47 - Build Your Own Mortising Machine , страница 11

A. Sandpaper. To remove rust from the sole, I "scrubbed" the plane across sandpaper attached to a piece of glass.

B. Wire Wheel. Using a wire wheel on a grinder makes quick work of removing rust in hard to reach areas.

C. Eraser Blocks. These rubber blocks embedded with silicon carbide work great for "erasing" rust from metal parts.

and lowers the blade was so dirty it was hard to budge.

BODY. Not surprisingly, when I removed the screws that hold the frog in place, it was "frozen" to the body of the plane. Rust had gotten a foothold here as well. To loosen the frog, I decided to remove the handle and front knob and give the plane a bath.

BATH. This was just a matter of soaking the plane (and the disassembled parts) in a plastic tub filled with mineral spirits, see photo above. It only took about a half hour for the mineral spirits to soften years of accumulated dirt and grease. After scrubbing the plane with a toothbrush, I gently tapped the frog loose, wiped each part off with a rag, and set them aside to dry.

back side of the blade made it impossible to get a sharp cutting edge.

• My solution was to buy a replacement blade. That added $12.50 to the overall cost of the plane. But it was still considerably less expensive than buying a new plane.

DISASSEMBLY & CLEANING

Except for the blade, the rest of the plane was in good shape. Granted, it was covered with black, oily gunk. But it wasn't anything that couldn't be fixed by taking the plane apart and cleaning all the individual pieces.

CAM LEVER & BLADE ASSEMBLY. I started by popping the cam lever up and removing the lever cap that secures the blade assembly, see drawing on page 10. The cap iron and blade lifted out easily after that

FROG. Removing the blade assembly gave me a good look at the frog. Okay, I know. It's a funny sounding name. But the frog has an important job. It provides a mounting platform that holds the blade at an angle. It also lets you adjust the size of the throat opening.

The two screws that are loosened to make this adjustment sit in pockets in the sloped face of the frog. (If you look at the disassembled plane below, you can see spider webs in the pockets where spiders had made a home.)

BLADE ADJUSTMENTS. At the top end of the frog, the lateral adjustment lever that aligns the cutting edge of the blade was sticky with grime, so it didn't move back and forth very easily. And the depth adjustment knob that raises

Dealing with Rust

There's nothing exciting about removing rust But there are things you can do to make the job easier.

SAND. One of the simplest ways is to sand off the rust, see photo A Besides the rust, the sole of my plane was streaked with white paint (probably from planing storm windows). But scrubbing it across 100-grit sandpaper cleaned it up fast.

WIRE WHEEL & ERASER BLOCKS. But not all the surfaces are flat To get into hard to reach places, using a wire wheel on the grinder was just the ticket, see photo B. Also, a rubber block embedded with silicon carbide made a handy rust "eraser," see photo C. (See page 31 for a mail-order source.)

A Mineral Spirits Bath. To loosen rust and grime, soak the metal parts of the plane in mineral spirits. Then scrub each part clean with a brush and set it aside to dry.

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