Mike S. wrote:
We went to a auction this evening and among other things I won the bid on a
Stanley/Bailey plane.
It seems to be in decent shape, except the blade which looks like they tried
to plane nails with it. The base has some rust but not to bad. On the front
of it below the knob it says Bailey # 4. Hoping someone can suggest where to
get a replacement blade and info or a link to a site that would explain what
the different # of planes are used for.
Thanks, Mike


This isn't really answering your question, but here's a couple of links I
found useful when I first started acquiring planes.

http://www.woodcentral.com/bparticles/pdatechart.pdf
http://users.ev1.net/~gmuster/TypeStudy/stanno4bptypestudy.htm
http://www.supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan1.htm#num4

-John