Hi all-
I inherited an infill shoulder plane, and it seems to have
some issues. But not knowing about shoulder planes, I'm
hoping somebody can clarify a few things for me:
1) Below the blade, there's a wooden wedge that's loose. It
kind of looks like it may have been glued in, but given that
there's a screw adjustment at the back end of it, that seems
unlikely. So it's not supposed to be glued, right?
2) I assume the wedge is supposed to be coplanar with the
metal bedding near the mouth. But if it can be moved back
and forth by the screw, it will only be coplanar in one
spot. Is there a particular place where that spot is supposed
to be?
3) The screw is not attached to the wedge, it just bears
against the back of it. This means that you can advance the
wedge, but backing off on the screw doesn't bring the wedge
back with it. Is the wedge just supposed to squirt back when
the pressure is off? I guess my question is, what exactly is
the screw supposed to do?
4) It looks like the upper wedge had thin shims glued to it
top and bottom. The top one is still glued on; the bottom one
has separated. I don't know if the blade is original, but I
would guess not, given the shims. (Although, they look like
they're exactly the same wood. It's odd.) If I get a new
(custom) blade, I should get one to fit the current
configuration, is that right? Or should I (re)shim or shave
the wedge to accomodate some standard blade thickness?
5) It's hard to tell, but it doesn't seem quite like the upper
wedge bears fully toward the front of the blade. That is, the
wedge may be tighter near the back of the blade than at the
front. I should guarantee that it bears most near the front
of the blade somehow, right?
It seems like a nice plane, and I'm really looking forward to
having it be fully usable, so thanks in advance for your help.
-Tom