Gentle Galoots,

 I want to thank you all for many good and valuable comments on the subject.
Guess I switch from my one step method of cleaning/oiling/waxing to a more
cautious process of 
- gentle cleaning
- looking at the result and
- applying some paste wax if needed

 This leads to another question. Most people seem to clean their planes with
mineral spirits. Because of the smell and the possible health hazards I
wanted to avoid this and tried cleaning a plane with just some soapy water,
with good results. Would this be also an accepted method or should I stay
away with water from a woodie?

 In order to preserve your valuable comments for posterity or maybe a fellow
galoot with the same problem I compiled your messages into a webpage:
http://www.holzwerken.de/plancln.phtml. I hope this is complete as I was
temporarily switched off digest mode and had to get the missing messages
from egroups.

Wolfgang
-- 
'Woodworking with hand tools (in German)': http://www.holzwerken.de