Hand Planer

[Munroast]

I was given today a hand plane who's depth adjuster was thought to have seized, after a few minutes puzzling I realised it was a left hand thread, so it wasn't seized at all it hand simply been over tightened.

I don't have a great experiace of planes, however my own plane that I have had for 30+ years is a RH thread and the few other planes I checked in the workshop are also all RH thread.

Is a LH thread unusual and what would be the reason for a LH thread - the Plane was a Stanley!

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Stanley used to use LH threads - in fact Stanley made their own (non-standard) taps and dies for years. I think they changed to RH threads in the late 1920s or early 1930s, although I'd have to look that up. Is the adjustment nut significantly smaller than one on a newer Record or Stanley plane?

 

[Munroast]

Stanley used to use LH threads - in fact Stanley made their own (non-standard) taps and dies for years. I think they changed to RH threads in the late 1920s or early 1930s, although I'd have to look that up. Is the adjustment nut significantly smaller than one on a newer Record or Stanley plane?

No, it was a pig plastic wheel thing, clearly not 100 year old. They thought it was stuck and were trying to get it to turn with a pair of pliers and have now pretty much destroyed the wheel. they thought it was jammed but of course they were tightening it!, I could see it was LH thread and got it off. they then decided the stud was in the wrong way round and were going to take it out and put it back in - at that point I gave up and left them to it, I couldn't be bothered with the fückwittery any longer

I am in later tonight, and if it is still about I will have another look at it to see if it looks like a 1920s plane.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

No, it was a pig plastic wheel thing, clearly not 100 year old. They thought it was stuck and were trying to get it to turn with a pair of pliers and have now pretty much destroyed the wheel. they thought it was jammed but of course they were tightening it!, I could see it was LH thread and got it off. they then decided the stud was in the wrong way round and were going to take it out and put it back in - at that point I gave up and left them to it, I couldn't be bothered with the fückwittery any longer

I am in later tonight, and if it is still about I will have another look at it to see if it looks like a 1920s plane.

The Stanley "Handyman" planes (often dark brown painted casting) have/had plastic adjuster nuts and frankly are just junk. Same goes for the Marples (pre-Record take-over) equivalents like the "Dronfield". Does your plane have plastic handles, or wooden ones? Is there a brand name cast into the lever cap? (and for that matter is it a cam type lever cap instead one of those gawdawful screw locking types that those cheapskates at Irwin imposed on Record tools?)

There were some WWII period American Stanley planes with hard rubber adjuster nuts (on a brass centre boss, which are often blackened with age) that look like plastic at first glance. I have a couple of those, but I can't recall if they are threaded the "wrong" way or not. Maybe I'll check next week when I'm down at the lock-up.

If it's a modern, cheap Chinese copy, as is possible, then it's probably just another door stop.

 

[Munroast]

indeed it is a Stanley Handyman, and it is definitely a plastic LH thread wheel.

But anyways, back to my original question, what is/was the reason for a LH thread ? not that I would ever be using this plane (i have my own sharp one) but it would be a nightmare to use as I would always be turning the wheel the wrong way.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

TBH I haven't a clue. Maybe Stanley picked up a surplus batch of plastic knobs for a pittance, who knows? Either way not a good basis for a tune-up (partly the horrible, undersized plastic adjuster, partly the lack of frog adjuster screws on most of these, partly the crappy plastic knob and handle most of them have). If it were heavy enough ut might be useful as a boat anchor, but even there it fails