I found an old Rapier wood working plane. Says Gateshead England on it and it looks a fairly cheap but robust and honest plane from, I am guessing, the 1950's-1970's or something like that. It was caked in crud and grease. The iron was the wrong way round, the screw that attached it to the chip breaker was on the wrong side and frog was far too high. The edge on the iron was also rounded over, dull and clearly needed work. So basically a basket case but I did need to take some edges off some old rounded over pine bed slats, as I am going to make some more strops out of them, so I thought I would see if i could get it working again.
Took a good 20 minutes of hand sharpening on the diamond stone to finally flatten the iron bevel to get it as it should be. Then it all went back together (the right way this time) and low and behold, we have some functional shavings and the edges of my reconstituted pine bed slats are now flat and somewhat true. Well, true enough to be good enough for my needs. I really should give the rest of the plane a birthday and flatten the bottom and clean it up properly but I am no wood worker and just need it to hoik off edges of wood. It has done the job and was free.
Is there anything more satisfying than a properly sharp hand tool that you can fully keep in service yourself so that it performs as designed?



Took a good 20 minutes of hand sharpening on the diamond stone to finally flatten the iron bevel to get it as it should be. Then it all went back together (the right way this time) and low and behold, we have some functional shavings and the edges of my reconstituted pine bed slats are now flat and somewhat true. Well, true enough to be good enough for my needs. I really should give the rest of the plane a birthday and flatten the bottom and clean it up properly but I am no wood worker and just need it to hoik off edges of wood. It has done the job and was free.
Is there anything more satisfying than a properly sharp hand tool that you can fully keep in service yourself so that it performs as designed?






