No. 85 Cabinet Maker's Scraper Plane

identity

• name: Stanley No. 85 — also No. 85 Cabinet Maker's Scraper Plane (this entry's working name), "Cabinet Maker's Scraper" (Lie-Nielsen's current product name) [N1][N7].
• family / category: Surfacing tools → the SCRAPING branch → the HOLDER sub-branch → the PLANE-BODY (rigid-blade) sub-branch — the same broad mechanism family as the No. 112 Scraper Plane and No. 212 Small Scraping Plane (a blade held rigid rather than bowed like the No. 80 Cabinet Scraper) — but its own distinct branch within it, as the No. 112 entry already flags on an honest-edge basis. This run confirms and sharpens that call: the No. 85 gives up cutting-geometry adjustment entirely (fixed pitch, no bow) in exchange for a tool built around one specific access problem [N9-research; see anatomy].
• one-line: An 8-inch plane body whose blade runs the full width of the sole — like a rabbet plane's iron, not recessed within the casting like its scraper-plane siblings — so it can register flush against a vertical wall (a box interior, a deep rabbet, a fielded panel's edge); its knob and tote each independently tilt sideways to give the user's hand clearance from that same wall.
• not to be confused with: the No. 112 Scraper Plane, which tilts its blade's PITCH (45°–95°, via two brass nuts) but has a fixed, in-line knob-and-tote grip — the mirror image of the No. 85, which fixes its pitch but tilts its GRIP [N10, HIGH]; the No. 212 Small Scraping Plane, the family's small one-handed member, mechanically closer to the No. 112 (same adjustable-pitch mechanism, no tilting handle) than to the No. 85; the No. 80 Cabinet Scraper, mechanically unrelated (thin blade bowed by a center thumbscrew, fixed ~70° pitch, no tilting grip at all).

✦ how NOT to use it

Lightest at DANGEROUS (an inherited manufacturer instruction, no distinct incident found) and heaviest at LINEAGE-MISUSE — the tool's fixed frog makes it the easiest member of this family to set up wrong by assuming it behaves like either sibling.

• not-for:
  • pitch or cutting-angle tuning by frog adjustment — there is none; the frog is fixed (see anatomy).
  • open, flat, fully accessible surfaces — the No. 112's and Veritas Scraping Plane's job, done with a longer sole built for exactly that.
  • curved or concave shaping (chair seats, cabriole legs) — no sourced basis connects this tool to that work.
• dangerous (inherited, not distinct to this tool):
  • Burnisher slip against the upright blade. The identical manufacturer warning already documented word-for-word in the No. 80 and No. 112 entries: "Be very careful not to cut yourself on the upright blade" [N7, HIGH]. No No. 85-specific injury account beyond this manufacturer caution was located.
• damaging:
  • Too aggressive a cut, or too much downward pressure, causing chatter — the same warning language already documented across the whole scraper-plane branch [N7, HIGH].
  • Over-tightening the tilting-handle pivot nuts. Lie-Nielsen's own caution ("being careful not to overtighten") implies risk to the pivot/nut assembly, but no forum account of this actually happening was found this run — a manufacturer-caution-only item, not corroborated by a documented failure.
  • Rob Millard's "nearly useless… blade far too thick" account functions as a documented, named performance-disappointment story — thinner than the paper trail this corpus has for the No. 80's and No. 112's own damaging-class findings (one account, not a converging thread), but real and worth carrying [N10].
• beginner-trap:
  • ★ Assuming this is simply a smaller or plainer version of the No. 112 or No. 212, and expecting to tune its pitch. There is nothing to tune — the frog is fixed. A user reaching for the No. 112's "match the frog angle to the hook by trial" technique on the No. 85 is solving a problem the tool doesn't have and missing the one adjustment (the tilting grip) it does have.
  • The tool's thin paper trail is itself worth naming as a finding, not just an absence. Unlike the No. 80's "Dusty Cabinet" failure story or the No. 112's year-long documented defeat, no rich forum failure-narrative for the No. 85 was found. Plausibly, this reflects the tool's small production run, high collector price, and a fixed-pitch design that removes the single variable (frog-to-hook matching) that most defeats No. 112 owners — this is an inference, not a sourced claim, flagged as such.
• lineage-misuse (the entry's heaviest class):
  • ★ Treating the No. 85 like the No. 112 — assuming an adjustable pitch and trying to match the frog angle to a burnished hook. Wrong; the frog is fixed, and there is no angle to match [N7][N8].
  • ★ Treating the No. 85 like the No. 80 — assuming the blade bows via a center thumbscrew. Wrong; the No. 85's blade is bedded rigidly at a fixed 70° with no bow mechanism at all; the only thumbscrew sets depth, not curvature [N7].
  • Treating it as a general-purpose flat-surface scraper. Its whole design case is corner and vertical-wall access; used on an open, flat panel it does the No. 112's or Veritas Scraping Plane's job with a smaller, pricier, harder-to-source tool and no advantage — inferred directly from the anatomy and the confirmed use-case sourcing, not from a single forum quote naming this exact mistake, flagged as an honest inference rather than a directly sourced incident.

correct use

Brief by design — the workbench holds the deep operation; this is the boundary, not the manual.

• what it's genuinely good at: scraping a clean, tear-out-free finish flush into a corner or against an adjacent vertical wall — a fielded panel's shoulder, a box or cabinet interior corner, the wall of a wide, deep rabbet — where a conventional scraper plane's own body would collide with the obstruction before the blade ever reached it [N5][N7].
• how to use it well (the short version): hone the 45° bevel like a plane iron, with an optional 5° micro-bevel; the frog is fixed, so there is no pitch to tune — set depth by pressing the blade down by hand and retightening the single thumbscrew without over-tightening; tilt the knob and/or handle sideways only as far as needed to clear the adjacent wall, retightening carefully rather than cranking the pivot nuts down hard [N7]. As with the whole scraper-plane branch, too aggressive a cut or too much downward pressure causes chatter. Reed carries the operation as tool-anchored heuristics (see tickets).

✦ matching

The workbench's first read.

• does: scrapes a clean, glassy finish flush against a vertical obstruction — a fielded-panel shoulder, a box or cabinet interior wall, the side of a deep rabbet — using a full-width blade that registers directly on the wall, with a tilting knob and handle that swing clear of the same wall to preserve the user's grip and knuckles [N5][N7].
• suits: raised-panel door edges, cabinet and box interior corners, wide deep rabbets — anywhere a conventional scraper plane's own body geometry can't get the blade flush to a perpendicular surface. Not confirmed for chair seats, cabriole legs, or other curved/concave shaping work — no source located extends the tool that far; the travisher and compass plane are the named tools for that job instead. Held as an honest boundary, not an assumption.
• kit-fit:
  • pairs with: a burnisher and standard sharpening stones for the 45° bevel plus optional 5° micro-bevel — the same prep as its scraper-plane siblings.
  • substitutes for: a hand-held card scraper worked awkwardly into the same corner — removing the hand-fatigue and heat-buildup problem of a bare card while still reaching where a normal scraper-plane body's side casting would collide with the obstruction.
  • cannot replace: the No. 112 Scraper Plane or the Veritas Scraping Plane on large, fully open flat panels or long glue-line leveling — those tools' longer soles are built for that job, and community discussion treats the No. 85 as the narrower specialist of the two ("for something large like a table top, the longer sole of the #112 is better" [N10]). Also not sourced as a substitute for a spokeshave or rasp on shaped, curved stock — those remove material by slicing, a different job entirely.
• not-for (project-keyed):
  • open, flat, fully accessible surfaces where the No. 112 or Veritas Scraping Plane already do the job, per community consensus, more reliably.
  • heavy stock removal — the same finish-only boundary shared across the whole scraper-plane branch.
  • curved or concave shaping (chair seats, cabriole legs) — no sourced basis for this use; reach for a travisher, compass plane, or spokeshave instead.
• access: genuinely thin and mixed — held honestly rather than resolved. James Price, an experienced restorer, reports a clean first success tuning up an antique original ("passed the test with perfection") [N8]; Rob Millard, an experienced named furniture maker, found the modern Lie-Nielsen revival "nearly useless" with a blade "far too thick" and sold it [N10]. Neither account is from a first-time hand-tool user, so this entry cannot honestly report a beginner-specific verdict either way — a real, disclosed gap, not a smoothed-over "it's easy" or "it's hard" claim. What can be said: the tool's fixed frog removes one whole axis of setup difficulty the No. 112 struggles with (there is no pitch to mismatch against a hook), which Lee Laird notes directly ("can be a bit easier to set up") [N5].
• revival: the structural case is that this is currently the only production mechanism that solves "I need a scraped, tear-out-free finish flush into a corner or against a vertical shoulder, and a bare card scraper burns my hand or won't reach, and a normal-bodied scraper plane physically can't get flush to the wall." This is Haft's own structural inference from the anatomy and the confirmed market gap, not a claim any named source made about the No. 85 specifically — flagged honestly, since the equivalent argument IS made directly by named sources for the No. 80 and No. 112 siblings, and this entry should not borrow that sourcing by association.

anatomy

Named parts and specs, drawn from Lie-Nielsen's own current spec language and a directly-fetched restorer's description of the antique mechanism. The single most important anatomical fact: the frog is fixed — this tool adjusts nothing about its own cutting geometry, only its grip.

• body — Ductile Iron (modern LN) / japanned cast iron (antique Stanley). Length 8-⅜" (LN) / ~8" (antique, Leach); width 2"; weight 3 lb (LN) / ~2⅝ lb (antique, Leach). One outlier figure — a UK restorer's site gives body width as "70mm (2¾")," inconsistent with Leach's and Lie-Nielsen's 2" blade-width figure — likely a different measurement point (overall casting vs. blade), unresolved this run, flagged rather than silently reconciled [N1][N4][N7].
• the blade / cutter — full sole width, 2" wide, described as "shaped somewhat like an upside-down T" [N5, HIGH]. Antique original: measured at roughly 1mm thick, tapering from 2" at the cutting edge to 1¼" at the top [N4, HIGH, directly fetched, measured example]. Modern LN blade: A2 tool steel, ⅛" (0.125") thick, cryogenically treated, double-tempered, ground and honed with a 45° bevel, held in the tool at 70° with the bevel facing away from the front knob [N7, HIGH]. Hardness spec discrepancy in Lie-Nielsen's own documentation, reported honestly rather than resolved: a 2011 instruction manual states Rc 50–55; the current product page states Rc 60–62 — plausibly a genuine manufacturing change over roughly 15 years, not an error, but not confirmed either way this run.
• ★ the frog is FIXED — no pitch adjustment at all. Lie-Nielsen's own current copy, via a UK dealer's directly-fetched mirrored spec: "bronze non-adjustable frog." On the antique, a directly-fetched restorer's account describes a minor exception worth reporting precisely rather than flattened: "The rear frog screw is used to adjust the angle of the scraper blade, but not lots" [N8, HIGH, directly fetched] — a small, bounded adjustment on the original tool that the modern revival appears to have simplified away entirely. Either way, this is a materially different mechanism from both siblings: no bow (unlike the No. 80's center thumbscrew flexing a thin blade) and no pitch-tilt (unlike the No. 112's and No. 212's two-brass-nut adjustable frog, 45°–95°). The No. 85 gives up both forms of cutting-geometry adjustment the family otherwise offers.
• cap — Manganese Bronze (modern LN); japanned cast iron with a thumbscrew-activated cap (antique), rather than a cammed bench-plane-style lever cap.
• depth-of-cut setting — the same family gesture as the No. 80 and No. 112: lay the sole flat, loosen the single depth thumbscrew, press the blade down with a thumb, retighten; fine-tune with a paper shim under the toe or a light tap on the blade's top edge.
• ★ the tilting knob and handle — the tool's one unique mechanism. Loosen the nut atop the knob or the handle, tilt it left or right, retighten "being careful not to overtighten"; lubricate the pivot bar occasionally [N7, HIGH]. This is the US 787,054 mechanism (see history), and it is the only adjustable geometry anywhere on the tool.
• markings on an original (directly-fetched, measured example): "Stanley No 85" (top face, front, between knob and mouth); "US PAT, 4-11-05" (top face, rear, between frog and handle) — matching the verified DATAMP patent-grant date exactly; "Stanley, New Britain, Conn, USA" (on the knurled cap screw) [N4, HIGH].

variations (living)

Prices and stock status confirmed live during this research pass, 2026-07-26.

• Lie-Nielsen Cabinet Maker's Scraper — $275, ductile iron, 3 lb, 8-⅜"×2", manganese bronze cap and frog, A2 steel blade (⅛" thick, Rc 60–62), currently listed out of stock, with the manufacturer's own note: "After a long hiatus, we have begun production on these plane[s] in small batches. If you are interested in ordering one, please sign up to be notified by email when they are available" [N7, HIGH, directly fetched] — the same "temporarily out of production" pattern already logged for the No. 112.
• Replacement blade — item 1-BL-85, $65, A2 tool steel, ⅛" thick, sold separately [N7, HIGH].
• UK: Classic Hand Tools — £319 inc. VAT, listed "coming soon"/out of stock at time of research [N14, HIGH, directly fetched].
• US: Highland Woodworking — carries the replacement blade (standard and a 25-tpi toothed variant); a listing for the complete tool was also found but current in-stock status could not be independently confirmed this run [N16, MEDIUM — unconfirmed stock status].
• Woodcraft and Rockler do not carry the No. 85 or any tilting-handle equivalent — a confirmed, sourced retail gap; the tilting-handle form factor lives only at Lie-Nielsen direct plus a thin network of specialist hand-tool dealers, not at mainstream big-box specialty retailers [N15][N16].
• Antique Stanley originals — a genuine collector market, no cheap-user-tool path. Unlike the No. 80 (cheap and everywhere, $10–$45 used per that entry's own findings), the No. 85 trades as a collector piece: a directly-fetched Sawmill Creek auction-results thread (2018) records sales at $270 and $300, with a labeled example expected to bring more and a poster reporting a ~2013 sale at $385 in lesser condition [N13, HIGH, directly fetched]. A separate, more recent aggregation (not independently fetched this run, held at lower confidence) puts one sale as high as $895, with an average dealer price band of $600–$1,000 — a notably higher figure than the 2018 forum results, presented as an honest spread rather than adjudicated [N12, LOW-MEDIUM — search-synthesis only]. By contrast, a used modern Lie-Nielsen example was found listed at $200 — below the tool's own $275 new price, matching the pattern already logged for the No. 80/No. 112/No. 212 revivals trading near or below retail secondhand while genuine antique originals appreciate as collectibles [N11, MEDIUM].

trades

• Cabinetmaking / fine furniture — corner and vertical-surface work specifically — raised-panel door edges, box and cabinet interior corners, deep rabbets [N5][N7][N8].
• No confirmed connection to chairmaking, lutherie, or curved/concave shaping — an honest boundary, not a gap in searching; the sourced trade record for this specific tool is narrower than its siblings'.

lineage

• ancestors:
  • The Stanley No. 10¼ carriage-maker's rabbet plane — shares the No. 85's defining tilting-handle patent (US 787,054, below) and, per one retailer's own framing, may have contributed design elements to the No. 85 alongside the No. 112 [N2, MEDIUM — single-sourced, not independently corroborated this run; possibly a mix-up with the closely-numbered No. 10½, flagged rather than silently resolved]. The rabbet-plane lineage is also visible in the No. 85's own full-width, edge-registering blade — a rabbet plane's iron runs the sole's full width for exactly the same reason (to cut flush into a corner), and the No. 85 borrows that geometry for a scraping edge instead of a slicing one.
  • The Bailey/Stanley scraper-plane line generally — the No. 85 is a contemporary of the No. 112 (introduced 1885) rather than a direct descendant of it; both belong to Stanley's broader early-1900s push to put scraper mechanisms into rigid plane bodies, but the No. 85 does not share the No. 112's adjustable-pitch, two-brass-nut mechanism at all [N10, HIGH; N9-research].
• contemporaries (siblings):
  • The No. 112 Scraper Plane — the mirror-image tool in the family: adjustable blade pitch (45°–95°), fixed in-line grip. The No. 85 is the inverse: fixed blade pitch, adjustable (tilting) grip [N10, HIGH].
  • The No. 212 Small Scraping Plane — mechanically the No. 112's small relative (same adjustable-pitch mechanism, no bow, no tilting handle), not the No. 85's. The two entries share a family resemblance in name and era only.
  • The No. 80 Cabinet Scraper — the branch's other holder, mechanically opposite in every respect (bowed thin blade, fixed pitch, no tilting grip).
  • The Stanley No. 87 — a same-numbered-family, shorter-lived sibling: Patrick Leach's own type-study data (recovered via a machine-readable mirror of his Blood & Gore index, since the primary page itself is JS-gated against automated fetch) lists an "#87 Cabinet maker's scraper plane, 8"L, 2"W, 2½lbs, 1905–1917" — same footprint as the No. 85, but a shorter 12-year production run, with no rabbet mouth or tilting handles per collector commentary [N3, LOW-MEDIUM — the No. 87's exact relationship to the No. 85 rests on AI-search-summarized dealer commentary not independently fetched this run; flagged as a genuine sibling worth a future one-line note, not yet solidly enough sourced for more]. Held here as an honest lead, not a settled claim.
• descendants:
  • The Lie-Nielsen Cabinet Maker's Scraper (current, item 1-85, $275) — a faithful revival, confirmed directly by the manufacturer's own product copy: "This elegant Scraping Plane, comfortably sized between our large and small Scraping Planes, is based on the Stanley No. 85." And, on why it exists: "Stanley's No. 85 Cabinet Maker's Scraper plane is a much sought after collectible, commanding high prices. Consequently, until now, few people had the opportunity to own one to use." [N7, HIGH, directly fetched] — the identical revival logic already documented for the No. 112 and No. 212 in this corpus, now confirmed a third time for the same product family.
  • No other current maker offers a tilting-handle scraper plane. Veritas/Lee Valley's current "Veritas Scraping Plane" (item 05P2901, $245, directly fetched) has an adjustable frog (0°–25°) and a bow-thumbscrew blade — structurally in the No. 112/No. 80-hybrid lineage this corpus's No. 112 entry already names as a "re-convergence," not the No. 85's lineage at all: its knob and tote are fixed in-line, with no tilting mechanism [N15, HIGH, directly fetched]. WoodRiver's "#80 Cabinet Scraper" (via Woodcraft) is a bare-card holder, the No. 80's lineage entirely. This appears to be a genuine, sourced market gap — as far as this run's research could confirm, Lie-Nielsen's revival is currently the only tilting-handle scraper-plane mechanism in production.

history

Petroski lens — "form follows failure," with a genuine wrinkle: the No. 85's own defining feature exists to fix a failure the tool's OWN design creates, not one inherited from an ancestor.

• Introduced 1905, discontinued 1934 or 1935 — a real, honestly unreconciled one-year discrepancy. Patrick Leach's own type-study data (recovered via a machine-readable mirror of Blood & Gore, since the primary descriptive page is JS-gated and could not be fetched directly this run — see provenance) gives 1905–1934; Lie-Nielsen's own product page, Handplane Central, and findmytool.co.uk all independently state 1905–1935. Held side by side rather than adjudicated — the same shape of gap the No. 112 Scraper Plane entry already carries for its own 1884-vs-1885 start date [N1][N2][N4][N7].
• ★ The problem the tool solves is one its own design creates — a genuinely different shape of "form follows failure" than this corpus has documented before. A conventional scraper plane's body sits recessed from the blade's cutting edge on both sides, so the tool can never register flush against a wall perpendicular to the surface being worked — that's the No. 112's and No. 80's shared limitation. The No. 85 fixes this by running its blade the full width of the sole, "like an upside-down T" in cross-section [N5, HIGH], so the edge sits flush with the body's own edge and can ride directly against a fielded panel's shoulder, a rabbet's wall, or a box's interior corner. But that same full-width blade puts the user's knuckles hard against the very obstruction the tool is now flush against. The tilting knob and handle exist to solve the problem the full-width blade just created, not a problem inherited from an earlier tool — a self-contained, two-step design logic this corpus has not documented in quite this shape before. Both Lie-Nielsen's own product copy and an independent named practitioner confirm the pairing directly: "The blade extends the full width of the base and allows you to work right into a corner, such as a fielded panel. The tilting knob and handle offer clearance for your knuckles when scraping inside a box or on a wide, deep rabbet" [N7, HIGH, directly fetched]; Lee Laird (Lie-Nielsen show-staff demonstrator, writing independently for Highland Woodworking's blog): "this plane has a full width iron, so it can work against an adjacent vertical surface. Another unique feature, which dovetails with the first, is the handle adjustability" [N5, HIGH].
• ★ The mechanism that defines the tool's identity is not a scraper invention at all. The single patent behind the No. 85's tilting knob and handle — US 787,054, "Tilting Tote and Knob," granted April 11, 1905, to Albert F. Schade and Edmund A. Schade, assigned to Stanley Rule & Level Co. — is catalogued by DATAMP under "plane handles," not scrapers, and DATAMP's own description states plainly: "Tilting tote and knob used on Stanley #10¼ and #85 planes" [N6, HIGH, directly fetched]. The mechanism Stanley used to solve the No. 85's own clearance problem is a generic plane-handle fixture it had already applied (or applied concurrently) to a rabbet plane. This is a different shape of "the patent doesn't match the tool's identity" than either sibling entry found — not a wrong invention misattributed, but the tool's whole defining feature turning out to be a repurposed part from an unrelated tool category.
• A possible combined origin, thinly sourced. One retailer states the No. 85 "combined elements of the Stanley 10½ plane and the Stanley 112 scraper plane" [N2, MEDIUM — single-sourced, not independently corroborated; possibly a 10¼/10½ mix-up given the shared patent is confirmed with the No. 10¼, not the 10½]. Reported as a claim worth carrying, not a settled fact.

✦ human side

The thinnest human-side record of any entry in this family so far — a real, honestly reported gap, not a search failure.

• traditions & trades:
  • Fine cabinetmaking, on corner and vertical-surface work specifically — fielded panels, box and cabinet interiors, deep rabbets — confirmed independently by both the manufacturer and a named practitioner (see history) [N5][N7].
  • No sourced connection to chairmaking, cabriole-leg work, or curved-surface shaping was found, despite that being a natural-seeming extension of "specialist scraping tool." What the research instead surfaced is that dedicated concave-curve tools — the travisher and compass plane — are the named tools for chair-seat and cabriole-leg shaping, not this one. Held as an honest open boundary, not assumed — a genuine instance of this corpus's discipline of not extending a tool's reach past what its own sourced record supports.
• named hands:
  • Lee Laird (named — Lie-Nielsen show-staff demonstrator, writing independently for Highland Woodworking's blog, 2012) — the single richest practitioner account found. Confirms the corner/vertical-surface use case independently of the manufacturer's own marketing copy, and directly compares the No. 85 to the No. 212: "The No. 85 does not have the angle adjuster for the iron, and with the iron's angle hardwired, can be a bit easier to set up" [N5, HIGH].
  • James Price (named — restorer/collector, timetestedtools.net, 2019) — bought an unused original at a tool-collector meeting, tuned it, and tested it on tough walnut: "it passed the test with perfection." He also notes, in the same piece, that examples of the No. 85 "seem to be in collections and not used" — a direct, named observation that this tool has historically been more a shelf object than a working one [N8, HIGH].
  • Rob Millard (named — Sawmill Creek, known for 18th-century American furniture reproduction) — the entry's one sourced negative account, and a genuine, pointed rejection of the modern revival: "I had a LN 85, and it was nearly useless. The blade is far too thick. I bought it when they were first released, and quickly sold it on Ebay. It was the only LN tool I have been disappointed with." He preferred the Lee Valley/Veritas large scraper plane instead [N10, MEDIUM — forum, named registered user].
  • Mike Wenzloff (named toolmaker) and willie sobat, same Sawmill Creek thread — both chose the No. 112 over the No. 85 for large open areas; Wenzloff's reasoning implies doubt that an edge-registering, open-sided blade holds up as well under heavy pressure as the No. 112's more enclosed format [N10, MEDIUM — an inference from the thread, not a direct claim, held at that weight].
• ★ a genuine, notable silence, worth reporting as its own finding. No commentary from Christopher Schwarz, Paul Sellers, or FineWoodworking (magazine or forum) specifically addressing the No. 85 was located, despite multiple targeted searches. This matters because Schwarz's well-known "sell it, get a No. 80" passage (already quoted in the No. 112 entry) names the No. 12, 12½, and 81 by number but never mentions the No. 85 at all — the corpus's most-quoted scraper-plane skeptic simply doesn't address this tool, a real silence rather than a search gap this run couldn't close.
• No r/woodworking or r/handtools thread specifically on the No. 85 was found — a sourced negative on that channel, consistent with the tool's overall thin footprint.

✦ proof of existence

Weak on the museum axis, consistent with the whole scraping branch — not a No. 85-specific weakness. Strong on patent-to-physical-object correlation and on the manufacturer's own direct confirmation of the antique lineage.

• manufacturer confirmation of the antique original (the entry's strongest single proof point): Lie-Nielsen's own product copy states directly that its current tool "is based on the Stanley No. 85," and that the antique original is "a much sought after collectible, commanding high prices" [N7, HIGH, directly fetched] — a manufacturer directly attesting to an antique original it is reviving, the clearest kind of proof-of-existence this corpus recognizes short of a museum accession.
• patent-to-physical-object correlation, confirmed directly. US 787,054 (Schade & Schade, granted April 11, 1905, assigned to Stanley Rule & Level Co.) is confirmed via DATAMP's own patent index [N6, HIGH, directly fetched], and the same grant date — "US PAT, 4-11-05" — is independently confirmed stamped on physical original examples by a directly-fetched restorer's measured description, matched on multiple dealer listings [N4][N6].
• museum/collection records — an honest, unimproved gap, consistent with the whole branch. Targeted searches (Smithsonian NMAH, Colonial Williamsburg, Winterthur) turned up no accessioned No. 85 — the same recurring gap already disclosed across the Card Scraper, No. 80, No. 112, and No. 212 entries in this corpus. Named as a pattern across common shop and specialist tools that don't reach museum accession, not a surprise specific to this tool.
• dated, photographed secondary market: Jim Bode Tools (a dated, photographed original example, "SCHADE Patent April 11, 1905," $435) [N11, MEDIUM, directly fetched]; a directly-fetched Sawmill Creek auction-results thread recording sales at $270 and $300 in 2018, with a ~2013 sale at $385 referenced [N13, HIGH, directly fetched]; Michael Rouillard Antique Tools and further dealer/auction listings not individually fetched this run, held at lower confidence.
• no dedicated design patent (parallel to the No. 80's D45,983) was located for the No. 85's own casting shape — searched but not exhaustively ruled out; held as an open gap, not a confirmed negative.

references

kind: manufacturer (fetched directly) | retailer/dealer (fetched directly) | forum (named posters, read/fetched) | collector/restorer reference (search-synthesized or directly fetched, flagged) | patent database (directly fetched) | sibling corpus entry

• [N1] Patrick Leach, The Superior Works — Patrick's Blood & Gore, No. 85 and No. 87 entries — production data recovered via a machine-readable index mirror (cs.cmu.edu/~alf/stanley/stanley.html), a direct transcription of Leach's own type-study, since the primary descriptive page (supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan10.htm) is JS-gated against automated fetch this run: "No. 85 Cabinet maker's scraper plane, 8"L, 2"W, 2⅝lbs, 1905–1934"; "No. 87 Cabinet maker's scraper plane, 8"L, 2"W, 2½lbs, 1905–1917." (named type-study, data recovered via mirror; HIGH for the tabular dates, but Leach's own descriptive prose on the No. 85 was not obtained this run — see provenance)
• [N2] findmytool.co.uk, Stanley No. 85 review — directly fetched. "The Stanley 85 scraper combined elements of the Stanley 10½ plane and the Stanley 112 scraper plane"; "The design of this scraper plane unlike others means it needs a specially shaped scraper in order for the scraper blade to span the full width of the plane." (restorer/collector review; MEDIUM — the 10½/10¼ combination claim is single-sourced, not independently corroborated)
• [N3] WorthPoint / Hans Brunner Tools search-summarized commentary on the No. 87's relationship to the No. 85 — not independently fetched this run. (collector marketplace, AI-search-summarized; LOW-MEDIUM)
• [N4] findmytool.co.uk (same source as N2) — directly fetched, measured example: blade ~1mm thick tapering 2" to 1¼", body width figure "70mm (2¾")" (an outlier against the 2" blade-width figure, unresolved), markings ("Stanley No 85," "US PAT, 4-11-05," "Stanley, New Britain, Conn, USA"). (retailer/restorer review; HIGH)
• [N5] Lee Laird, "The Plane Facts: A couple of great scraper planes," Highland Woodworking Blog, 2012 — directly fetched. Full-width blade/adjacent-vertical-surface use case; tilting knob and handle "dovetails with the first" feature; No. 85 vs. No. 212 comparison ("does not have the angle adjuster... can be a bit easier to set up"). (named practitioner/craft-retailer blog; HIGH)
• [N6] DATAMP (datamp.org) — directly fetched. US Patent 787,054, "Tilting Tote and Knob," Albert F. Schade and Edmund A. Schade, granted April 11, 1905, assigned to Stanley Rule & Level Co.; category "plane handles"; DATAMP's own description: "Tilting tote and knob used on Stanley #10¼ and #85 planes." Cross-reference note (not independently verified this run): "A year later a patent issued to a non-Stanley inventor for an add-on version" (US 816,980, unread). (patent database, primary source; HIGH)
• [N7] Lie-Nielsen, Cabinet Maker's Scraper product page and blade page — directly fetched. Full spec ($275, ductile iron, 3 lb, 8-⅜"×2", manganese bronze cap/frog — "bronze non-adjustable frog" per a UK dealer's mirrored copy — A2 blade 1/8" thick Rc 60–62, 45° bevel + 5° micro-bevel, held at 70°, "do not recommend using a burr," "be very careful not to cut yourself on the upright blade," currently out of stock/small-batch production); revival-confirmation quotes ("based on the Stanley No. 85," "a much sought after collectible, commanding high prices"). (manufacturer; HIGH)
• [N8] James Price, "Stanley No. 85 Cabinet Scraper," timetestedtools.net, 2019-03-17 — directly fetched. Unused original bought at a tool-collector meeting; "The rear frog screw is used to adjust the angle of the scraper blade, but not lots"; tested "on some tough walnut and it passed the test with perfection"; notes originals "seem to be in collections and not used." (named craft-press/restorer blog; HIGH)
• [N9-research] Haft Run 367 source-judgment notes — the No. 85 held as a distinct branch (fixed frog, tilting grip) rather than a No. 112 variant, based on anatomical evidence converging across both research legs; the self-created-clearance-problem framing named as the entry's lead organizing finding; the generic-patent finding (US 787,054 shared with the No. 10¼ rabbet plane) named as the entry's second organizing finding; the chair-seat/cabriole-leg connection explicitly NOT extended past what the sourced record supports. (provenance, internal)
• [N10] Sawmill Creek Woodworking Community, "LN 85 Scraper Vs LN 112" thread, 2006 — directly fetched. Named posters: Rob Millard ("nearly useless... blade far too thick... only LN tool I have been disappointed with"), Mike Wenzloff, willie sobat (both preferring the No. 112 for large areas); a mention of "small format scraper" in bamboo fly-rod production in the same thread is ambiguous and likely belongs to the No. 212 Small Scraping Plane, not this tool — flagged rather than assigned here. (forum, named posters; MEDIUM)
• [N11] Jim Bode Tools — directly fetched. "SCHADE Patent April 11, 1905, Stanley No. 85 Cabinet Maker's Tilt Handle Scraper Plane, Near Mint," $435; a used modern Lie-Nielsen example listed at $200 (item 93589, "Iron. Unused"). (retailer/dealer, dated listing with photos; MEDIUM)
• [N12] AntiqBuyer.com past-sales aggregation — search-synthesized, not directly fetched this run: one sale at $895, "average dealer price $600–$1000," "average eBay price ~$600." (dealer aggregate; LOW-MEDIUM — not individually verified, presented as a spread against N13's lower figures, not adjudicated)
• [N13] Sawmill Creek Woodworking Community — directly fetched, a 2018 auction-results thread: sales at $270 and $300 (Type 3 examples), a labeled example expected to bring more, and a poster ("Matt Day") reporting a ~2013 sale at $385 in lesser condition. (forum, named posters, dated figures; HIGH)
• [N14] Classic Hand Tools (UK dealer) — directly fetched. Current price £319.00 inc. VAT, listed "coming soon"/out of stock; mirrors Lie-Nielsen's own product copy on the full-width blade and tilting-knob/handle features. (retailer; HIGH)
• [N15] Lee Valley/Veritas — Veritas Scraping Plane, item 05P2901, $245 — directly fetched. Adjustable frog (0°–25°), bow-thumbscrew blade, fixed in-line knob and tote (no tilting mechanism) — confirms this is a different lineage (the No. 112/No. 80-hybrid line already named in that entry), not the No. 85's. (manufacturer/retailer; HIGH)
• [N16] Highland Woodworking / Woodcraft / Rockler product listings — Highland carries the No. 85 replacement blade (standard and 25-tpi toothed) directly confirmed; a complete-tool listing was found but current stock status could not be independently confirmed this run; Woodcraft's WoodRiver line and Rockler's cabinet-scraper products are confirmed to be in the No. 80 bare-card lineage only, not this tool's. (retailer; MEDIUM for Highland's complete-tool stock status, HIGH for the Woodcraft/Rockler negative)

images this entry needs (spec for Forge — see tickets)

• The three-way mechanism split. A simple diagram of the family's three siblings side by side, each showing what actually adjusts: the No. 80 Cabinet Scraper (blade bows via center thumbscrew, fixed pitch, fixed grip) | the No. 112 Scraper Plane (blade rigid, pitch tilts 45°–95° via two brass nuts, fixed grip) | the No. 85 (blade rigid, pitch fixed, GRIP tilts) — visualizing this entry's own lead finding that the No. 85 is the family's mirror-image tool, trading cutting-geometry adjustment for grip adjustment.
• The self-created-problem sequence. A simple two-panel cutaway: panel one shows the full-width blade registering flush against a vertical wall (a fielded panel's shoulder); panel two shows the same setup with the knob and handle tilted clear of the wall, captioned to make the cause-and-effect design logic visible — the blade's own advantage creates the knuckle-clearance problem the tilting grip then solves.
• The patent-sharing surprise. A simple two-tool diagram: the No. 85 (scraper) and the Stanley No. 10¼ (rabbet plane) both labeled with the same patent number (US 787,054) and the same tilting-tote mechanism, captioned to make plain that this tool's signature feature originated as a plane-handle fixture, not a scraper invention.

The reviewer's corrections (12)

• BLOCKER — 1. Correct the “fixed frog means no adjustment” claim
• BLOCKER — 2. Remove the false current-market exclusivity claim
• SHOULD-FIX — 3. Correct the patent title and limit its scope
• SHOULD-FIX — 4. Reframe the “self-created problem” as interpretation, not history
• SHOULD-FIX — 5. Repair matching rules for open and curved work
• SHOULD-FIX — 6. Distinguish cutter reach from “blade registration”
• SHOULD-FIX — 7. Separate antique Stanley anatomy from modern Lie-Nielsen anatomy
• SHOULD-FIX — 8. Rebuild safety around the complete operation
• SHOULD-FIX — 9. Correct source grades and negative-search claims
• SHOULD-FIX — 10. Tighten history and production dates
• MINOR — 11. Refresh market data and remove unstable absolutes
• MINOR — 12. Remove process residue from the finished entry