Stanley No. 5 Jack Plane

Here is an older Stanley No. 5 Jack plane I picked up at a flea market last fall. I think I paid about 20-25.00 for it. When planing rough stock it's typically the first to be used and is designed to quickly remove material from the board surface by running it across the grain.






Recently I purchased the Handplane Basics DVD by Christopher Schwarz which really help demystify bench planes and their different functions.  It also opened my eyes on how to properly sharpen hand tools - especially hand planes. I'll be writing a review on the DVD and the book Handplane Essentials in the near future.

It was pretty rusty and took some time to clean it up and tune it up. I used progressively finer grits of sand paper spray-glued to my table saw table top to flatten the sole. Per the recommendations in the in the book and on the DVD I ground the plane iron (blade) down to an 8" radius and did final sharpening and honing on a set of water stones I bought a couple of weeks ago.

I've included some more photos of the plane after testing the newly sharpened iron on some of the oak barn wood I brought home last weekend.