Replies

1. 
   philip | Apr 15, 2008 10:55am | #1

   B,
   I can think of several reasons to have a spare blade. It means that you can have a sharp blade on hand so that you don't have to stop too long to hone.... You could also have the second blade prepared differently to the other: it could be honed with a very slight camber, or it could have a back bevel. The best thing to do is to have spare blade and back iron complete, so it is out with the blunt and in with the sharp....
   I don't see any reason to nick a smoothing plane blade during the course of normal cabinet making ....
   The Eclipse style of honing guide is very versatile, especially when it is quite important to maintain certain honing angles as with bevel up plane irons.
   Are you a pilot?

   Philip Marcou
1. 
   b52 | Apr 15, 2008 08:33pm | #4

   Philip,

   No, I'm not a pilot.  My name begins with B and I've reached a certain age...

   Thanks for your thoughts. 

1. 
   danmart | Apr 17, 2008 02:42am | #9

   B52

   Good for you -- that was a rather depressing mission I would imagine.

2. 
   Lataxe | Apr 15, 2008 10:56am | #2

   B,

   If you plane grain that's prone to tear out, with your LN, you might consider getting a second blade and putting a 15 degree back-bevel on it so that the cutting angle is increased from the usual 45 degrees to 60 degrees.  The steeper angle gives more of a scraping action and can deal with nasty grain if a light cut and a tight mouth is used. 

   If your plane was a bevel-up design, you could just add a steeper micro bevel to the main bevel.  But with a bevel-down design of plane you can only get the steeper cutting angle by adding a bevel to the back of the blade.

   The back bevel need only be very narrow, which also means that regrinding the main bevel will easily remove the back bevel, should you ever want to return the blade to its normal configuration.

   This Taunton article:

   http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/subscription/workshop/workshoparticle.aspx?id=26783

   is one of a number about back bevels and sharpening guides.  (Search the "Techniques" section of this site using the phrase "back bevel" for many articles on this subject). 

   The author of the quoted article, Brent Beach, has his own website which gives enormous amounts of well-researched and tested information about blade sharpening.  The David Charlesworth books, which I have just been reading, also give some excellent, clear and well-tested techniques for configuring and sharpening blades.  You might also look in Derek Cohen's site, which has loads more clear and well-tested stuff on these matters.

   Some regard this sort of article and information as over-the-top.  It's true that the authors delve deep into the matter; but this seems an advantage to me, as long as you get out of it not just a better understanding but also a good and fast technique for getting your own blades to perform as you want them to do. 

   Lataxe

1. 
   b52 | Apr 15, 2008 08:44pm | #5

   The back bevel idea sounds intriguing, and may be a direction for me to go in if I encounter tearout.  I've worked with figured maple and am about to address cherry for the first time, but I hope to get hooked on hardwood over my next few projects. 

   Would you say the back bevel is a substitute for a high-angle frog?  In any case, it seems that you can make a single plane a more versatile tool with a modified iron.

   There's plenty to discover down the road.  At the moment, I need to master the basic grind, hone, and polish, rehone, repolish, etc.  The flat back represents a foundation for me at my level of skill, but I'll read through the article you cite to peer over the fence.

   I have back issues but don't subscribe online.  Can you tell me what issue the article is in?

   Thank you for opening up this door. 

1. 
   Lataxe | Apr 16, 2008 12:53pm | #7

   B,

   High angle frogs do increase the cutting angle of a bevel down blade but they are relatively costly and only give you one alternative angle.  Using back bevels on spare blades is probably more versatile and it will cost less to buy, say, 2 spare blades to back-bevel at 2 different angles than it will to buy 2 spare frogs.  I'm uncertain, anyway, whether you can buy frogs that are more than 50 degrees....?

   I imagine it takes less time, also, to swap out blades than it will to swap out frogs, although you will have to spend a bit of time putting on the back bevels to start with.......  But you can always reconfigure the blade, if you want, by regrinding it to take out the back bevel, as long as you restrain it to no more than a very slim line.  A 50 degree frog is a 50 degree frog forever.

   ***

   The Taunton article I pointed at appears to be web-only, as I can't find a magazine issue number associated with it.  But the information there appears in Brent Beach's own site, along with a lot more fascinating plane blade stuff:

   http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpen/extensions.html

   Lataxe

   PS  Here is another Taunton article all about cutting angles of plane blades and their uses.  It was in Issue 186.  It covers back bevels but not in any great depth.

   http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/FWNPDF/011186096.pdf

    

   Edited 4/16/2008 6:01 am ET by Lataxe

1. 
   b52 | Apr 17, 2008 04:56am | #10

   Lataxe,

   Thanks for the article reference.  The back bevel does seem a practical way to be ready for multiple grain types in a flash, with a bevel-down plane.  I'm going to tune things up and see how the standard setup works with cherry.  If I get tearout I'll buy a spare iron and back-bevel it 10 degrees.

   B

2. 
   danmart | Apr 17, 2008 02:40am | #8

   A nice slide demo but.. I spend so much time flattening my plane iron backs it seems counter productive to back bevel. I take the backs up to 8000 with the watersone and hone with diamond paste to finish the backs. Touch up the bevel and its so sharp it cuts like .. real well.

   Another alternative to back bevels thats cheap and useful is making a nice wooden plane with a 50 degree angle. Once you set it up - you grab it and go. I am returning to wooden planes for the feel. They can be a nice change and they feel good in your hands. A Hock blade set up just right is a joy in a wooden plane.

   I still don't have a bevel up plane but its coming one of these days.

   later

   dan

   Edited 4/16/2008 7:47 pm ET by danmart

3. 
   saschafer | Apr 15, 2008 02:47pm | #3

   "The reason is that the Veritas, while wide enough to accept the 2-3/8" iron, has no way to lock it in perpendicular to the wheel axis, and I can just see myself aligning it slightly differently each time."

   The Veritas Mk II guide comes with an alignment device. In any case, every honing guide I've used, including the Eclipse style, requires a little bit of "tuning" of the perpendicularity of the blade. I do this by taking one or two strokes and noting where the stone is cutting the blade. If required, I tap the back edge of the blade one way or the other to square it up.

   -Steve

    

1. 
   b52 | Apr 15, 2008 08:47pm | #6

   Steve,

   There's a nuance I didn't expect.  Now I'll be sure not to take the Eclipse guide's clamp for granted.

   Thanks