Restoring a vintage hand plane

  On a recent trip to North Carolina my wife and I had stopped at an antique store where i found a few decent Stanley Bailey hand planes. For those of you that don't know, a hand plane is a woodworking tool that's been around for a few centuries and is used to flatten and smooth wood.

  I absolutely love these tools. Their design has been virtually unchanged for over a hundred years now. They're aesthetically pleasing, ergonomic, long lasting, and exceptionally good at what they do. All around, it's an amazing tool. So, how could i pass up the opportunity to restore one of these to their original glory?!

It's a pretty simple procedure that anyone can get into with very few tools/equip. Keep in mind that with any tool restoration, you get out of it exactly what you put into it. If you like the look of semi-oxidized metal then you don't have to buff it to a mirror shine; you can make the tool look as "antique" or as new as you want.

*YOU WILL BE USING VARIOUS CHEMICALS DURING THE RESTORATION PROCESS, SO PLEASE MAKE SURE TO FOLLOW ALL OF THE SAFETY PROCEDURES FOUND ON THE PRODUCTS*

WHAT YOU'LL NEED:

materias
scotch brite pads wd-40 steel wool various grits of sandpaper (i went as low as 100 and as high as 2000 wet/dry) evapo rust or krud kutter (you can find this stuff at any lowes/home depot for about $10 a bottle) plenty of rags/paper towels machine oil boiled linseed oil buffing compound (i think i used mother's brand compound i bought at auto zone) tools
screwdrivers drill press would be ideal, but if not a hand held drill works fine (that's all i had) all the elbow grease you can muster

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