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I’m loving my experiences so far with traditional woodworking. I’ve been patiently building my collection of necessary tools to get things going. Unfortunately, I’ve run into a bit of a challenge. I can’t seem to set up my planes correctly. I’ve spent hours watching videos on how to set my blade and cap iron but I keep hitting the same dilemma. Once I clamp down the blade, it won’t budge when I try to make the small adjustments necessary to get a clean and even shave. I’ve tried tightening and loosening the screw but I can’t find the middle ground for the lever cap. Either it’s tight enough that the blade won’t budge or loose enough that the blade moves once I start planing. I should also add that these are all older stanley planes that I restored myself. They look beautiful now but the performance is lacking. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
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Are you saying tat the iron is not ajsting in and out of the work or the lateral adjustment is not working or both. if one or the other I would check that system to make sure it is oiled and working. if both you might have grit or some other interference between the frog and Iron. if so a quick flattening of the Frog and a bit of 3 in 1 might fix it. do you have any pictures?
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I would suggest you try the following: With everything assembled and locked down, and the blade backed into the plane just enough to keep it from cutting, back the lever cap screw out to the point that everything is obviously loose. Tighten the screw down to the point that the lever snaps down firm but finger tight. check the lateral adjuster and the depth adjuster to see that they are firm but not difficult to adjust. Keep in mind that the depth adjuster will normally have some slack (lash) between pushing the blade in and out. You want to keep the depth adjustment knob placing pressure against the blade as if you were advancing the blade out. If you need to retract the blade, adjust it back and then turn the adjuster as if to push the blade back out. The pressure of the adjuster mechanism against the blade should keep it from backing out if the blade is sharp and the depth of cut is reasonable. If all else fails find an experienced woodworker locally to go over this with you. It shouldn’t be a difficult thing to get the hang of. Just continue to play with it and you will have it in no time.
Have fun.
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Leave it a little tight and make small lateral adjustments with a very light hammer. You will find that it works better on small adjustments.
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