Official Luthiers Forum!

You will ruin it's vintage value if you re-japan or strip the original japaning in any way. Leave it as is. Looks great.
-C

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Freeborn Guitars
and home of BeauGuard©

Gil, I am nearing the end of the process of restoring 6 Bedrock planes. It has been a very long and difficult journey, but I have a tip for you. The worst part is flattening the sole, for sure. Go to a shop that sells stuff for auto body work and buy some 40 grit, 3M "board sanding" strips. They are green and about 16" long and about 2" wide. If you stick these to a sheet of float glass you can make a long "runway" of abrasive. I needed a long runway as I had a 608 to deal with. The key here is that with 40 grit the sanding goes about twice as fast as with 80 grit and the 3M paper is designed for metal. Stay away from sandpaper designed for wood. I used a whole roll and got very little use out of each piece before the grit was too worn to use. Using the 3M paper will save you hours and hours of sanding. When you are done flattening them at 40 grit, do a polish with 80 grit and 120 grit.

I decided to "ruin" my planes and convert them to user planes instead of collector planes. They now look great and work great and no collector will ever be interested in them. Good luck on your restoration.

Hi fewarren - Thanks for the great tip, I will look into the 40 grit when I start on the 604. It seemed like a waste of time when I tried using 80 grit for wood, so I just took them to a machine shop. Even after the machine shop flattened my 605 I noticed it still could use a bit more lapping to get it perfect however the sole was flat within .0025". I also "ruined" these two bedrocks but I knew they would never be collector quality. I am thinking of buying a Hock or LN iron for each plane, maybe even an LN chipbreaker. Please post pics when you get some of your planes restored!

I wonder if you could turn that plane into a decent scrub plane? I'd certainly save it for parts at least.

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"Preoccupation with an effect gives it power and enhances the error"
from "Your Owner's Manual" by Burt Hotchkiss.

Not really true in the overall. The outside finish maybe the same but the bond is not. As cast iron is very porous and expands well in heat, the finish sticks with incredible tenacity when baked on. I do exactly as Todd except I preheat the surface then spray light coats as a "sort of" primer. I've had very good result even with stainless steel as well as wood(not guitars) by preheating. I build coats after this, to the desired thickness at standard temp then sometimes rebake. At 200º the paint pretty much dries on contact giving an incredible bond.

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

Todd - Do you put the plane in the oven right after the coat is sprayed on?

Billy - How hot do you heat the surface before spraying? This sounds like a great idea.

Gil: Super job,I bet it's a better plane now then when it was first manufactured. CONGRATS.....!!!
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

despite misleading sycophantic comments made above by others regarding the structural adequacy of this item it is pelucid to me that the casting is too seriously compromised to consider further flattening efforts and it obviously is utterly unusable in its dilapidated, deficient condition.

being the kind and generous fellow that i am i'll offer you scrap iron value pricing as i am in serious need of an ornamental primative doorstop, and i'll even pay the shipping to get such a burdensome piece of junk out of your shop. how can you refuse such a magnanimous offer?

to be hoped you have learned your lesson and from now on will immediately forward such scrap iron my way without further worrying yourself about such minutiae as restoration. bah! humbug i say!

I've done 140º to 200º. I kind of prefer 200º, the paint almost sizzles as it comes in contact. As with a plane or some other surface where you want good bonding but absolute finish is not as important as protection, the higher heat gives a great bond, seemingly, better than factory.

After the object cools, somewhat, I respray to get a good shiny surface, as it goes flat usually at the higher temp. I've found that the paint can be hard to remove afterwards, so make sure you heat paint what you "want" painted!

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)