie visible so I know how much work to do.

 As you can see the top of the sole isn't very flat.  That is where there was the most rust.  It's a bit hard to see in the picture, but the concave bit in the middle is still there, but getting smaller.

There, now you can see the area that needs more work.  Back to the sanding.

Mostly done.  It needs a bit more work to flatten out the concave spot, but it's almost there.  When I'm done with this, I'll do the same to the sides.  Then repeat with 80, 120, 220, and maybe 300 grits.  We'll see what it looks like.  That's all for now, much more to come!