How Flat is a Type 20 #8?

First off, I don’t really do much following of type studies, but have taken a shine over the years to later stanley planes. Up to a point at least. Once there is a gap between the frog and the casting, I’m out.

At this point, I already have two 8s – a wartime Record that’s OK, but Record seemed to have a lot of problems shaping lever caps properly to fit over the cap irons, or making them the right length so they were over the hump and not pushing on it from the back (which also allows shavings to get through).

The other 8 is an earlier stanley that’s a typical ebay story. The plane was sold as in good shape, but it’s got a stripped thread for a frog screw that’s solved by a non-original screw, the bottom was nowhere close to flat -and I don’t mean like a little inaccurate – it’s a banana to the point that no sane person would flatten more than an amount of the sole needed. And, the “original” handle stuck on the plane doesn’t fit and can’t be tightened. Fortunately, I didn’t pay much for that – got it at the end of a regular auction.

I don’t use an 8 much – it’s generally a match plane. I plan to get rid of the other two 8s one way or another, but since I’ve taken a shine to type 20s (that are generally blue – but I guess not 8s?) I’d put in the back of my head if I eventually found one in good shape, I’d buy it and dump the others.

I have not yet found a type 20 plane that either has a lot of wear, or that has a serious issue with sole flatness. The smoothers are close to flat, and the 6 and 7 that I have both were hollow in the sole about 1-2 thousandths. Most of the hollow is from the tips front and back – I would guess the machining is done with a heavy hand and flexing of the casting leaves the toe and heel a little low. It’s too bad it doesn’t go the other way.

The tale of this plane is a bit interesting. It came with some other stuff, but what’s usable of that stuff to me is a standard spokeshave without adjuster (I only have LN types, and they are lacking if you are removing wood rather than cleaning up – the mouth is tight). And also included was a newer 9 1/2. I just got a 9 1/2 recently, but I can dump one or the other.

But the tale is this – a mechanic somewhere probably in NY where the plane came from was hobby woodworking and he’d gotten a smoother, a continental gutter plane and this plane. The smoother was worthy of the garbage can, so it went there – not sure what it was, but it wasn’t even on par with a handyman. As is the case with many, I think the hobby is vexing because the planes were all used until the irons were heavily damaged, and what was in this jointer was mostly dust from using the unintentionally toothed iron.

I found it interesting that among the very common things, the person who never got into the hobby as deep as they could have found a Stanley 8 with a smooth bottom. The iron shows some signs of being ground as 1/2″ of the length or so is gone and the plane itself shows almost no wear. The damaged edge has been sharpened recently, it was just blasted away and full of really large nicks, but the edge is otherwise fresh and was hollow ground.

But what about the flatness?

Getting to the point isn’t my strong suit. I paid $225 plus shipping and tax for the whole group. To me, and maybe not to others, to get a plane with little wear like this, I’m good for $200. 15 years ago, you could find a plane like this for $100, but it’s not 15 years ago.

I tipped this thing upside down in the vise and secured it lightly and checked the sole expecting a low toe and heel that won’t be much work to address.

And that’s exactly what I found.

I scribbled on the sole, but the scale of the picture here may make it hard to see. No part of the front allows a .0015″ feeler through. The middle just does allow one through, and then a small section just in front of the heel allows a 2 thousandth feeler just through.

For all of the talk about this or that flatness and how poorly the later Stanley planes were made, I just haven’t seen it. I have seen earlier planes that are out of flat without it looking like wear. I don’t know why.

This one will be quick to address some afternoon when I have an hour to very accurately flatten the sole. The discussion of whether or not the hollowness of this sole between toe and heel even matters won’t satisfy tax preparers and pallet furniture makers who always know more than everyone else about woodworking, but for someone working by hand, it will make a world of difference match planing. if the sole were opposite, flat in the center and toe and heel just off of a board, I’d never bother to touch it unless it had other issues (twist). I’ve not seen serious twist more than about 4 times out of probably 100 planes.

If I’m wrong about the type and it’s not a 20 (8s seem to get less common with later types), good enough

Too, I’ve mentioned it here before – one of my first large plane purchase was a machine gun purchase of both the LN 7 and LN 8. The 7 was straight as an arrow, but had the fault at the time that you couldn’t set the cap iron close to the edge. LN laser cut or punched the hole in the cap iron assuming nobody would want to do it. I ended up selling that disclosing it. The 8, on the other hand, was hollow like this plane. Almost exactly the same amount, and I tried to use it to match plane and joint long ends, and it was difficult to plane something without the ends falling off. People seem to have trouble believing that, but it’s not a matter of mistaking what was going on – it’s a matter of people who don’t believe that could happen overvalue their ability to reason and assert things. Conflicting with reality doesn’t phase them too much.

One Last Thought – What do the Numbers Mean?

I am throwing around thousandths and what matters and what doesn’t from the view of someone who will be using this plane for long edges. I will, of course, make the plane as easy to use as possible.

Given that I’ve had just about everything other than a 24″+ norris jointer, and I’m floating toward a late type Stanley, maybe I should address two questions:

1. What if you bought this plane off of the internet and you didn’t know anything about flattening planes, what would happen? Well, the answer to that is pretty simple. Not much. You might find it to be a little more difficult to get a laser tight joint at the ends of boards, or that you’d have to take a few shavings on already flat surfaces to get the plane to cut end to end (not great), but otherwise, you could end up with a plane about as accurate from a boutique maker pretty easily. I did from LN, twice out of about 10 planes.
2. I think the underlying question of “why not just flatten the original LN 8 and use that” could come up as beginners who pick up a new boutique plane will almost certainly think the experience is better. I thought so at first, but when the volume of work increased, I began to prefer older planes. And beyond that, most volume work is better done with a wooden plane if the work allows. In terrible wood and for fine work like matching edges, having an adjuster is a little easier. At any rate, it’s not strictly a weight issue – I just find that the whole stanley package is a little better than the boutique planes when the planes are no longer being used as a half dozen smoothers of different lengths. I also didn’t have the confidence a decade or more ago to just get after the sole of an expensive LN jointer. It was easier to disclose the sole’s shape and sell it – most people don’t care as long as it’s inside LN’s spec. it was uncanny how the #7 in that pair would plane everything easily and accurately, and that little bit of hollowness in the #8 was enough to keep it from coming off of the shelves.

But I do actually like the Stanley planes better, and thus have no boutique planes at this point. I just don’t see a reason to have any, and it’s certainly not a money issue. I migrate to what is easier to use – functional laziness. Now that I have a hammer (can flatten these planes by hand and accurately), the “nail” isn’t a big deal. I don’t care to flatten many more planes as I have better things to do, but to sort of cap off my collection and dump the less common more collectible English planes and go to “plain old cheap later Stanleys”….hopefully that will be a last move.