This morning the mailman left a small box of rust on my doorstep. It turned out to be a rare but VERY rusted Stanley #140 skew rabbet block plane.
As you can see, it is heavily rusted. I am hopeful because there is good japan finish under part of that rust and I think the plane looks much worse than it is. Even so, I will go carefully with the disassembly.
The lever cap came off with a little coaxing and revealed shavings left there by the previous owner.
I removed the blade and found more shavings.
The casting is in pretty good shape.
Working on these old tools is fascinating to me. I like to speculate about the previous owner. In this case, the PO seemed to be in a hurry and did not have time to clean his tool after use. I wonder why? The plane does not show abuse except from poor storage. PO seemed to be a careful sort but somehow things got away from him. Perhaps old age or illness prevented him from using this plane again. Those answers are lost to time, I am afraid. There are more pressing problems here in the present. I needed Liquid Wrench to remove the blade keeper screw and the front sideplate screw. BUT the rear sideplate screw did not want to give it up.
Stanley screws. Ah, dear Stanley. The company used oddball threads on many of its handplanes. Often they are very fine. These sideplate screws are no exception. They are fine and have a large knurled head. Sideplates are often missing from these planes and the sideplate screws are as rare as hen’s teeth. And these rare screws with their fine threads are easy to overtorque and break. I MUST save this screw. I think rehabbing hundreds of Stanley planes has given me a great screw education and an opportunity to try many approaches. My greatest success is the result of patience. A couple of squirts of LW and a few days of rest do wonders to reluctant screws. If the first few squirts don’t work, I resort to tapping with a hammer. Every shop session begins with a squirt and a tap. Then I carefully apply the correct sized screwdriver and torque the screw in both directions. Often this happens with the plane in a vise.
Sometimes this squirting and tapping goes on for days. Sometimes I supplement it with a sunshine treatment. After a week or so, I might hit it with the torch. But for now, this screw is holding up everything. Will it give up? Or will it be stubborn? Stay tuned for the outcome.