Craftsman Plane Cutter

[rick7938]

One of the hand tools that I inherited from my Dad is a Craftsman plane that looks very similar to the Stanley #4 that my wife just gave me. The big difference is in the cutter or blade. Whereas the Stanley has a single edge cutter, the Craftsman has a removeable cutter edge that can be rotated 90 degrees and expose 4 different cutting edges. It appears that this was one of Craftsman's better ideas that would allow the owner to dispose of the cutter and replace the blade when all edges were dull rather than sharpen the cutter.

My question: The cutter and chipper off my new Stanley #4 fits the Craftsman perfectly even though the Craftsman is probably 40 years old. Would I be be better off buying a new cutter and chipper from Stanley for the Craftsman or just sharpen the removeable cutter? I don't know if the removeable design will be as solid as the single cutter.

Has anyone ever seen a plane like this? Does it plane as well as those with single-edge cutters?

Thanks for any feedback.

 

[Steve D]

There are a lot of people more qualified to answer this than me and I'm sure they will add their thoughts. IMHO, I would probably think about getting a blade and chip breaker from Hock instead of Stanley.

 

[mbb]

That may be one of the old disposable blade planes, in which case the blade isn't meant to be sharpened. Can you provide a picture?