I’m going to guess that no one was wondering what was in the box. If you’ve been reading along, a little while back, by chance, site member, coolford, introduced a hard board/Masonite plane into the conversation. Well, after that, it’s also no surprise that the line of Stanley fiberboard and hard board planes entered the conversation too. That’s fine with me. As long as we’re talking about hand planes, I don’t care where the thread goes or what type of planes we end up talking about. Anyway, the more we talked about them, the more interested I got in trying to find out a little bit more about these specialty planes. What I knew going in was that they existed, and they’re mostly obsolete in terms of the material they were designed to cut. That was about it. I’ve seen them at auctions and tool meets, usually missing parts, and can’t think of a time I even bothered to pick one up to simply look at it. Maybe because I knew there was no real use for it anymore. I don't know. Needless to say, I didn’t have any of the Stanleys in my collection. Doing a little online research, I also learned that it’s sinful (or at least shameful) to admit owning one. Not caring what the naysayers may think and for purposes of enhancing my collection and basic hand plane knowledge ……. I bought one anyway!! In a later post, I’ll get more into the actual parts that were included with the plane (there are several) and details regarding the Stanley #193. For now, I just wanted to figure out how to use it and experiment with it.
Once I got the plane unpacked, I had to figure out how to use it. Fortunately I found an owner’s manual online. It was detailed enough to walk me through the basics. Next, I had to find some fiberboard. I went to my local Home Depot sort of thinking I was wasting my time. I was correct in my assumption. Who stocks fiberboard anymore? After looking around a little, I came home with a 24” x 24” x 1” piece of Owens Corning pink insulation board. Okay, I have a plane; I have some material; time to give it a try!
The Stanley #193 was designed to cut various decorative designs and assembly joints on fiberboard. Stanley referred to the assembly joints as “shiplap.” I’d call them overlapping rabbet joints. With the correct accessory and blades mounted in the plane, it was capable of producing “V” grooves, shiplap (rabbets), slits, and through-and-through vertical cuts in 1/2” thick fiberboard. With the fence attached to either side of the plane via two rods that screw into the casting, the working range, or width of cut from the sides of the plane, is about six inches. Anything wider, say one wanted to cut twelve inches from one side of the work piece, would require the use of a straightedge. Like I said earlier, this plane was equipped with several accessories that either mounted to the plane via a “slide casting” and the extension rods (mentioned above), or directly onto the main plane body casting. In some instances, several of the accessories were necessary to perform one function. The other thing I noticed about this plane is that it was capable of employing cutters that could be re-sharpened or disposable razor type blades to make the same type of cuts. That created a lot of accessories and blades to keep track of. If you have any desire to own one of these planes, once again, like I’ve said so many times before, do your homework and know what you’re looking at. Unless you’re really a hardcore collector, there’s probably no reason to have this plane. Still, if you really like “contraptionism,” then this plane delivers big time!
In an effort to demonstrate the plane in action, I decided to try cutting a V groove in the pink insulation board. If you look at the second photo below, you’ll see both blade options available for cutting a V groove. The accessory on the left holds the blades that can be re-sharpened, while the accessory on the right holds the disposable razor blades. Since the re-usable blades were dull, and I didn’t want to take the time to put a cutting edge on them, I opted for the razor blades. Take a look at the third photo. There you can sort of imagine how the razor blade accessory (clamping mechanism) mounts onto the main plane body casting. Once mounted and tightened down, it’s very secure. Also notice there’s a set screw with a knurled nut on the back arm of the blade-clamping accessory. That allows the user to adjust and hold true the depth of cut. The fourth photo depicts the clamping mechanism attached to the plane with the cutting portions of the razor blades protruding though the sole of the plane. Take note that the tips of the blades slightly overlap. That will produce a nicely “pointed V” at the bottom of the groove in the work piece.
Okay, now for the fence assembly. With the threaded rods screwed to the sides of the plane, a fence accessory can be attached. Although there are a few different accessories that can be used as guides, or cutters (shiplap) on the side of the plane, nothing can be mounted to those threaded rods without the slide casting. That part is really important! It’s the only part with holes that will slide over those rods. It can be set at any distance from the side of the plane and is held in place with thumbscrews. All other accessories intended to operate from the side of the plane MUST be attached to that slide casting first, again via thumbscrews. Like I said, it’s definitely a contraption! Once the cutters are mounted in the clamping accessory and it’s attached to the main body of the plane, and the fence and slide are mated and on the rods, you’re ready to make a cut. (See the sixth photo below.)
Off we go! The plane cut surprisingly well. What I did notice was that if I stopped (to take a picture in this instance) the cut before reaching the other end of the work piece and then started pushing the plane again, it tore chunks out of the sides of the V groove instead slicing though it cleanly. Now I don’t know if fiberboard would react the same way or not, but pink insulation board needs to be cut without stopping.
With my first groove cut, I decided to make a couple more evenly spaced parallel grooves. That required the use of a “V” shaped guide that needs to be mounted to the side of the plane. You know what that means. The fence must be removed from the slide casting and the V guide needs to be attached to the slide. The V shaped guide will ride in the first groove. Are you getting the hang of this? (See the second set of photos below in the next post.) Can you see how evenly spaced decorative grooves could be cut using this tool? If you really want to get fancy, try making the grooves perpendicular to each other. Like it or not, based on my first experience using a #193, I’d say that it delivers results as advertised ....... for making V grooves at least. It was sort of fun to tinker with too. I think I’ll try the shiplap cut next. Believe it or not, this plane also came with an accessory designed to cut circles in fiberboard.
Jim C.
