# Thank You Foster!



## mickit (Oct 5, 2009)

I received the plane today...it's everything you said it was. I hope that I can do it justice.:thumbsup:


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## Daren (Oct 14, 2006)

NICE :thumbsup:


.


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## glh17 (Jul 7, 2010)

Looks good! Congratulations.


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## Foster (Feb 25, 2011)

Your most welcome...


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## gus (Oct 31, 2010)

What type of plane is that? Looks like it has a bunch of shaping blades.


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## Foster (Feb 25, 2011)

Stanley #45
combination plane, you could install blades for edge shaping, dados, rabbits.. what they used where we use a router back when.. The box of blades had the sweethart logo on it, I'm not sure of the date of the plane itself but believe it dates between the two great wars.
Was not used much if at all on curved pieces..
I'm sure there are some experts of hand planes on here that could correct all I messed up on and fill in all I do not know..which is alot.
I was given the plane for helping move a family...found a home for it in Mickey, or Mickit.


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## glh17 (Jul 7, 2010)

mickit,
I don't see a user's manual in the picture. Here is a pdf of the manual if you need it. 
http://www.tooltrip.com/tooltrip9/stanley/comb-planes/45man.pdf

Also, Patrick Leach's website has some stuff on the 45. He is not a big advocate of the plane. [Some find the 45 too complicated to be practical and that Stanley oversold the 45. It was designed to replace several other wooden planes, such as dadoes, rabbits, molding, etc.... The argument is that the individual planes outperform the combination plane because of their particular design to accomplish a particular tasks. Undoubtedly, there's some truth to this, but who has all these individual plans and where would one keep them. I have three 45 with two sets of cutters. I spend a little time on set up but the plane works and works well in my opinion.] This site should help in dating the plane, but I'm pretty sure it was some time between WWI and WWII.
http://www.supertool.com/stanleybg/stan6.htm#num45


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## mickit (Oct 5, 2009)

I've been playing with the little beast a little, nothing serious, just getting a feel for it. Raised a nice bead on an old piece of (very) dry mesquite(my "wood of choice") I had laing around. Tried a cross grain bead on the same piece, not so nice. The nicker(?) isn't quite up to the job. Next time I'll try a scoring knife and see what pops up. All in all a very nice plane, though it is my first "serious" hand plane. I may fool around with making some profile cutters, as I have a little stock pile of HSS gleaned from my years in the machine shops.Gonna have to rig a sharpening jig too. Any body got any suggestions I've got a nice flat granite plate, and lots of fine sandpaper.
I think I'm going to enjoy hand work...could take this sick obsession for tools in a new direction.


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## glh17 (Jul 7, 2010)

mickit,
There are a few you tube videos on sharpening and using the 45. Go to you tube and do a search for Stanley 45 or Stanley combination plane or something along those lines. 

Your granite plate and sandpaper will be fine for the the plow cutters and everything but the curves on the others. You might try sandpaper and dowels for the curved surfaces. Depending on the condition, I'd go through about 1500g on the wet/dry sandpaper. Start with 220g or 320g if things are pretty bad, but normally those cutters weren't used that much and you could start with a 400g or 600g. Be sure the backs are flat and polished and avoid changing the profiles.

Until recently, I used water stones to polish the backs and work on the bevels and slip stones for the curves. I still use the slip stones, but got a Worksharp 3000 for the other stuff. I had a lot to do. I actually have 3 sets of 45 cutters (mentioned 2 in a previous post) and a complete set of Stanley 12-250 combination plane blades. Few of these had ever been sharpened since I've only used a few of the plows and a couple of the molding cutters. The WS really helped speed up the process and I've got a complete set of 45s sharpened now. Still got a lot to go and I'll never use all these, but I'd hate to pass on and someone find I'd left behind a bunch of dull cutters.


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## mickit (Oct 5, 2009)

The dowel idea is a keeper...don't know why I didn't think of it, we used drill rod and compound in the machine shop for touch ups between actual sharpening. 
Thanks for kick-starting my fuzzy old brain:thumbsup:


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