Hi John,

Thanks for the info.  I had not seen that page.

Appears you jumped ahead a little in your conclusion regarding the fence 
adjustment.  The fine thread and turned nuts only hold the fence arms in 
place.  The arms are simply smooth bars on which to slide the fence. 
See again these two:
http://billwebber.galootcentral.com/2.JPG
http://billwebber.galootcentral.com/5.JPG

As a progress update, if what I've done can be called progress, I have 
reduced the current value of the plane to near zero.  :-)  The most 
difficult part of the rehab effort would be to make a new handle. The 
handle is shaped to fit inside the brass frame and it looks like 
terribly finicky work to make a new one.  To find out what is really 
going on I removed the skate to get access to a single screw (I hope) 
that holds the handle to the brass.  As luck would have it, the screw 
broke when trying to extract it.  Today I'll focus on removing the 
broken screw and removing the handle.

Regards,

Bill W.
Nottingham, PA
Woodworkers visit me at http://billwebber.galootcentral.com/