Restoring a Hand Plane

Hand Plane Restored!

Success! I watched this Paul Sellers' tutorial on restoring a hand plane I bought off eBay, and it worked! I went for a Stanley Bailey #5 hand plane, per the recommendation from the tutorial. It is solid steel and  basically indestructible. I found this plane totally rusted and with a bright thumb spot where the previous owner must have had some cyan paint on his gloves. The blade was nicked and the shellac on the wood was cracked and discolored. I'll go over the process of how I restored it in a weekend!

Edit: I did some research and discovered that this plane was made somewhere between 1948-1961! Super old!

Supplies

Hand plane (you can find this on eBay or anywhere online)

3 n 1 oil (any hardware store has this)

Shellac (I went with amber but that's your call)

Brush (any paint brush willl work but it'll probably not be reusable)

Rags (I got 6 for $4 at Target!)

Wire brush (you just need this to get the rust off the screws)

Steel wool #0000

Sandpaper - 120 and 220 grit (can get it from Amazon or a hardware store)

Sharpening stones - 400 800 1200 grit (something like this)

Gloves (helps keep the hands clean!)

Just a whole bunch of rust waiting to shine

Step 0.5

Watch the whole Paul Sellers' tutorial! He goes into better detail than I will and he has so much knowledge about tools and the whole process. He's a great resource for anything related to woodworking. Don't forget to take note of how old this tool looks, as it will soon look brand new!

Step 1

I would put on gloves now. Also make sure you either don't care about your working surface or you can protect it somehow. It WILL get covered in rust, steel and wood dust. Take off the blade to keep it from being scratched, then sand all the rust off the bottom and the sides. This takes a while and you need to make sure you keep the bottom of the sole flat. If that warps, you won't plane correctly. I would go ahead and remove all rust from all steel components. Take everything apart, you're going to do that soon anyway.

Before and after sanding the sides with sand paper

Step 2

Scrape all the old finish off the wood. This works if you use the side of a chisel, or any sharp steel. Make sure you don't gouge the wood, then sand it softly.

Step 3

Apply the new Shellac and oil all moving pieces. I did 3 coats of Shellac with about an hour of HBO GO in between. No need to rush. Steel wool and some oil will help smooth the shellac once it dries completely.

Ready to plane!