Customer Reviews

Stanley 12-204 No 4 Smoothing Bench Plane

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is definitely not the Stanley of old. Do yourself a favor and search a popular online auction site and buy a vintage plane, you will not regret it. I received one of these for a gift, and believe me, it's the gift that keeps on giving (...) Even low end vintage planes perform better than this one. Cheap hardware, plastic handles... (...)

I recently purchased this model, and within 2 hours while was also grilling chicken, I had this set up and functioning ideally. I found the sole not flat, but that is common in Stanley planes dating back to the 60's. The casting process introductes internal stresses that change over the early life of a casting, the green phase. For this reason many old engine block manufactures let their casting "season" for a period of time outside before they send them out for machining to ensure dimmensional accuracy. Planes are no different. It seems that they are a little green when they are machined, probably due to trying to cut down on inventory I would guess. It is possible at this time, that the casting may still be green and may need a second flattening later.

I digress, I had mine flat with about an hours worth of work. Lots of methods exist, I used my table saw top with some spray adhesive on the back of successive grits of sandpaper...I didn't have glass handy. Tip: Get good sandpaper for the task, it will make your job a whole lot easier. They come with a 25 deg. bevel on the cutting iron, and state in the instructions to hone this to 30 degrees. This took minimal time. I rounded the corners, as I am going to use it for smoothing. The frog was close, but again with carefull use of a file, and some jigging on my workbench, I had this flat and making great contact in little time. Wisp thin continuous ribbon cutting is possible and not all that difficult to achieve.

I needed a tool, not a peice of artwork for my shop and this is going to work perfectly for my tasks. If anyone without experience were to go pick it up and try to take off mill marks from my jointer, they would find it up for the task.

Great value for the dollar, and if you educate yourself on how to properly set it up for your use, and have some basic skills with a file and sandpaper you will find this tool very well suited for your use.

If you ware looking for an heirloom and one tuned perfectly from the manufacture, this may not be what you are looking for. The value of that added cost was not there in the high end planes in my opinion.

This is a very cheap product. One of my most regretable purchases. Not even good for on site rough work.

I was disappointed with the adjustment knob. It is made of rubber and very hard to turn. The directions that came with the plane were very poor and almost useless.