One of the interesting items in my collection is the Stanley No. 70 Box Scraper. I suppose that technically, this is not a plane. They were designed to scrape the markings from the wooden shipping boxes.
Description of the No. 70
The Stanley No. 70 box scraper features a small hinged head with a 51mm (2-inch) wide scraper blade, all controlled by a long hardwood handle.
The hinged head means that it can be pulled or pushed.
The base of the Stanley No. 70 scraper is slightly convex, and the scraper blade mirrors this curvature.
These were made from 1898 through to 1958. There were basically 2 variations (differing mainly with the wood used for the handle)
The 2nd variation (of which I believe mine is one of) has the following specifications.
Body: cast iron
Lever cap: cast iron
Scraper Blade: steel
Handle: selected hardwood with lacquered finish / grey hardwood
Ferrule: steel
Plane finish: black
Overall Length: 13 inch
Production dates: 1935-1958
A Few Comments About My No. 70
The handle of mine has been painted. As a result, I’m unsure of the timber used for the handle.
The body has also been painted.
The blade is from Stanley Canada. I have been unable to find out if the No. 70 was ever made in Canada. The blade may be a replacement.
Adding to the thought that the blade is a replacement is that it is not ground to a convex shape. This means that the edges of the blade protrude more than the centre and it would tend to dig in when used.
What Use is the No. 70
This tool was used to scrape off markings from wooden shipping boxes. Back when the tool was produced, these were the most common packaging method. By using this tool, the owner could remove the previous shipper’s markings and reuse the box.
I can remember wooden fruit boxes with their producers labels. The No. 70 would probably have made short work of scraping off those labels and allowing a different producer to reuse the box.
However these days carboard and foam boxes do not lend themselves to such reuse.
More current uses may be to remove marks such as pencil marks and removing any knotty unevenness. I have also seen comments about using it to remove excess glue after gluing boards together.
Hans Brunner also comments that it was used by Coopers who knew it as a ‘monkey’.