01/05/2026
Didn’t wanna do what I need to do today, more on that later, so I decided to piddle around with some tool restoration.
First, these 2 are ready to go—Stanley 80 with a veritas blade, and a Stanley 71 with a 1/4” cutter.
80 is a “cabinet scraper” and is great for those who like card scrapers, but are tired of the thumb workout from bending them. These go for about $50 shipped on eBay in “needs work” condition, so I’ll do $50 for a fully functional one with an upgraded blade
71 is your standard router plane. Usually goes for about $75 in “needs work” condition so I’ll do $75 for “ready to go” condition.
These spokeshaves I was given a couple months ago, were quite rusty & dull but I got em all cleaned up, only to find out that they’d never work well. You can see in the pics that the bed where the blade sits is warped & would need to be ground flat to function properly—without a flat back you get a ton of chatter in the cut. The thumb wheels also kick it out from the back a bit & aren’t shaped properly so any adjustment feels like metal grinding on metal because… it is. Gonna keep them because the blade and lever cap work well enough, could theoretically make a new body for them, BUT the lesson is… if you buy a cheap tool, and it works terribly… it may not be user error.
Got a set of wooden tongue & groove planes that won’t be for sale; they’re fantastic. I wasn’t happy with doing them with my combination plane—adjustment was finicky and the metal body felt very “draggy”, these have neither of those issues. Old tech is sometimes best tech.
Lastly we have the beginnings of Bow Saw v3, the thing I didn’t feel like messing with today for whatever reason. Won’t spoil too much but ruler for scale
