Old Record/Stanley Plane Casting Flaws?

[ndbrown]

Probably not a revelation to most on this forum but have only relatively recently discovered the joys of a well tuned hand plane. On a high from getting good results from an old Stanley No 4, I proceeded to acquire some other examples from Record and Stanley. Most were either early 60's or pre 40's examples of these.
My most recent purchase was an old No 4 1/2 Record from e-bay. Did not pay a lot (thankfully) but on closer examination before stripping it for tuning, I discovered a small hairline crack from one of the corners of the mouth on the opposite side to where the frog seats (basically on the bottom of the plane).
Buyer beware - I guess you take this risk buying on e-bay, its a very small crack in the casting. Putting the whole thing down to experience, I was having a look at some of my other planes (some bought recently and others have been passed down from my father), ALL but one had hairline cracks in the same place. Some had it on the opposite side but both pre and post war Stanley and Records I have show this.
Question, have I just been unlucky or is this common?

[dunbarhamlin]

If it's a good plane otherwise, may be able to arrest it by drilling a small hole through the casting at the growth end of the crack.
Steve

[paulchapman]

Hi, welcome to the forum

Don't know how common the problem is, but it's probably resulted from someone dropping the planes, or otherwise knocking them about, at some time. Could always keep them for spare parts.

Cheers

Paul

[mrgrimsdale]

Probably been dropped. My old Stanley and Records are OK. If really bad you can get them brazed up.
cheers
Jacob

[ndbrown]

Thanks for the replies so far, these cracks are very small in length 4 to 7mm and width (hairline) and I was interested to know if this was a widespread issue and anybody else had noticed them. They can look like minor scoring!
I am fairly used to looking for this type of defect in my day job as we sometimes come across this type of faults from our own aluminium foundry at dye penetrant flaw detection (and reject them of course).
Does not stop the planes working, who knows, maybe they have been there for years anyway.

[andy king]

ndbrown said:

Does not stop the planes working, who knows, maybe they have been there for years anyway.

And that's the most important thing! Any tool I get I always give the benefit of the doubt and actually use it to see if it works. It's only when it doesn't do the job that i'll have a fiddle about with it.
Quite why anyone would want to spends weeks on end flattening a plane sole to within a thousandth of an inch of its life always strikes me as odd! Changes in atmosphere will alter a planed surface by that much...
I don't suppose the old craftsmen with their wooden planes paid too much attention to whether their planes were within engineering tolerances, and we have some fabulous antiques in the world that show off the skills of these people.
It's sometimes down to the skill of the tool driver rather than the tools being used...

Andy

[Scrit]

I agree, probably dropped. Much older planes (i.e. pre-1900 Stanleys, Sargents, etc) seem to have thinner castings which are much more prone to cracking and breakage and they can also get chipped mouths, too

Scrit