Chris,

St. James Bay Tool Co. makes many reproduction parts for the Stanley 55.

http://www.stjamesbaytoolco.com/

He also sells on eBay, which can be very convenient.

I bought #55 cross-grain spurs from him years ago, and was completely satisfied
with the quality.

Sometimes all that’s needed for a light frosting of rust on a cutter is a dark
purple Scotchbrite (Tm) pad.

Keep us posted. And don’t forget what Ed wrote: a #55 is not as easy to use as
the woodie moulding planes it’s alleged to replace!

( See! I just took him up to the top of the slippery slope of the moulding plane
trail, which is rated “four diamonds!”)

John Ruth


Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 20, 2020, at 5:40 AM, Christian Gagneraud mailto:chgans@g...">mailto:chgans@g...>> wrote:

Hi Guys,

I just bought an old Stanley #55:
https://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=2466673636

Description:
In original wooden box (Label is 40/50% gone), it comes with the
manual, the 4 boxes of cutters (Labels are in good condition).
The lid of the box is split. But i cannot see any borer damage anywhere.

It's missing 15 cutters (out of the 45), and the "2 that comes with
the plane", 2 cutters are butchered^W modified.
I went through the "Parts of a '55' plane" drawing, and i'm only
missing 2 washers, 2 screws for attaching the bottom part of beading
gauge, and one side spur. As well i have a flat head screw in place of
the slitting cutter thumb screw.
Not too bad!

There's not much rust on the plane, and where there is, it is light
surface rust!
Some cutters have rust, but on the end that attach to the screw.
The original nickel plating is still there, and is missing on the most
used parts (thumb screws and some moving parts)

Dating:
The main body has patents: SEP  19 93 and JAN 22 05, all clearly visible.
The manual has "Copyright 1914", and there's a flying ads with "From
68 - 12-23-09 - 2m" in the header (I'm assuming 23rd of Dec 1909).
I found another manual online, and it has "Copyright 1921", So it
seems that this plane dates from 1914-1920.
The number of cutters would indicate pre-1921 (as per
http://www.supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan8.htm)

Restoring:
Honestly, the plane itself is in very good condition, so i don't think
i will risk anything, i'll start with a simple brush, and try not to
go further except for the rusty points.
Cutters should only require a bit of fine sanding.

But now concerning the main box and the cutter boxes, i'm not sure
what i should do. I would like to protect the parts which have paper
labels. Never done something like that in the past.
The manual has no missing parts, but has definitely the old looking,
yellow traces all around and rust around the staples.
I wonder if i should seal it completely, it's summer time here, that
might help, tho Auckland is quite humid, so i will certainly seal the
ambient humidity...

Any tips, advice's, or references are welcome.

Thanks for reading!

Chris
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