Wow, a tremendous response from some of you who are following my restoration articles! Thank you all for your kind words and support!

For those of you just joining us, we’ve been discussing how to refurbish an old Stanley #4 hand plane that I inherited as a family heirloom. If you have missed part 1, part 2, or part 3, feel free to go back and read them. I’ll wait…..

Some of you may have noticed in part 3 that the plane iron was cutting really rough, despite having trued all of the surfaces of the plane so far. The reason is that not only was the iron not all that sharp (like yours truly at times), but the angle of the cut was not optimal. As if that weren’t bad enough, the angle was not homogeneous all the way across, and there was a small knick in the edge.

We’re gonna wanna take care of that I think……
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For those following along, welcome back! For those of you just joining us, we’ve been talking about how to restore an old Stanley #4 hand plane. If you’d like to catch up, feel free to check out part 1 and part 2 beforehand.

We’ve got our sole flattened and our frog is true, and now it’s a good time to address tweaking a few of the components that deal with chip removal: the plane throat, and the chip breaker.

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Welcome back! If you’re still with us after reading part 1, you are a most curious soul. I mean, how could you not be to withstand so much of my boring writing in the name of woodworking?!

So now the sole of the plane is flat.  I would have to say that 80 percent of your grunt work here is done…..but there are a few other crucial things left to accomplish.  If the bottom of our plane is flat, we need to ensure that the rest of that translates all the way up to the plane iron, because what have we really accomplished if we stop here?  Flattening and truing the Frog isn’t JUST to make it parallel to the sole, it also ensures we have a mating surface for the blade to rest on the whole time the plane is in operation.  When this surface is not flat, we get that ever so annoying movement named “chatter”.  As the plane iron skims across the wood substrate, it will unseat itself and bounce around on the surface of the frog, causing an inconsistent cut.

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A couple of weeks ago, I decided on a whim to refurbish a couple of the tools I inherited from my father-in-law: A Block Plane and a Stanley #4 hand plane.  Both had really bad surface rust, and were REALLY cupped from years of heavy use.  To give you an idea of what I dealt with before, I used that #4 on a scrap piece of pine stock and got nothing but crooked, toothpick sized shavings with every pass, and small chunks of sawdust.  I didn’t chronicle the restoration of the block plane (it was a spur of the moment thing), but have documented the restoration of the Stanley #4 pretty thoroughly.

Join me in this journey in the next couple of articles.

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As we continue through Woodworkers Safety Week, many resources that were previously unknown to me have surfaced.  A new one, is Earth 911.com.  This was brought to my attention by The Woodwhisperer Woodworking Video podcast, Episode 88 - Safety Q&A.  (Before I forget, keep voting for Marc in the BHG contest.   He’s still in second place and hanging strong, so don’t stop voting now!)

Anyway, Earth911 is a search engine you can use to find locations for hazardous materials disposal.  As a woodworker, you could use this to dispose of old, or dirty varnish, or any other material so it doesn’t end up in the landfill.  If you are a DiY tinkerer like I am, the search engine is of GREAT use.  One thing that comes to mind is circuit board disposal (Or any E-Waste) where they can recycle the silver and gold, but also reclaim the lead.  If you don’t know my stance on this issue, you should read this article from last year.

The absolute first thing that I used this site for was car battery disposal.  I have been accumulating these in the garage for some reason…mainly because I didn’t know of a safe way to dispose of them.  Lo and behold, the search engine turned up an unexpected result: Wal Mart.  I was a little skeptical, so I called to verify, and sure enough, they do take car batteries to recycle!

I’m gonna use this website a LOT, and I invite you to do the same.

Hello faithful readers.  In conjunction with woodworkers safety week, I am happy to present to you with an article I have been working on, and some of you have seen in rough form.  Many of us think about woodworkers safety as using the correct guards on our saws, using pushblocks when we cut or join, or using respirators when we sand.  One thing that is often overlooked is maintaining aging tools, whether they be ours, or bought second hand.  This is just as important as safety equipment itself.  A poorly maintained tool is an unsafe tool.
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Hey Everyone,

This might be considered spam for some of my non woodworking readers, so please bear with me…I’m trying to help some one out who is deserving.

For those of you who don’t know, Marc Spagnuolo, The Wood Whisperer, has entered into the Better Homes and Gardens 48 Hour Challenge.  Please vote for him!  Registration is required and free.

NOTE:  Be sure it is Marc’s Ultimate BBQ cart you are voting for!  Voting started May 1st and you can vote once per day until June 12th.  Let’s help this guy out and give back some thanks for all he has done for us.

Link: BHG 48 Hour Challenge Voting

Thanks in advance!