Paul Sellers video on plane restoration and tuning

[Mike Brady]

Paul Sellers has a new video up on You Tube here that takes a raw Stanley #4 through all of his steps of restoration and tuning.
Give it a look and then we can discuss variations on the theme if you care to comment.

[Strokes77]

I loved every second.

[Acorn]

Thoroughly enjoyed this video. Just sandpaper for de-rusting no Evaporust. Made it look simple.

[Mike Brady]

It's interesting to me to see how others tackle a familiar task. I always disassemble an old plane first. Paul leaves it together because he starts with the bottom truing. I want to see what I have and what might need work; or is missing or broken. He doesn't chemically derust, but I want the rust out of the everywhere, so I do. I use a deburring wheel where he grabs the sandpaper. I strip the wood and completely refinish it, or gently restore it if the condition is good. I would not take the edge of a chisel to it....and so on. Many differences.
I am not running a school where twenty students each need a No. 4 smoother. I kept a 4's that I found over maybe ten years and no one has touched them but me. Mine don't get dropped or the irons used up. That's a huge difference.

I liked where he took the hollow out of the iron by hammering it. some of his detail work on the edges of the sole made sense to me, but I thought he kind of breezed through the frog fettleing sequence.

Finally, I would really like to use one of his planes some time to see if there is some magic there. I know my Stanley's have limits whereas my Lie-Nielsens can keep going. I also always remember that Paul Sellers won't be there to set up my planes. Neither will Rob Cosman, Graham Blackburn, or David Charlesworth. Just me.

[Alan S]

It looks like a good reason to get a grinder. He likes to show you that you don't need a lot of fancy stuff to work well, and it certainly is true you can make an old #4 work well. I suspect Sellers usually uses a grinder to take nicks out of a blade, but was showing here how to do it all with sandpaper.

Mike Siemsen, another guy who is going for simple and inexpensive, allocates 24% of his entire budget (for all tools including two sawbenches and workbench) to the grinder, wire wheel for derusting, tool rest, and diamond dresser. Watching Sellers's video shows you why.

[Strokes77]

PS has dedicated his "Teaching" to simplicity.

He is a huge fan of machine prepping lumber, bandsaws, and Veritas... But not when he is teaching, as he doesn't want new woodworkers to feel boundaries associated with "gear"...

He also LOVES jack planes, jointer planes, block planes, scrub planes, and router planes.... but for his classes, he wants to show that a #4, a tenon saw, and a chisel stuck through a board will handle almost everything.

[Gregory of Sherwood Forest]

Although his methods work, and most coincide with the methods that have worked for me, I prefer to not use sandpaper on areas that don't require it. Most planes, even those that have been poorly treated, do not require fettling to work to a high standard. Those that do, should be done by a competent machinist or someone who actually knows what they are doing.

I don't subscribe to the removal of metal where it isn't necessary. These planes have lasted for 100 years in many cases, and should last many more if folks would allow them work as intended. The most overblown and unnecessary practice in hand tools today is fettling those tools that don't require it.

To those that actually NEED fettling, sure, get it back into good condition. But too many are removing metal from the cheeks when it just needs cleaning, or from the sole when it is already flat enough to satisfy the craftsmen and artists of the past.

I didn't mean to start a rant here, so please don't take this as one, or that I disagree with Paul Sellers on his methods. This was just an opportunity to share my beliefs that these videos should be taken as intended, not as an example that every plane needs every treatment in the book.

[Admiral]

Greg, totally agree. My view is if it ain't broke . . . . .

After 20+ years of fondling vintage planes, I can tell from just looking at a rusted plane at a flea market table whether it has potential, or requires extensive work and is a parts plane.

People working on their first plane could go overboard and bugger up a plane that was working fine for the first 100 years of its life. Early on, I did just that, and learned my lesson. For the newbies in plane restoration out there, learn from my mistake, and also recognize that sometimes less is often very much more.

[DaveParkis]

I watched and I admit I learned something, which was how to fix cupping of a plane iron and that you can loosen frog screws slightly to allow adjustment with the iron in place. I do not agree with using sandpaper to clean a plane or with all of the fettling, but that's just me. Clearly, the plane he did worked pretty well when he was done.

[Strokes77]

Handle fitting has to be important here too. A loose handle can be very frustrating for a new plane user... And without the tips posted in this video...

I can tell you I, never in a million years, would have thought of shortening the stem to make a tigher fit on a tote. Might be old hat for some of you however.