Now into this picture insert a foolish galoot, so desperate not to go home empty-handed that she actually pays money for this piece of rust. Fifty whole pence, forsooth! Talk about a fool and their money... Only on getting home did the full horror and stupidity of the act dawn. But the idea that had put forth leaves on first sighting this self-proclaimed No 2, Made In England, was this could be a scrub plane, so we're jolly well going to give it a shot. Sounds confident, doesn't it? Hah. Why d'you think there's no "before" shot? 'Cos it was so awful I didn't want a public record of what a stupid thing it was to buy...
Anyway, a loooooooonnnnnnnnnnggggg bath in citric acid and a strenuous workout later, plus a few spare parts to improve this and that, and it's come out a lot better than I deserve. Yeah, the sole and iron are pitted, but heck, that's the beauty of it being a scrub plane - it doesn't matter. And the lever cap and bedding are just as good as, or maybe better than a Stanley scrub. it's a bit shorter than my #40 1/2, but makes up for it by being a smidgeon wider. Most importantly, it works a treat, although for really aggresive scrubbing I suppose I ought to open up the mouth a tad.
The only hitch is exactly how many scrub planes does one person need? Two was dodgy, but three... So if anyone out there is looking for a cheap scrub...? Possibly for a bit more than 50p though - I ache like crazy after all that cleaning!
Incidentally, 'pologies for the funereal black bordered thumbnails. Blogger is being a bit tempremental about uploading images at the moment, so I'm trying out Freeshare instead. Seems to be pretty good, and doesn't require you to register to use it which makes a change. Last thing I need is another password to forget.
I though it might be "one of those" number two's.
ReplyDeleteThey come up on eBay quite often.
Sometimes (erroenously) flagged as being Record number twos.
If you think Stanley #2's are collectible, ask that Nice Mr Horobin about Record #2's.
Or Record scrub planes, come to that.
BugBear
I'm hoping that comments are sorted by date...
ReplyDeleteI've learnt over the weekend that these nasty #2's are by whitmore.
I saw one in a box (and didn't buy it, despite the seller going down to 50p)
so, for the Record (!) it's a
Whitmore No. 2 Metal block plane
BugBear
Did you get an offer for the third scrub plane? If not, would it like to relocate to the U.S.? I'm not as picky as Bugbear and I could use a working scrub at least until I finally fix my first one.
ReplyDeleteAny chance that you would do a write up on what you did for the conversion to a scrub plane? I have looked about a bit online, but the information available seems to be split between a)yes, one can do it, and it's pretty easy, just crown the blade a good bit, and b)it's not worth doing a conversion, get a dedicated Scrub.
ReplyDeleteIn my case, I have an extra #4 Handyman that I would like to convert (given that I already have two other #4s), but I don't really have any experience with scrub planes, much as I realize that I need one.