Today, I was demonstrating sharpening a 50-degree blade, using my usual technique, working up to about 8000x, honing the secondary bevel and lapping the burr of the back. I was confident it was sharp and passed it around to my “students”. One fellow tried to shave the hair off his arm and failed, commenting that it wasn’t as sharp as it should be. I disagreed, saying that the steep angle of the blade was the factor, rather than the refinement of the edge. So what say you all? Should a freshly sharpened blade be able to shave off hair?
I demonstrated testing the edge on my fingernail, paring of poplar’s end grain, and taking whisper-thin shavings off a piece of bird’s eye maple. The blade did fail the “slice the corner off a piece of paper” test too.
Chris @ www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
(soon to be www.flairwoodworks.com)
– Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. – Albert Schweitzer
Replies
If you think about extremes, it isn't that surprising that a high-angle won't shave. As you move upward toward an edge that is a simple 90 deg. corner, it doesn't matter how perfect the meeting of the two planes that make the angle, you wouldn't expect it to scrape the hair off your chin. If you go beyond a right angle, you'd expect even less cutting action. I think the problem at relatively high-angles that are still within the realm of what we consider cutting angles, is that it isn't obvious that you've gone beyond the point where the blade can actually sever a soft fiber before it shoulders it out of the way. The material you're cutting with a plane is pretty stiff and backed up so that it can't be pushed over; the piece of paper or the hair on your arm is neither stiff nor does it have a substantial backing, so it's easily pushed over before it's cut unless the blade angle is pretty low. If you've ever handled a cut-throat razor, you know how low an angle they're ground to in order to give you that baby-bottom smooth shave!
Verne
If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to cut it up and make something with it . . . what a waste!
There wa a great article in the new yorker in November about master bladesmiths and the meaning of sharp. Perhaps most interesting if you are into the mettalurgy side of it. Beyond scary sharp...this is obsessive sharp.
Abstract at: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/24/081124fa_fact_oppenheimer
Randall
Here's a link to Bob's website. Very interesting, particularly the "Damascus" page. Also interesting is that the guy's got more orders than he can fill, and has stopped taking them until he can catch up.
http://www.kramerknives.com/index.htm
The Damascus page was by far the most interesting. I like the look of that folding pocket knife at the bottom of the page. I was hoping that he would describe his sharpening process on the Sharpening page"Also interesting is that the guy's got more orders than he can fill, and has stopped taking them until he can catch up." Sounds a bit like a certain handsaw maker.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Chris - Just my opinion, but the "shave test" is not something I use, both for safety's sake (it's pretty easy to take off a chunk of skin with an unguarded blade), but also because I don't think it really tells you what you want to know. A razor blade, for example, will of course cut hair, but it's nowhere near as sharp as one needs a carving tool or a plane blade.
Instead, I simply rely on visual examination of the edge (sometimes with a magnifying glass). If I can see a reflection from the edge, I know it's not close. If I can't, I just keep a piece of white pine close to the sharpening set-up, and see if I can shave a piece off of the end grain with no tearing. Since this is eventually the purpose that the blade's to be put to, I consider this the "acid test".
D,
Words of wisdom....but:
I haven't been able to nicely shave softwood endgrain with a sharp blade (in the plane) having a 45 degree or greater bevel. It will cut, but not those wafer-thin transluscent slices that a 25 or 30 degree bevel will do. In fact, it's more like dust. Not surprising, I feel, if the cutting angle is 60+ degrees (in the plane).......?
Lataxe
Lataxe,Not bragging - just the facts here: I am able to take of a nice, thin, translucent shaving with a 50 degree blade. Edit: The same blade, by the way, that wouldn't shave hair.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com) - Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Edited 1/19/2009 8:07 pm by flairwoodworks
Chris,
Looka man! I thought I'd got over worrying about the no-hair shaving with them steep bevel-blades but now you're teasing me with tales of transluscent shavings from softwood endgrain!! Cuh!!!
I have to ask: are you taking them shavings with the blade in the plane, i.e. cutting at 60+ degrees? If so, why is the shaving not a type 2 chip (I think it's called) which is generally a concertina-thang when going with or agin the grain? Mine makes flakey dust on endgrain but that's what I expected.
If you be teasing I'll send a witch's utter to your doorstep!
Lataxe, trying not to sit in a corner fretting about a blade he knows is sharp really.
"Not surprising, I feel, if the cutting angle is 60+ degrees (in the plane).......?"
Indeed. I can't answer that, because I test the blade before it goes in the plane. I've never attempted to shave end-grain with a blade in a bevel-up smoother ground at a high angle (why would I? I just reach for a low-angle block plane with the blade ground at 25 degrees).
However, I'll note that I'm generally successful at getting white pine end-grain shavings from blades ground at 30 degrees with a 15 degree micro-bevel. Definitely not Chris' or your example, but it is interesting to compare the difference between a blade with an effective cutting angle of 45 degrees set up with a micro-bevel, and one with the entiriety of the bevel ground to 45 degrees - the one with the bevel/micor-bevel set-up appears as much sharper, though theoretically they should be the same.
David,I'm curious why you would put a 15-degree microbevel on a blade. From what I have read, a 1-2-degree microbevel is the ideal. Have your experiences led you another direction?Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
"I'm curious why you would put a 15-degree microbevel on a blade. From what I have read, a 1-2-degree microbevel is the ideal. Have your experiences led you another direction?"
Chris - Yes. Part of this is based on my experience with cabinet chisels. I find that if I grind a 20 degree main bevel on a chisel, then a very small 10-15 degree microbevel on it, paring wood with it, particularly tough wood, is far easier than with a 30 degree bevel and a 1-2 degree microbevel. I -think- the reason for this is that a good bit of force is taken up in levering/breaking the shaving as it progresses up the blade.
I would not think this would matter at all on a smoothing plane set for a very fine shaving in the 2-4 thousandths thick range, but it does seem to matter quite a bit on a my "medium" and roughing planes, where the shaving's in the 10-30 thousandths thick range. Theoretically, a roughing or medium plane without a chipbreaker might further decrease the effort required to push it, but there are so many variables required to evaluate this that I haven't tested it.
That said, I find it much easier to just pick a particular honing geometry and stick with it. The only exception to this is carving tools - I've tried the hollow-grind followed by a honing bevel on these tools, and it was a disaster. The concave bevel made the tool want to dive into the wood, and made it difficult to get a clean exit at the end of the stroke. So for these tools, I "grind" them by hand on a coarse 200-grit aluminum oxide stone, followed by 1000, 4000, and 8000 grit stones. The result is a flat or slightly convex bevel with no secondary bevel.
Thanks for the breakdown. I'll give it a try.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Lataxe,No, the end grain softwood shaving is made with the blade out of the plane, just as would be done with a chisel. I have not tried shaving end grain with a 50-degree blade in a plane though. Perhaps I will.You will not get a type 2 chip from end grain, only from long grain. It's a very different wood structure. I'm sure you understand.By the way, if you send that utter to my doorstep, I'll have you know that I never use the front door like the rest of my family!Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Fascinating. Not much on sharpening or blade geometry, but more about the importance of good forging and the hardness. Now I wonder if his butcher's knife can shave the end grain of pine cleanly...Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
One of the acid tests is cleanly cutting through a silk scarf while it is falling through the air. Seems more expensive than trying to shave hair off an arm, especially if the scarf is taken from my wife's drawer.
What is an acid test?If you manage to cut the scarf in two, you can proudly present your wife with not one, but TWO scarves! Won't she be happy?Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Etymology
From the testing of gold with nitric acid (doesn't dissolve)
[edit] Noun
acid test
(idiomatic) a rigorous test or appraisal of the quality or worth of something
Retrieved from "http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/acid_test"
>acid testcareful some body doesn't sneak some aquarega into your little bottle of acid.: )
roc who would rather have a nice hard plane blade or other cutter over any diamond ring (assuiming I had to keep said object and not sell it)
. . . and we are back
OK every body hates or does not understand the finger nail / plastic test.The following test can use one hair and the same hair over and over if you are a real nutter like me. I just put a entsy, tiny label on it so I can find it again : )Here is a sure fire test of ultimate sharpness, baring the hair running/backing away thing which I admit does not always work for muggles :• Get a jewelers visor with max mag, I think this is 3x or 4x, don't need the auxillary flip down loop.• find a hair on your arm that is roughly laying over horizontal / parrallel to your arm.• Take the blade in the orientation and angle you intend to use it in. Or less of an angle.• While viewing said hair present the blade (or as my Brit friends say "offer up the edge" to the unlucky hair. Rather than cut the hair diagnally in two the blade will take a curl off right down the side of the hair. Steeper blades you can cheat and skew/slice along the hair to get the same curl.Honestly. I use this and I am not kidding in the least. If you can do this you can take shavings off any thing else that the blade was engeneered to cut and you can quit wondering if it is sharp.I litteraly use this test while sharpeing if I am setting up a new untested blade or to keep quality control tabs on my sharpening method.I agree though that once one gets a system that works, preferably one that holds the faces at a single angle for the last few grits, then there is no reason to test a previously tested blade. You go through the steps and you know it is sharp. I say faces because there are cases where we are back beveling or using the ruler method to make up for particularly shoddy blades.Angle: I write the angle, including setting for back bevel, on the blade in magic marker and so can reset jig to do the dirty deed.end of discussion, case closed, what's not to like, hey is there any more of that chocolate cake left ? ? ? sort of bear "•"
roc
Edited 1/19/2009 12:32 am by roc
Rocky,
Nah, mate, nah then:
The only reliable test apart from feeling an edge correctly with finger tip or side of thumb is to locate a hare which is facing you head on and then cleave it in two sections along it's full length. You now have two hares when previously you had only one.
Philip Marcou
>locate a hare which is facing you head onDambed things will charge if you face off with one a them! Not me ! I am scared of rabbits. Ever read Watership Down? Not to mention Monty's Holly Grail.What does rabbits have to do with plane blades any how?
: )
Roc,
Now, I will introduce a cat amongst your pidgeons. (The hares will not feel so exposed then).
I have noticed that a high-angle bevel will cut hairs when merely at the "grinded" stage. Whilst the edge is there but rough, it can grab the hairs. Once the edge is honed/polished so that wispy shavings peel nice & easy from the plane, it seems to become much harder (bordering on impossible) to get them hairs to cleave from the wrist-area if one tries to shave them with that steep bevel-edge.
Of course, I may be simply neglecting the final polish to nano-sharpness with the 0.05 micron diamond paste mounted on a special rubber wheel turning at precisely 348.7 ft/sec at it's rim. :-) (Don't worry, I will borrow Mel's in due course as I cannot have you with a blade sharper than my-ones, oh no).
****
So then, I wish to see your video of a 90 degree un-burred scraper taking orf a beard or dealing with an even easier hairy place such as ..... well, better not say.
Lataxe, pestering your bird.
That's 348.7015 ft/sec didn't you see the latest test ?I suspect you are cutting them hairs with the wire edge, lower angle because it is thinner etc.
roc
Ever hear of a rabbetting plane?Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
My man... you are on the ball.Philip Marcou
Are we talking about breeding or woodworking?Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
That was a brilliant reply!
Jim
I don't know that it was brilliant -- just an opinion based on some 40+ years of an interest in edges. I picked up an oil stone and a knife when I was about five and I've yet to grow tired of rubbing the two together to produce the right result. (Still haven't bought into the new fangled water stones and contraptions and rollers and guides, etc. But I do admit that I'm intrigued by Mel's notions of hemispherical differences as they relate to orbital directions while honing.)Verne
If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to cut it up and make something with it . . . what a waste!<!----><!----><!---->
But I do admit that I'm intrigued by Mel's notions of hemispherical differences as they relate to orbital directions while honing.
Mel is old NASA.. Everything is in orbit in the known universe as they think?
I find when sharpening it is much easier to get a nice edge going sideways as in along the width of the edge!
I applied at NASA for a job and they had an opening for me. Trash collector in Non-Restricted areas? (Not really)
>testing the edge on my fingernail<
Could you please tell that to Philip. He calls me "ludicrous" for doing this. I find it quite handy, tells me a lot about the edge and doesn't make my arm look all maingy.
Yes should shave. If not try a final strop on the palm of your hand. Befor palm strop work both back and bevel on the last stone 8000? to get rid of last hint of a wire edge. I find I often need to rinse my 4000 stone a couple of times because the wire is coming off quite a bit here.
Interesting thing to look at: I find I can literally shave curls off a single hair. I recommend taking a jeweler's magnification visor and looking at this "shaving" situation. Your blade may be so sharp that the blade is slideing down the length of the hairs and taking curls off but not necessarily cutting the hair off.
That is what happens when I have an off day at my sharpening. When I am really on my sharpening game the hair pulls its self up by the roots and runs away just before the blade gets to my arm. : )
About the fingernail test... I use it only when I need to demonstrate (to others) the sharpness of the blade when no wood is around to cut. I don't see any harm in this method (I find the shaving method ludicrous). I feel that the best test is end grain of a soft wood. Soft wood because a dull blade will crush the fibers more readily than a hard wood. That said, when I never test my edges unless I need to illustrate to someone else that the blade is indeed sharp. There was a big discussion on this topic a while back titled "Test for Sharp?" or something like that.So you are saying that even a 50-degree blade properly sharpened should shave a hair? Now, obviously, a 90-degree blade will not shave a hair. (See Lataxe's post http://forums.taunton.com/fw-knots/messages?msg=45038.6). I am of the belief that 50-degrees is too high to shave a hair. Perhaps someone else can enlighten us as to the magic angle where this test is no longer suitable. I would speculate that the magic number is around 40-degrees.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com) - Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Edited 1/18/2009 1:03 pm by flairwoodworks
OK let's split some hairs here and then I need to go get caught up on that post called ""Test for Sharp?" or something like that.". Sounds fascinating !Before I combed my hair I got out of bed and wondered into the shop to test my theories. [Note the extent of the "Knots Sickness" here . . . checking posts before getting out of bed. Has slept in due to late night carousing in the Knots chat room. It is not pretty.]I pulled a blade off the wall that was 47° and did the test. Shaved hair no prob. Seems like I have something around I was using that was 54° but did not find it right off.[Further evidence of sickness hallucinations and delusions of grander]This and the thread I hope to find is interesting to me because my gut feel is that a properly sharpened scraper , to ninety degrees no hook, would also clip off a few hairs.(obviously not sharpened by me if you been keeping up with my scraper sharpening ineptitude )So to get back to splitting hairs I missed the post perhaps 50° is the cut off point, pun intended.Back to the finger nail test. I can tell degree of dulness very easily. Do not need nerve endings on the surface of the nail like skin. Philip that is not the point. I could do the same test on a stick of plastic about the same size as a tung depressor. My finger nail is like plastic that is always healing its self and is handy. I also like to use the surface of the plastic handles on my little diamond files:http://www.pacwestoutdoors.com/eze-lap-sample-diamond-pads-77.html:• fresh blade digs in with no resistance while held at about one degree angle up from parallel to surface and takes a super thin curl off.
• dulling but still usable blade digs in at an angle lower than the bed angle of the plane I intend to put it in but does not sink in that sickening way a freshly sharpened blade does.• dulling and not worth using scrapes off a bit of nail at an angle equal to or more than the bed angle of the tool it is to be used in.• dulled past any hope. blade held at approximate working angle just slides along nail and does not even scrape.I use this test on drill bits, mill cutters, kitchen knives, card scrapers you name it.The hair test is useless on a drill bit that is still plenty sharp enough to cut steel.Just poking my finger on the edge or across the edge or trying to cut into my skin with it is a hopeless test.The edge may be stropped or improperly sharpened with a rounded clearance and still feel sharp to the skin but when presented to a hard surface will not cut at all because the area be hind the edge rides on the work and does not permit the aris to engage.Don't jah know
roc
(: )Edited 1/18/2009 2:34 pm by roc
Edited 1/18/2009 3:19 pm by roc
Roc,First of all, get some help. Maybe unplug your computer for a day or limit yourself to 30 minutes per day on Knots.Secondly, I found a couple threads on testing for sharpness:
http://forums.taunton.com/fw-knots/messages?msg=30446.1
http://forums.taunton.com/fw-knots/messages?msg=42027.1 - This is the one I was thinking of at first.Ok, enough yakking - time for some talk.It sounds to me like when you test the blade on your fingernail, you hold the blade at a very low angle and almost pare. Is this correct? When I test with my fingernail, I hold the blade perpendicular to my nail and set it down without applying any pressure. Then I try to slide it against my nail. If it catches, the blade is sharp. If it slides, back to sharpening.I'm sure that you are aware that skewing a blade effectively lowers the cutting angle, so I suppose that skewing the blade while shaving hairs is avoiding the question. Or perhaps not.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
> First of all, get some help. When I explain the mania to a professional they just get a pinchy sort of look on their face and call and make an appointment for me with some one else.Quite embarrassing. : )
Edited 1/18/2009 5:10 pm by roc
I've always enjoyed stating the obvious, because it's easy to be correct all the time. I've always gotten a chuckle when woodworkers start talking about shaving body parts with a sharpened tool. If you go to a woodworking show, you can spot the amateur woodworkers who have no hair on their left arms from the middle of the forearm down to the wrist.
The best way to test a sharp edge is to put it back in it's proper place, and see if it shaves wood, which is its intended purpose. After becoming proficient, it's like tying shoes. Does anybody here need to tug on a lace to see if its tied properly??
Doubtful.
A visual inspection of the edge to ensure that no surface irregularities in the edge exist, followed by a proper honing, is all that is needed.
Jeff
Jeff,
Full agreement there, although one likes to come to "practical procedure" via the scenic route, as some understanding of the mechanics often illuminates that procedure. It's like reading - you have to larn the alphabet, grammar and syntax but once you can speak proper like wot I do then all those rules can be put to the side as we can then "just do it".
Also, we do need to have discussion points that will feed Charlie and others of his ilk with fuel for their lip-curl. We cannot neglect Knoters' psychological needs, including my need to woffle on and on about virtually anything. :-)
Lataxe, who has been internalising carving chisel sharpening lore this week, inclusive of much honing and polishing to test the various theories, recommendations and even Laws.
PS Who has a view on appropriate bevels for straight and skew carving chisels? At present I am trying double bevels that are 22 and 10 degrees respectively (total 32 at the pointy end) with ever so slightly convex bevels...............?
Sire Lataxe
Always a pleasure to contribute to the woffling...
Jeff with absolutely nothing more of consequence to add
Lataxe,
I have a 3/8" straight carving chisel that is sharpened with two hollow ground bevels. Think of it as a very thin double-bezel paring chisel. It is seldom used for carving, though, I mostly reach for it when fitting up string inlays. My skews are sharpened with convex bevels, ground equally on both sides, gently rounding to the edge from about 5/8-3/4" back. I like a rounded bevel for most carving tools, as it is easy to control depth of cut (which is generally changing all the time) by rocking them up or down as needed, as you push them along. Many of my gouges are sharpened (slightly) in-cannel as well as (mostly) out-cannel, so as to gain clearance to be able to use them "upside down". I have no clue as to what the combined bevel angles are, though I'd guess maybe 20- 25 degrees or so... It's a seat of the pants thing--when the bevels get stoned too steep for my satisfaction, I grind a longer bevel, and start stoning again. Generally I'm pushing them by hand, only occasionally driving with mallet, and carving reasonable wood (walnut, cherry, maple, mahogany) so the relatively delicate edges last a good while.
This is, of course, the only proper way of doing things. Be wary of false prophets who would lead you astray with heretical, blasphemous dogma.
Ray, whose karma is apt to just run right over others' dogma
Ray,What is the best way to sharpen a tool with a convex bevel? Flat is easy, concave is easy. Let me guess, you have a reverse grinding wheel that looks like a ring and you sharpen on the inside surface!Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Chris,
I'd assumed that any convexity (is that a word?) on a bevel can be done best by eye. I aimed for a no-flats appearance and only a very slight bulge across the bevel, edge to heel. I did it on diamond "stones" by reducing the heel and bringing back the edge ever so slightly then rounding the then-proud bevel-area in between by rocking the chisel slightly as I pulled/pushed it across the diamond.
This is my guess. It seemed to work, as the chisel is easy to use in rounding-over a sticky-out bit in a relief carving.
Ray will have a Very Special Machine to do the same thing, invented by Mel when he was skiving-off down that NASA he used to work at.
Lataxe, feeling his way with the carving implements.
chris,
For the flat (skew) chisels: On a benchstone, start at the near end of the stone, with the edge just touching. Push toward the far end of the stone, lowering the handle as you do so (rocking motion). Reverse motion on the return trip. Repeat til a small wire edge is raised. Flip tool over, and repeat as needed.
For a gouge: Using a slip stone held in the weak hand, address the tool's outside (convex) bevel to the flat side of the slip, with the cutting edge just rubbing. Slide the tool up and down the slip's face, rolling the toll from side to side, starting at one corner of the blade, and stroke by stroke, working your way to the opposite corner. Gradually, lower the angle of the blade as you continue to roll back and forth, til you are stoning the extreme heel of the bevel. Gradually raise the handle of the tool, relative to the face of the stone til the edge is again rubbing. Repeat til a wire edge is raised. Turn the stone so its rounded edge is presented to the inside surface of the tool, and rub the tool back and forth,rolling it along the concave inside of the tool, lifting the tool very slightly as you do so. Repeat as needed.
I prefer to hold the stone still on my "off" hand, and propel the tool back and forth. Others do just the opposite. They are of the devil. Stay away from them, and their advice, as no good will come of it.
Alternatively, you can grind a flat bevel, and just try and freehand keeping it flat. It'll be rounded over in no time!
Ray
Well said.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Oh, well spoken sir!
R.
PS. I wonder if you ever saw Morecomb & Wise on the Teev. Probably too young, on reflection.:-)
Edited 1/24/2009 11:50 pm ET by pharmachippie
>very low angle and almost pare. Is this correct? Yes I do pare. I held semi sharp blade, see my novel bellow, perpendicular and it felt sharp and was not.Thanks for links. I enjoyed reading them.
some thoughts for general posts from the old post from old links:>was never taught to properly sharpen a blade. Heck, the only thing I was taught in shop class was how to sand with a block and sandpaper; spent the entire year doing that! Oh yeah, we also learned how to sweep the floor. It took a long time for me to regain any interest in woodworking after that class. :-( <unfortunately i am from the same era. Can completely relate to that one.>mwenz . . .When I have taught handtool classes, as long as the attendees worked their way up through the grits ridding themselves of the previous grit's scratch pattern, and did not create a dubbed edge it pared wood with ease.
. . .age or era. . . just old enough and my personal history involves growing up sharpening all sorts of edges. From saws to axes, froes and adzes, my grandfather and great uncle were great, if not hard, teachers. Included their use as well. And there was a lot of use.
. . .Cub Scouts [and later in Boy Scouts], further education in sharpening and tool use was taught. Then there were the wonderful Jr. and Senior High school shop classes. . . moved to the mountains in N. Idaho and built a log cabin . . . .timbers for the cabin was in the family for a hundred years. Heck, I still have [and use] the hones we used and they were bought by family in the early 20th century. . . youngest has challenged me to Father's Day rounds of chess.<I agree with, admire and am jealous as hell of mwenz all at the same time.I am going back to shop to get the shaver to test on the finger cells. I had never really heard the specifics of the "method confirmed by numerous old pros (from the original British apprenticeship system)" Philip method. All I heard was just how silly and useless the finger nail thing is.I think I will check out a sharp and semi sharp drill bit with finger method. I hope i am wrong / surprised but cannot see how at this junctureaaaannnndd we are back
you know when you do something and your dog looks at you and turns his head that way that says I don't get it? You know. . . "the dog look"? Picture me doing that right now.I have two killer sharp blades, a medium sharp blade (digs into nail but I can tell is on its way out because it won't dig in at about a ten degree angle ) and some 1/2 inch drill bits that are in various states but not chipped.All three plane blades are at 46 or 47 degrees.I really did give this a go. . . sorry. I under stand how one can feel nicks and jagged edge from coarser grits or folds in a wire edge if I do this.But for instance on the semi sharp plane blade I KNOW the outer sides of the blade are still shave sharp because they don't contact the wood and the middle section is worn and less sharp. So. I should be able to feel a difference as I gently slice along at the cells of my finger tip.Alas and alack . . .As far as the drill bits I could tell nothing until I pulled my thumb across the edge as if I were scraping something off rather than along as if I were slicing.Not practical here either. Tested a dull bit and a "sharp" bit. Both felt dull to me until I scraped across.?PS: the whole thing may pivot on the texture left on the blade when going from grinder to one sharpening stone or two then to work. All my blades were taken from coarse diamond through many grits. And so have nothing there to feel.I have not had a chance to start dropping grits to determine the minimum I can get away with and still jack plane / flatten a surface. As I said though it isn't the final grits that take the time it is the removal of wear area with the coarsest that takes the time.Edited 1/18/2009 6:34 pm by rocEdited 1/18/2009 6:41 pm by roc
Edited 1/18/2009 6:42 pm by roc
Roc,It's funny, when I started high school, grade nine (about 8 years ago), every student in the woodworking class had to take a turn sharpening a plane iron. There was a list of all the students in the hand plane cabinet and when their iron had passed the test, their name was checked off and the next person would take their turn. I don't remember why, but for some reason, I didn't want to or was afraid of sharpening that iron. Being a Wong, with my name at the bottom of the list, I somehow escaped. Who would have thought that the kid who avoided to sharpen a plane iron in high school would become such an enthusiastic and prolific sharpener. By the way, three years later, the wood shop closed down.I wonder if your inner-novelist has scared off other posters...Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
I laughed when you said about 8 years ago but I looked up to see your name _____ Wong and saw that you are in your twenties (?).I figured you were one of us old dudes joking around. Good man starting young. I took up wood working fairly well into my life. Wish I would have started earlier. I am so old now I can't think, can't see, don't care and am too crotchety to make friends.>Inner novelist
I once asked a customer about body building. I was trying to do chin ups in my workout and my left hand was allot weaker than my right. Having a big butt didn't help either. So I would do chin ups until my left hand could not hang on to the bar any more and then I would just hang there by my right hand feeling stupid.I was asking him how to build up my grip on that left side to do more chins. He used to be Mr Chicago back in the day. It happens that it was a warm day and his forearms were bare. He balled up his fist and flexed the palm side of his fist toward his arm. A muscle group the size of a particularly healthy soft ball seemed to appear out of no where under the skin of his forearm.When I looked astounded he said in his typical dry, wry, way "frightening isn't it?". As if it was something other than his own being.The novelist is sort of like that.He frightens me.
roc
Edited 1/19/2009 12:47 am by roc
Yeah, I'm a young gun. One of the reasons I stick around here is to get reactions like yours. I've been woodworking since 1999, longer if you count making balsa wood models. Seriously since 1999.So how's that book coming along?Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
OK, I know I am coming into this thread late, and don't have time to read all 133 post to see if anyone else inquired about your first post where you said. " If not try a final strop on the palm of your hand."Is there some place where you expound on how the palm of your hand improves the edge of the blade? I already understand that your dad or gramp taught you this, but I need to understand why you think it is so. The reason I am bringing it up. I did a demo of how I sharpen to a local woodworking club about 25 years ago. When I finished sharpening, I handed the blade to an elderly Dr. standing close by. He promptly lapped his palm, then pronounced it finished as if my part was only prepping it for him to finish off, before he passed it on for others to admire his work. Please tell me how you believe this myth works.
>palm of your hand<Well I think there is a right way and a wrong way to do this. Also it helps if you are a person who works with their hands a lot and has some callous and some grit worked into your skin.By wrong way I mean if you have taken a short cut and have a bunch of wire edge left on the tool then stropping on your palm just breaks it off and that is what you don't want.How ever, I have found that if I have worked all the way through my grits and there is so little wire edge left that I can not see it with my medium jeweler's visor and I have been a bit lax and I can not get the blade to take a shaving off a single hair ( no I am not kidding ) then if I give the blade a few swipes on my palm then it either takes off the last of the wire edge or it re aligns it ( which is bad ) and then it cuts as I expect, curls of a hair.I even tend to rub my palm on the 8000 stone when cleaning off the black stuff using the nagura so my palm builds up a little grit in the skin. If you look at your skin with magnification there is plenty of "grain" for the grit to get held in.Well that may sound over the top but you asked. I think it is a better idea to take all the wire edge off on the 8000 stone, and not to strop at all on a strop or on my palm but it seems some blades are a bit softer or something to where I just can't get rid of the tiniest wire no mater what I do. Some times this is a sign my stones are not flat also.rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Edited 2/20/2009 11:28 pm by roc
Roc, I think the trait goes back to the days where men sharpened the blade that they shaved with every day. I have a mdf wheel, charged with compound, on my sharpening system that I finish off with. When I finish doing that, there is usually a little ridge of the compound that builds along the opposite side of the edge. This little ridge or smear of waxy compound is not anything that would interfere with cutting wood. But it will push a hair over enough that the edge of the blade won't cut it. I don't think it would matter a bit if it was left on the edge, in that it would get worn off as soon as the edge started to cut wood. But then, I usually rake the edge through a block of wood, then test it on the hair of my arm to see if I like the edge. I don't normally actually shave any hair on my arm. All that is necessary is to touch those hairs. You can feel the blade grab and start to cut unsupported hair well above the arm as soon as it touches the hair. But if the compound is still on there, even though the edge is good, I can't get the feel. But I don't believe for a second that the palm of a hand really improves any edge.
>But I don't believe for a second that the palm of a hand really improves any edge.<OoooKaaaay,Well since, as far as I can tell from that final sentence, you are calling me a deluded lier. I suppose I would be wasting my time to point out how you are self defeating in your sharpening methods because you wouldn't BELIEVE me. Please consider, as a possibility, that this microscopic thing that you/we attempt to form, by a process we have agreed to call sharpening, has more than one order of magnitude.your friend in this great craft that is woodworking,rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
roc, Man, I don't think you are a lier. I know there are probably millions of people out there who's gramp or other greatest hero person taught them to finish sharpening by swiping the blade on their palm. I don't think any of them are liars. I don't know if any of them ever ask themselves the question of why or how they came to believe that the edge is actually improved.As I stated, my belief is that it only wipes the compound from the stropping process back from the edge which would improve shaving, but not much else.If you want to prove a point that it actually improves the edge, all you need to do, is to find someone with a scanning electron microscope, to take a photo of your blade after sharpening then another after the palm swipe, showing the improvements.But please don't get your feelings hurt over this. You are free to believe what you like, the same as I am. Sorry if I hurt your feelings.
Chris,
This one confused me for ages when I got the first high angled bevel Veritas blade for use in a BU plane. No matter how carefully I made and polished the back and bevel, no arm hair could be got. (Plenty of skin cells mind - Ow).
Yet the blade certainly took the required shavings when in the plane. Now I just accept that steep-angled bevels won't do the arm hair test. As another poster mentioned, a mind-experiment in which you try to shave arm hair with a sharp right angle corner will not shave and one is quite happy to accept that.
Lataxe
Edited 1/18/2009 12:36 pm ET by Lataxe
I agree with that scraping skin cells you get..
I can sharpen a straight razor so that when you breathe on the edge you hear TWO screams as each microbe falls off the edge to two slices.
I have never been able to shave hairs with any of my woodworking blades. Almost bleed to death a few times in the shop on the same edge when it slipped!
Will,I find it very curious that you can sharpen a straight razor but not any of your woodworking tools. It is surely within your capabilities. I'd suggest the test of paring the end grain of softwood. It is much safer than shaving.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
find it very curious that you can sharpen a straight razor but not any of your woodworking tools.
I would say I can! I just never found a need to make my woodworking tools shave hairs off of my arms! I think wasted time.. And then again I thing most of it is not in sharpening a 'good' steel. More into lapping that edge than anything..
But wht do I know? Hardly anything...
Will,Now I understand. I hadn't guessed that you don't sharpen your woodworking tools as finely as your razors. I guess that's better than sharpening your woodworking tools super fine and and your razor to 600x.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
I found it. Just ran across it laying on the bench. You know piles of shavings and all that. I had been looking on the nails on the wall where most of the blades are stored. I thought I had one ( see entry # 45038.15 ) and here it is.
What, you may ask, is he rambling on about now ?
A fifty degree blade. Well not a fifty degree blade. A FIFTY FOUR DEGREE BLADE ! ( I write the angle on the blade with magic marker so I can set the sharpening jig the next time )
I must have pulled it out of a plane to put in a shallower blade and never hung the 54° back on the wall.
I picked it up, put on the old jeweler's magnification visor, took a firm ninja stance in preparation to apply blade to forearm hair ; being careful not to skew the blade and cheat and theeeennnn . . .
It shaved hair no problem. I could cut down the length a ways and then through the hair or I could put the blade down on the skin tilt it up a tweak and clip off hairs.
Sharpening jig with too many stones ONE . . . other funny free-hand methods with only two or three stones Ziiiiiiip !
And I had made no special effort to sharpen this blade. It was lost on the bench for weeks now and I just picked it up and tried it.
any questions ? (: )
Edited 2/9/2009 4:57 am by roc
Are you sure?Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Do I look like I am kidding ?|: |: )
Perhaps I was sleep walking in the night and imagined it all and then typed it up and posted it on Knots in my sleep.Does that sound plausible Mr. Flair ?rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Edited 2/9/2009 10:55 pm by roc
I guess that means I should re-examine how I sharpen my blades. Or maybe it's my shaving technique. Hmm. Free shave anyone?Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
I suppose alternatively when you give a class you could just be all stubborn and not pass the blade around. Seems like it does all you need other wise for actual wood working.Some are wood workers that do some sharpening now and then.I am a sharpener that does some woodworking now and then.rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Roc, I recall that way back in early days -- the late 60's I think -- there was a method for sharpening your razor blades that involved simply placing them in proper juxtaposition with a pyramid-shaped object. The energy focused by the pyramid does the rest! Have you ever tried this with a plane iron or a chisel? Sure would save a lot of sharpening time in the shop! Maybe I should ask Mel since the procedure might be something they've investigated for the space program. :)Verne
If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to cut it up and make something with it . . . what a waste!<!----><!----><!---->
>60's method for sharpening your razor blades that involved simply placing them in proper juxtaposition with a pyramid-shaped object.<Oh yes. I have heard this referred to while I was visiting on other planets. This works quite well. Or so they say. On Earth the process was lost in the dark ages and was only recently rediscovered in the 60's. The down side is on Earth it takes decades to effect a sharp edge. Something to do with gravitusbuttoxis; what ever that is. I suspect something about much higher gravity on our planet becoming especially intense in the late afternoon. Tests show beer seems to form an epicenter.If you wish to delve into alternative sharpening methods might I recommend voo doo. It works much faster. We use it at work rather than buying proper spanners and such.There is the no small matter of keeping three legged chickens on hand at all times. It doesn't work at all with the two legged " garden variety ".Isn't life wonderful !
: )
rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Let me see, I think I had a three-legged chicken around here somewhere . . . no, wait, that was a cat. Hmmmm. Now I'm confused -- this alchemy stuff is sooooo technical. Verne
If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to cut it up and make something with it . . . what a waste!<!----><!----><!---->
"...I am a sharpener that does some woodworking now and then...."
There seems to be a lot of that going around. There's a cure for it--get yourself some planes designed to actually work. ;-)
>cure for it--get yourself some planes designed to actually work.<. . . and this is where I am supposed to bite and ask ooohhh kind sir please oh please show me a picture of a plane that works because I am too ignorant to understand anything else .Of course I have wood bodied bevel downs Japanese and European. Iron and bronze bevel ups and bevel downs, scraper planes. That about covers it for designs in my book. There is the matter of fettling. Done em.A plane that doesn't require sharpening on purple heart . . . can't wait to see your pics . . . ( and while you have the camera out show it planing some purple heart with reversing grain that tears out while using a bevel down with no back bevel. ) ( Show me the tear out to prove it. )) : )rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )Edited 2/11/2009 10:53 pm by roc
Edited 2/11/2009 10:54 pm by roc
huummmmjust the sound of crickets . . .
Must have been one of those lost souls looking in from the porn site again.Philip,
maybe he means one of your planes. Did he buy one from ya ? I k n o w confidential, classified info. Need to know and all that.I sure could have saved a lot of time for wood working that I spent fettling my planes. Had fun though. Well not fun as such but I learned a lot. Well not a lot. But I learned how to make a plane work.Wish I had just left that bit to the plane makers and spent more money.Oh wellrocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Do you really want a response or are you looking for a p!ssing contest. Let me remind you that "I am a sharpener that does some woodworking now and then" was your quote, not mine.The very few pieces of wood in my shop from endangered species were purchased long before you started woodworking "seriously" in 2000. There's no purple heart in my shop and there won't be. Perhaps it's appropriate for anyone who works such woods use a plane where the design is known for accelerated wear to be back of the cutting edge as a result of an inadequate clearance angle. Maybe all the sharpening will slow consumption of woods, like purple heart, where a significant portion of the market supply comes from poaching endangered species. Hey, there are exotic metals that may slow that accelerated wear--can I suggest high speed steel with 10% cobalt? I had decided to avoid wallowing in the gutter with you after your troll and to, instead, go look for some good work made of purple heart. I hadn't seen much, but there is some out there on the web. Most of the projects I see in forums like this one where people are using exotic endangered woods leave a little to be desired in the design category. Often what I see is an attempt to make a mediocre design more precious by using exotics. If a design can't stand on its own, all the expensive googaboola in the World won't keep it from soon rotting in a landfill somewhere.Oh, BTW, unless you're following a 1983 article by Richard Newman it's most likely that the steeper cutting geometry you're using has been influenced by the work done in my shop. The difference is we work with tools where no one has to guess if the iron is sharp.
Iwilliams,Well that is beating all the way around the bush and then some. That is one old bush. And well tended. With much pride. I can respect that.It still leaves your original post :>There's a cure for it--get yourself some planes designed to actually work. ;-)<Due to the lack of pics . . .
I am guessing then you don't have one of Philip's planes . . . : )You >avoid wallowing in the gutter< wow that was close !
Do you suggest Philip, and Chris, and Verne, Latax ( surely not Latax as well? ) WillGeorge, rhagenstien, dkellernc, Jeff, joinerswork, twotowers, pharmachippie and any others I stupidly left out is "in the gutter" ? Surely not! That is most distressing. A "revoltin development ". How do we escape this gaping maw ?Ignoring purple heart which was the wood that presented my original unplainability problem with off the shelf planes other than perhaps that scraper which could not take off enough thickness to scrub a board flat.Now. Maybe we should, for the sake of peace, and so we don't corrupt the new wood workers by suggesting use of wood of questionable sustainability, replace the unmentionable "P word " with what ever you find is acceptable that tears out with a bevel down with no back bevel. I still am hoping for some edification here. That is the point of this forum.I find it curious that people who get out of their depth ( and so quickly that must be some kind of record in Knots ) in a "discussion" even an argument, which surely this little exchange has not reached in one exchange, starts to bandy the term, what was it, "troll" ?I have been in this thread from the beginning. I was not sure for sure that my 50° would shave but thought I remembered it could. I had lost track of the thing because I almost never have any use for it. When I honestly came across it, I posted the facts. There was no guessing on my part.It is sharp as specified by the OP's student's test. When a person can take a shaving off a single hair, which it can, I think that qualifies as sharp in some one's book. What test do you and the "boys" (sorry ladies I am pretty sure there are no women in this out fit) use? Faith ? ooop that is a bit "troll" isn't it?Nah that is just arguing in my book. Ok I retract it; sorry. Sorry. Lets stay on topic of YOUR post. How I / we might >get yourself some planes designed to actually work< and hopefully a description of said hardware.Plane blades 10% cobalt. Made a note but lets stay on topic. Your topic.Planes.That was the original topic of your high jack was it not ?Now.Mister "troll", your self , if you have nothing positive to add . . . pics, perhaps a tiny little link to anything constructive, the number of another discussion thread entry that posts something related TO YOUR tangental COMMENT, sir, then I must assume I am right in calling you the awful "t" word.sniff, you are sooo cruelAnd another thing the only item I made of any size from purple heart is my work bench which I must say will in all likely hood be a prize possession , when I am gone, of any wood worker doing traditional hand work.And. At the time I built it purple heart was in great supply, in low demand and not endangered. To quote the Woodcraft store owner "they use this stuff to build houses out of in the lands it comes from. It is no big deal." Not that I believed his comment for an instant. Perhaps another troll. The place is crawling with them. Who gave these darn things alcohol ?So in closing I await your pics or link or brief post but have zero desire or interest in continuing to argue or troll with you over thin air which was your last post. Post some thing of value to me or the people in this chat, as you seem to suggest you were in possession of, or keep off my posts.Unless of course you are just having good natured fun as represented by your " ;-) "In that case drop by any time.
In any case have a fine and rewarding day,rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Edited 2/12/2009 2:23 pm by roc
roc,
"You >avoid wallowing in the gutter< wow that was close !Do you suggest Philip, and Chris, and Verne, Latax ( surely not Latax as well? ) WillGeorge, rhagenstien, dkellernc, Jeff, joinerswork, twotowers, pharmachippie and any others I stupidly left out is "in the gutter" ? Surely not!"
Kindly leave me out of this. I am happy to wallow in the gutter every chance I get, as long as it upsets the other hogs.
Ray, who would like one of larry's planes as well, but believes you get more flies with sugar than with vinegar
larry's planesWho's larry ? Why doesn't he post for himself ? And I have it on good authority that lwilliams hates sugar and rather likes vinegar. We were just comparing samples.happy guttering wallowingrocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )Edited 2/12/2009 6:43 pm by roc
Edited 2/12/2009 6:45 pm by roc
"...However there is significant resistance to bending the ground edge portion of the blade down into the work with the bevel up that is lacking in the bevel down. With very hard wood that resists penetration this is more of an issue in my experience because rather than the blade bending down and momentarily creating more clearance on a worn blade, in the harder wood the cut just stalls when the bevel down bends down.
But thanks to the lack of gymnastics of the cutting edge in a bevel up...."
You're engineering is flawed. You need to look at the direction of the force and what's backing up the steel. The force on the iron runs parallel to the sole, not down into the wood. If you understand that the steel backing up the bevel down plane is in compression and has what's effectively diagonal structural surface (the bevel) in compression as well as at least a 45º bed backing it up you'll see how sound the bevel down configuration is. Compression is nearly always superior to tension when looking for rigidity. The bevel up configuration offers little support to the edge, limits the bed backing support to 12º and has all the supporting steel of the iron in tension. When you're looking for give and resilience you want the structure in tension. If there's a set-up for the edge of the iron to act as a spring, it's in the bevel up plane.
Dare I suggest you go back and seriously study what kind of surface quality you want from your planes? Under magnification I found the best surface had as many pores as possible open and with the walls undisturbed. To the naked eye, these desirable surfaces look uniformly dull. Several things can cause a shiny surface but one of the most common is inadequate clearance at the cutting edge. This lack of clearance burnishes the surface and a burnished surface will inhibit uniform penetration of adhesives, stains and finishes. Wood fibers springing back from deflecting ahead of the cutting edge need somewhere to go and that's the reason for the clearance angle. Even metals deflect ahead of a cutting edge. Are you aware that even brass and aluminum require more clearance than the 12º you have in your plane? Do you think brass and aluminum deflect more than wood?
BTW, I didn't post a link because I'm not prepared to dismiss others as casually as you were prepared to dismiss me for disagreeing with you. I want to know what others think, I could very well learn something from them.
Are you still at it ? : ) And no pics. Hmmm I must say I am disappointed. Though on the off chance I am talking to theee Mr. Williams of Clark & Williams I am willing to continue since now I to will probably learn from you. The rest of you hardies; prepare your selves for yet another novel ala roc.Larry,Is this you :http://www.planemaker.com/aboutus.htmlIf so I must say I respect your back ground. You have lived a hell of a great life from what I read there. I still think you are a bit out of your depth.By the way are there any women in the out fit ?I am not spouting engineering but actual hands on experience with the fore mentioned evil purple stuff. And the following tends to back it up but as an after thought. I found what worked and did not work first.To start; the clearance angle, called side relief angle for a metal cutting lathe tool, which does not apply to our wood plane subject, is around 8 to 10° for aluminum. In the same information it states the "back rake angle" is 12 to 20°. This may be what you are thinking of. This is not the clearance angle.See MH p 1061 third paragraph. ( MH elaborated on bellow.)I think that may have been a place you could have gone off track. Just a guess.My source is Machinery's Handbook 24th edition ISBN 0-8311-2492-X looks roughly like thishttp://www.amazon.com/Machinerys-Handbook-Toolbox-Oberg/dp/0831128003/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=booksqid=1234501082&sr=8-1Mine is the old version but I don't reckon the molecular make up of aluminum has been effected too much by global warming since my edition was printed. But I make it a point to commute by bicycle to work to prevent any further degradation. Just in case. I like aluminum. I like thin strong steel even more.OK back to the grind as it were . . .Now some thing that is closer to the mark:I looked up the clearance angle for a machine broach cutter. That configuration of cut approximates the action of a wood working plane blade. That is, a linear cut taken on a flat surface compared to a cut taken by a metal cutting lathe tool on a spinning cylindrical part.Assuming you have the MH text take a gander at page 950. There is a drawing there. See the term "clearance angle" and the second full paragraph down on that page. It is labeled "clearance angle" as well. Note the angle; 1.5 to 3° That is the range. OK. Now we go to table 1 on page 948 that the second paragraph suggests for additional data. We look under recommended clearance angle for broach cutting aluminum and 3° is recommended. And oh look . . . for finishing they recommend 1°.For those still wondering what a broach looks like it is the slot on the inside of a pulley where one puts the square key stock to lock it to the axle. The slot is cut one stroke at a time as if plow planing a dado or groove. The cutter that does it looks like a saw blade. OR a bunch of plane blades fixed in a row one behind the other.Do you want to keep this up ? I don't recommend it. Because I have spent a great deal of time putting plane to that unmentionable P wood and have empirical evidence on my side. As you said you would never consider touching the stuff. Bubinga and rosewood and cocobolo being in the same league.My experience putting finish, including french polish, on bubinga planed with the 12° has been a positive and rewarding one. No problem with burnished surface causing surface tension. Of coarse you realize the bottom of the plane is also burnishing the surface and the wax or oil that is applied to make the plane easier to push is probably more detrimental to glue adhesion than that little land of wear that is on the order of a couple of microns. Huuummm ?I don't use any wax on my final several passes on an edge glue joint for this reason.By the way I maybe wrong but as I understand it the surface tension problems develop more from exposure to the atmosphere, oxidation if you will, than whether the wood has been cut with this or that angle. An apparent exception, though after a closer look turns out to be similar to oxidation, is when a dull power tool cutter burnishes a surface. There is a great deal of heat involved, enough to burn the surface black. I am one heck of an enthusiastic hand plane user but I have yet to turn the surface black from friction : )I have lots more . . . as far as moments of the blade geometry as it relates to the mouth opening of the plane BD v BU etc.Picture two ice picks protruding down on the underside of a board. The board comes in on a glide path roughly parallel to the ground plane. The picks are each at a fifty degree angle opening to the direction of travel. They snag on the ground as the board descends on the ground plane. One pick protrudes six inches and is easily bent under and or broken off because the forces acting on it over power the strength of the shape because the support is too far from the tip. Another protrudes a mere 1/4 inch and plows a groove and is hardly bent if at all because it is supported near its tip. The one protruding six inches as it is bent traces an arc and actually is deeper at the apex at ninety degrees to the board than it would have if it had plowed through the ground as if the ground were made of cream.Even if the 1/4 projection bends in the same way the increase in depth from the original position to the apex of the arc at ninety degrees to the ground or gliding plane is less and so takes less force to continue across the surface.The BU is the 1/4 dude and the BD is the six inch dude only on unmentionably hard wood the pick doesn't break off it just flexes down and causes more drag until the plane stops dead. Fact.Picture this. If you cut off the blades so short (through the sharpened wedge area) that you can not tell if it is BU or BD and keep them in the planes at their normal orientation in their respective mouth openings you have the same exact shape and blade geometry. Your identical ice picks if you will. All that is left is where the pic is going to be supported. Close to the edge or way back there.The shapes are the same. The angle of the forces and what is in tension or in compression is the same. It boils down to at what point along the length of the wedge does it get bent around the edge of the support.Draw it on paper to scale. Erase the length of each blade beyond the ground wedge. What do you see ?rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Edited 2/13/2009 2:22 am by roc
I don't have time to play with you Roc but a broach is an entirely different animal. The relief angle (yes that's what clearance angles are called in metal working) combined with progressive projection of the teeth in a broach is designed to limit depth of cut. You're not worried about finish quality on a broach, you worry about filling the gullet with shavings. If you clog the gullets of a broach somethings going to fail quickly. It's usually the broach that fails and they're not cheap.
What you want to look at is the relief angle of single point cutters. This is where finish quality and edge life is important. Here's just a brief quote from the copy of Machinery's Handbook I have handy. "...The size of the relief angles has a pronounced effect of the performance of the cutting tool. If the angle is too large, the cutting edge will be weakened and in danger of breaking when a heavy cutting load is placed on it by a hard and tough material. On finish cuts, rapid wear of the cutting edge may cause problems with size control on the part. Relief angles that are too small will cause the rate of wear on the flank of the tool below the cutting edge to increase, thereby significantly reducing the tool life. ... the relief angles recommended for turning copper, brass, bronze, aluminum, ferritic malleable iron and similar metals are 12 to 16 degrees for high-speed steel tools and 8 to 14 degrees for carbides.
Larger relief angles generally tend to produce better finish on the finish machined surface because less surface of the worn flank of the tool rubs against the workpiece...."
Sound familiar, Roc? Just exactly the same issues on planes without proper clearance angles. Metals, though, tend to deflect less ahead of the cutting edge and to spring back less. Maybe at some point, I'll have the time to show how clearance angles impact surface quality in hand planes but I can tell you, if you're getting a shiny burnished surface from your plane, you're not getting the surface quality I would want.
Friends,
Just read this entire thread.
As with all threads, there are a few errors in it.
Let me clear up just one of them.
A few posters talked about woodworkers testing sharpness by shaving hairs off their forearms.I did some research into early sharpening in the woodworking community. I couldn't find anything in the literature about it, so I contacted Shirley MacLaine. She channeled some woodworkers from the late 1700s for me. They said that if you really trusted your blade to be sharp, you wouldn't just test it on you arm hair. You tried it on your pubic hair. I have decided to skip that test and just check to see if the blade cuts wood properly.You know, most of the posts in Knots about sharpening are about chisels and plane irons. Once in a while, folks talk about sharpening carving gouges. REAL MEN SHARPEN THE IRONS OF COMPLEX WOOD MOLDING PLANES. Everything else is trivial. Y'all have fun. (not everone seemed to be).
Mel
PS
You may ask why I entered this thread so late in the game, and why I contributed so little of value. It is my way of trying to run up the number of posts to over 5000. This thread has possibilities. :-)Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
"contacted Shirley McLaine" Very funny Mel, I am sure those were some hairy men back then. Cheers to real men.
Tom.
Tom,
There is no doubt in my mind that you have too much time on your hands. :-)Have fun,
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Shish Mel Quiet.
They said that if you really trusted your blade to be sharp, you wouldn't just test it on you arm hair. You tried it on your pubic hair.
Mel, they only do that in Brasil.
Regards from Perth
Derek
Derek,
You know, anyone reading this far down in this thread has too much time on their hands.By the way, I was surfing the web, looking for info on sharpening Hollows and Rounds and found myself in an Australian woodworking website. Some guy worked out a nice long thread with lots of photos, on his experience, and then, there is was, a response to him from DEREK COHEN. You get around.I visited Lee Richmond today. After I made my purchase, I showed him by new (to me) half set of hollows and rounds, and got his take on sharpening molding planes. He also has a page on this on his website for "The Best Things". There are a few words on this in Hack's book. There are some differences of opinion, to say the least.I put a pretty nice edge on the largest round (#18) in my set, and then I put it to wood. It took nice shavings that went to full width as it went to depth. I am happy with the planes. Now I have to work on my skills. Have fun.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
>run up the number of posts to over 5000. This thread has possibilities. :-)<Is that the point ? Heck I was going for sheer letter characters used. There is a lot I don't understand. I suppose next you are going to tell me my " . . . " don't count. Man from now on I am going to just post : " Yep ." " Nope . " and when I am feeling a novel coming on " OoooKaaa " why do all that work ?rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Hi roc
Just to repeat something I've mentioned on several occasions ... Leonard Lee, author of "The Complete Guide to Sharpening", who was not only wise enough to father Rob Lee (of Lee Valley and Veritas), was the reference for my repeated statement that 12 degrees is all one requires for a clearance angle.
Leonard Lee's work is acknowledged as a serious text. All of the information in this book is based on scientific research, not subjective opinion, not rhetoric ... and so I would say that you could accept it as gospel.
It may explain why you find that your BU planes work in reality and that this is not a figment of your imagination.
Now before anyone thinks I am siding with a member of the LV family, here is a link to a video by Deneb Puchalski using a LN LA Jack.
Regards from Perth
Derek
Edited 2/14/2009 6:11 am ET by derekcohen
lwilliams,It is frustrating when you don't answer a direct question. Well at least the serious ones : ) by which I hope to gain further elaboration on something YOU have alluded to. There have been several you have chosen to just ignore.If you do not have time to talk to me WHY, pre, do you keep talking to me ? I didn't start this you did. I just wanted an example of the plane that you referred to. I don't think we have seen that yet. But I am shoveling as fast as I can ( as that brilliant old post said ) knowing it must be here some where.At the least what can it hurt to answer the question : how do you, and your coworkers that you mentioned, judge whether or not an edge is sharp enough to keep using ? Lets say you have a few blades laying about that have been used a bit but were not taken out because they were dull. They were taken out to use a different radius or some such. So you pick it up and you . . . what ?I will keep your burnished surface from low clearance in mind. To ALL,I would encourage any machinist's, engineers, woodworkers etc and any combination there of to chime in here with facts, experiences, and such. Glued edge joint failures, finish blotching etc. from bevel up finish planes. Does the 12° clearance sound like not enough in very hard wood ? Am I all wet when I say that a big clearance or a small clearance is negated by the wear behind the blade once there is significant to effect a change. OK the major wear is on the front of the blade but the wear shortens the length of the blade by a microscopic amount and now we have a secondary clearance angle if you will. Isn't it very shallow , near 0° , compared to either BU or BD? So 12° or 25° is now irrelevant. Just looking at that microscopic amount that is buried in the wood ( compressing the fibers ) which by the way is less than the thickness of the shaving by a long shot. ( again to reiterate I like the BU for the versatility and blade support. Not low clearance angle which I could achieve by grinding a wider angle on a BD.)To my mind comparing the presentation of a lathe cutting tool on a cylindrical surface with a plane blade cutting a flat surface and with a much wider edge just leaves a question or two in my mind.Then there is the fact that we wet the surface occasionally and then what ? Use even more clearance ? I don't know. Well I do know from what I have experienced and expected but I am hoping to hear what others have.I truly could not imagine I had so many problems from using a low angle plane. I have been ecstatic with the results. As compared with a BD with a back bevel and lots more clearance.rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )Edited 2/14/2009 12:28 am by roc
Edited 2/14/2009 1:37 am by roc
Roc,Though I haven't been posting in this thread, I have been following it. Some interesting ideas and some irrelevant banter (to be expected, of course).I have heard of the idea that 12-degrees isn't enough clearance with the spring back of wood fibers but haven't experienced any so far. Mind you, I generally deal with domestic woods, no super hard, dense exotics. I seriously doubt that a botched glue-up could result from use of a LA plane. Some woodworkers aim for a sprung joint. And these joints hold together.I think it comes down to tolerances. I remember talking to one woodworker, an ex-machinist, who sets the depth of his hand plane irons with a dial indicator. Tolerances.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Chris,
"Some interesting ideas and some irrelevant banter (to be expected, of course)."The following question is mean in all seriousness.How can you tell which is which?If you asked the major contributors to this thread to list which is which, do you think there would be much overlap?Maybe we all need to go back to the old philosophy texts and re-study some of the really basic questions:- what is truth?
- what is real?
- what is important? Somehow, I think this thread is a classic. In the future, I will refer newbies to it, and suggest to them that one can find quicksand in some places on Earth, and also in Knots. Do you think anyone convinced anyone else of anything in this discussion? Do you think this discussion has made anyone a better woodworker?Why don't you go through this thread and pick out what you think is irrelevant banter, and then let me comment on your selections. Statements made by folks in this thread may be irrelevant to you, but the maker of the statement probably thought he was dead serious.Knowing what is true, what is real and what is worthwile is the realm of the wise. Picking bits of wisdom out of giant piles of stuff is difficult stuff, and the smell can be terrible. My suggestion is that testing things out in the shop is a far better way to find wisdom than in threads like this. But for those interested in verbal jousting, this is a wonderful thread. I enjoy verbal jousting, but even when woodworking is the "seeming topic", the joust is not about woodworking, but about jousting. Of course, all analogies break down. THere is another analogy that comes to mind. I think of a dozen male dogs walking down streets. What do they do? Sniff and pee. Sniff and pee. Some of that was going on here. I guess it is a bit like jousting, except that your opponent has already left the scene so it is less likely that one will get hurt. I know what you thought when you read this thread. You thought "With a pile of horseS*** this deep, there must be a pony in here somewhere." Interesting thought. Go back and read some great works on epistemology, and see what it says about piles and ponies. The area of logic is an important area of philosophy but it is deadly dull. Personally I like aesthetics. Let's focus on the beautiful. Have fun.
I wrote this to you because I think you have the potential to have a great career in front of you. Look around and judge who is worth listening to. In my experience, some of the best woodworkers on Knots are the best banterers. Also, they can tell the difference between bantering, bulls*** and important technical issues. The bantering serves only as a constant reminder that they know the difference. Not everyone does.If you send me a bag of money, I will send you a list of people you can and should believe.You know, that would make a great thread here on Knots. Who on Knots is worth paying attention to? Why don't we each make up a list and send it in. Yuk Yuk.So Chris, did you think of all of this as banter or believable?In any case, I hope you enjoyed the intellectual challenges I posed. If you thought any part of this message was meant to be humorous banter, you were wrong. At least I think so. How can I tell? :-)
Mel
Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,First of all, it is not black and white. Some banter is about interesting ideas. Most of this post is banter http://forums.taunton.com/n/mb/display.asp?webtag=fw-knots&msg=45038.85&js=y. I have no problem pointing my finger here because I know the poster already either knows that it's banter or won't take me seriously.I do believe that some of us have been swayed by others of us. I for one, believe that it is possible to indeed shave with a high-angle blade. However, I believe that my shaving technique is flawed. I have a hard time finding volunteers to practice with.I doubt this discussion has made any of us better woodworkers, but surely most of us are a little more well rounded (imagine how much you could eat/drink while reading through this thread).I dare not try to separate the banter from the ideas. All my time these days is spent trying to sharpen with my 55-degree blade (gotta out do Roc).Being early in my woodworking career (and life), I believe in having an open mind (but not so open that my brains fall out). I will listen to anything anyone has to say. Sometimes I agree wholeheartedly, other times, I could not disagree more. You know the saying about having one mouth, but two ears.I just sent a large cheque to Woodcraft and wrote "To Mel" in the memo field. I hope it makes it to you - I already got my stuff! Now where's that credibility list?Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Chris,
I'll look for the check.
Have fun.
Mel
Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
I have been sort of reading this thread, but not too closely. Did the chiesel cut the wood acceptably?
Brad
Brad,Are you taking us all the way back to the beginning? I demoed sharpening a 50-degree plane blade and one of the audience members tried to shave his arm hair and failed. To redeem myself, I put took a nice shaving from the end-grain of a soft wood (pine). And yes, it did a terrific job.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com) - Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Edited 2/16/2009 8:52 pm by flairwoodworks
roc,
If a bevel-up blade is backed up by the plane's frog and bed clean down to the cutting edge, is there any clearance angle at all? Sure the blade's projection means that behind the teeny amount of metal that is sticking out, there is an eensy amount of clearance, but I wonder if that means that the tool will only function when the blade is perfectly sharp, and starts riding on its dubbed off edge when it is an eensy- weensy bit dull? Is that the real reason you and Abe have to spend 4hrs a day sharpening?
I ask this in all seriousness. I built a bevel up plane, and with the mediocre blade I put in it initially, this seemed to be the case. And so I wonder, even with a high quality steel, whether one must be constantly touching up a bevel-up blade to get it to perform. Now for a smoother dedicated to occasionally planing a piece of impossible wood this might be a passable trade-off. For a day to day user, in a paying shop, it would be impractical.
Ray
Ray,
Perhaps you have encountered the wear bevel?
http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpen/bevel%20up.html
Now, my theory is that if you drag the plane back across the wood you have just planed (rather than lifting it back) for the next stroke then this helps make the wear bevel add some sharp rather than the taking it away, as it does when one planes for'ard.
Of course, this is just a completely wishful-thinking-informed theeeory engendered in the mind of a lazy bloke. :-) However, if it were tue, we could arrange a self-sharpening plane by incorporating a small dispenser of diamond paste into the plane mouth. This would cause the drag-back to produce a super sharp edge (via the wear bevel) at every stroke.
Of course, there would have to be an automated micro-advancement mechanism to lower the blade a tiny fraction after each drag-back. Plane irons might wear a little faster. We would need a diamond-paste fund. But think! No more oily stones or mucky waterstone thangs!!
Lataxe, who has always dragged his knuckles a bit.
Lataxe,
I tried that dragging back'ards trick a while ago. My experience was thus: The fit between the flawless surface I'd just made and the sole of the plane created such a suction that it pulled the shaving back out the throat of the plane. Atmospheric pressure cemented the bloody thing in place, necessitating another stroke to remove it. And so forth and so on.
Ray
>• Perhaps you have encountered the wear bevel?
•
• http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpen/bevel%20up.html
•
• • wear bevels . . . in images taken by the QX3 Microscope . . . look much like the microbevels produced during sharpening.
•
• upper wear bevel width . . . value of around 0.005" long before the iron feels dull. . . . unless you position the cap iron within 1/200th of an inch of the edge, it will perform no "chip breaking" function).
•
• high wear bevel, as little as 0.0002" wide, <etc. I just posted to say "I'm with ya"I'm here.
rocPS : Man look at all the bullet holes ! I gotta learn to keep my head down.rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Edited 2/15/2009 5:23 pm by roc
roc
I maintain that the wear bevel is overrated. I am not rejecting Brent's research, but in practice I am not affected by this.
A wear bevel developes for both BU and BD planes. The difference is that you hone it away when you sharpen a BD plane. The argument/criticism levelled at BU planes is that you have to flatten the back/or grind back the bevel to rid yourself of this little monster.
It depends on how you work. I strop the back of the BU blade every now-and-then to maintain the edge. No doubt this removes the wear bevel before it intrudes, so I do not experience its presence. Other woodworkers do not strop and still are not troubled enough (if at all) by the growing wear bevel to consider it an issue (perhaps they do not recognise the symptoms?).
One of these days I shall unpack the QX3 I bought 2 years ago and examine it for myself. I just can't raise the energy at this time.
Some time ago I built a BU plane with a 25 degree bed. This was partly to reduce the ingress of this villain. Mainly it was to be able to grind a 35 degree bevel and avoid having to make do with a 48 degree microbevel on a 25 degree primary bevel (owing to a 12 degree bed). I can't say that the blade life is extended noticeably by the higher bed.
Regards from Perth
Derek
Edited 2/15/2009 11:47 pm ET by derekcohen
Derek,
I believe you are correct in all counts. Also the ruler trick can be applied to quickly sort out any(perceived) back bevel wear .
Unpack the microscope this week end without further ado.Philip Marcou
Philip,
I do like the ruler trick, albeit the microbevel I puts on my (already polished) blade back is truly micro - so small that honing the bevel probably removes it. It takes seconds and is just insurance agin the wear bevel.
Although I have no proof I seriously believe that dragging the plane back over the just-cut workpiece rather than lifting it up, may help keep the downward-facing part of the edge (where the back bevel forms) sharp for a little longer. After all, it's just like stropping the blade on a hardwood substrate only without any honing paste.
Does anyone violently disgaree? :-)
****
In all events, A2 blades seem to stay sharp for many cuts; and are brought back to "very sharp" by a quick strop on paste-impregnated mdf, leather or even on that 8000grit diamond stone. Incientally, that diamond stone started a little "rough" but is now super smooth with use. It does produce a scary-sharp edge in no time - equivalent to the fine edge got from 6000grit micrgrit papers, I would say.
Lataxe, slowly reducing his sharpening-honing times to a minimum.
O Lataxe,
"Does anyone violently disgaree? :-) "
When has anyone ever had a violent disagreement on this board?
Now I am just a duffer at this woodworking stuff, and have no microphotographic gear like the real pros. But, seems to me that dragging that plane backards will do the same thing regarding a wear bevel that pushing it forards does. But, there used to be a commonly used technique of "honing" jointer knives while in the cutterhead by passing a carborundum stone across them (from the outfeed table) while the machine was running. I never had the nerve to try that one.
Your argument to me sounds suspiciously similar to that of a fellow who proposed that cutting sandpaper with scissors made them sharp. Maybe you ought to drag that plane backards across some sandpaper? Then hone it on your hardwood. You won't have to go thru the bother of removing the blade a-tall.
I too am too lazy to pick up my planes on the backstroke. But I never considered convincing myself it was for the good of the plane ;-)
Cheers,
Ray
Your argument to me sounds suspiciously similar to that of a fellow who proposed that cutting sandpaper with scissors made them sharp.
I have a big old scissors that I have used for years for cutting 1/4 sheets. Works as well now as I remember it as new. But then again I only cut sandpaper with them....
Ray,
"I too am too lazy to pick up my planes on the backstroke. But I never considered convincing myself it was for the good of the plane".
Have ye no discovered the joys of "rationalisation after the fact"?
This is where you allow your emotions, random activity, crazy suggestions from friends, the lazy route and similar to guide your actions. Later, when you need to justify those things you've done, you make up apparently rational decisions you made "by choice" before you acted. None of them are true but they fit much better with "responsible citizen of a democracy" than " out of control mad bloke driven by hormones and paranoid allegations he read in The Daily Frightener".
Of course, we all do the after-the-fact explanations, all of the time. Some of us knows we do and others are convinced by their own rationalisations. In both cases, we are actually just out-of-control flesh robots.
Well, unless you know different? :-)
Lataxe, who dreads having to be in control of anything except sharp stuff.
Lataxe,
I do rationalise after the fact all the time, or I will do it after all the time, but only if and when it will make what I did do seem to make sense, after I already did do it, and wanted or will want it to do so...
Ray
Lataxe,It has always been my understanding that dragging the blade/plane backwards over the work would dull the blade prematurely. The only similarity to stropping is the direction in which the blade is moved across the "sharpening" medium - backwards. The angle at which it is stropped is entirely different. Stropping is usually at the same angle the blade is sharpened (or flat to the back, or at a slightly increased microbevel), rather than 12-45+ degrees, as would occur when stropping the blade while it is in the plane.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Chris,
Doh! Another promising theory ruined by close observations and the damnable facts!
Lataxe, throwing away that particular rationalisation to join the already large heap outside, by the privy.
Ray,
" And so I wonder, even with a high quality steel, whether one must be constantly touching up a bevel-up blade to get it to perform?"
I can assure you that a bevel up plane with blade bedded at 15 degrees certainly does not need constant touching up to get it to perform: in fact it lasts far longer between honings than the normal Stanley types. Having used Stanley types for about 40years I think I am qualified to assess. I refer to one of mine naturally and it would have either a Veritas A2 blade, or O1 made by me or D2 made by me (and heat treated by professionals).
Since I also make bevel down planes with blades bedded at 45 or 55 degrees (so far) I also have these to compare with/against.
The clearance angle of a b/up bedded at 15 degrees is a maximum of 15 degrees and has nothing to do with projection or support of the sole .
And if I were woodworking full time here in New Zealand like I used to do in Africa I would be using either my own bevel ups or those mass produced ones well before my Stanleys and Records which did serve well for the 15 years that I made furniture on a professional basis.
Quite apart from I have said , if this type of plane needs constant honing then how come they have become so popular amongst hobbyist and professional alike? Not all hobbyists like to spend time honing despite what one may read in forums.....
Did you get my e mail asking what had become of your plane project?Philip Marcou
Edited 2/15/2009 3:48 am by philip
Philip,
"The clearance angle of a b/up bedded at 15 degrees is a maximum of 15 degrees and has nothing to do with projection or support of the sole ."
I'm still trying to get my head around the geometry, and what actually occurs where the metal meets the wood. After reading the link that friend Lataxe referred me to, it sounds like that writer is saying the same thing that I wondered about; that is, the wear bevel on back of a b/u blade is more of an issue, and must be addressed with more grinding or more frequent honing, than with its b/d mate.
At the same time, I can't see that the wood knows whether it is being cut bevel up or down. And yet, if there's no projection on a b/u blade resting in its bed, there is no clearance angle at all, yet, is there? The whole concept of the wood being forced down by the pressure of the blade,and then springing back up, is one I'd not considered before. What is guess I'm getting at, is, does the gap behind a bevel down blade, caused by its bevel leaving the bed, have any positive effect on a clearance angle, and what that clearance does for cutting longevity? Put another way, is there an issue of clearance area, as well as clearance angles? Must this be counterbalanced with close-up support of the blade?
I did privately answer your query about my b/u project, but will do so again. I am going to have a little chat with a local blacksmith, who has an interest in tool making, about making me a proper iron for my project. I will see what he says about making me a blade, and then decide whether to go that route or order a Hock or the like. I'm in no particular hurry, the whole project was begun as a lark, and even if the b/u smoother works a charm, it will only be pulled out in cases of dire need. Curly maple, crotch walnut, or dast I say it? purpleheart, or goolaboola...
Ray
Ray,
Send all your goolaboola to me as only I have the correct Marcou to deal with it. However, doen't send your crotch as it will only cause nose-wrinkle and the whole point of this conversation is: how to get stuff smoooooooth.
As to frequency of BU blade sharpening - that A2 seems to stay sharp enough for many swooshes. Many, many swooshes. Many, many, many swooshes. Many, many [That's enough "Charles and Fiona" talk - The Taunton anti-tedium police].
Lataxe spelkhand, part man part oak plank.
Ray,
message 45038.95 should have been addressed to you and not that Philip fellow....Philip Marcou
philip,
That's alright. I talk to myself sometimes too, when I want to have an intelligent conversation. :-) Thanks for your insights into plane geometry. I was worried that my ebony sole might not maintain a "sharp " enough edge at its lower rear mouth opening, and develop a wear bevel of its own. I was under the impression that support to the cutting edge was the thing to strive for with these buggers. Now it seems I was over-obsessing, and might want to actually pare a little away.
Rasy
All,
I hear that Brent Beach is just another name that Charles Stanford uses, although not here on Knots. I just read through the the last bunch of posts on this thread. It reminds me of a time back in the mid 1970s when I was learning how to play the five string banjo. There was a group of banjoists (or is it banjoistas?) who would endlessly discuss the metal composition of the the banjo ring, the type of wood used for the fingerboard, how to reshape your finger picks, etc. They were having a good time. That is what was important. Good to see you guys having a good time too. I do often wonder, however, how the Goddards and Townsends made such nice furniture with such old and lousy planes. I wonder if Mozart could have written even better music if he only had a synthesizer to use. A friend once had a sign on his wall. It said, "When a paradigm ceases to focus on central issues, it is dead."Of course, he never defined what a "central issue" is. I guess that a central issue is whatever one deems important. I always loved circularity. It helps me go to places that please me.If anyone thinks that this post was meant to be humorous, it was not. It was meant to display a different way of thinking. One that holds that if the Goddards and the Townsends could make great furniture with "inferior tools", then maybe improved tools is not the place to look in an attempt to make better furniture." Sometimes in the middle of a deep discussion on fine points, it is good to come up for air, take a deep breath, and check on the big picture into which the details fall.Back in my days in the field of Instructional Design, a friend developed an approach to selecting the appropriate media to present a given concept. He called it the "closet theory". He held that to select a media, one should open the closet, and use whatever fell out. His theory was ridiculed and derided by the intelligencia of the field at the time. As it turns out, my friend was right. My message is not aimed at those who are in the midst of this discussion. I do not believe they will find anything agreeable in my message. (not that that is important) My message is for others who read this thread, and wonder about the importance of what they are reading. In woodworking, as in all of life, there are few "universal rules". Use the religion that you like best. As some move toward "high tech" planes, my life is moving towards some of the tools of the 1800s. My interest is not so much in the tools, as in the fact that modern planes will not allow me to achieve the mouldings that I seek. I suppose that I could learn to grind my own cutters for a shaper, but somehow I dont find that an attractive alternative. My current adventure with Hollows and Rounds and snipe's bill planes was not driven by a fascination with the tools themselves, but because they seemed to offer the only approach to making the mouldings that I want to make.Which brings me to a restatement of my major premise -- if one is not focussing on the furniture to be made, one is probably not focussing on the most important parameters.Please pardon my lapse into philosophy.
I hope no one takes offense at my proferring an alternative approach to life. I do not seek to change the approach of the BUers, but merely to provide solace to others who may be wondering about the importance of the topic of this thread. Enjoy,
Mel, the heretic
Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
I can see it now.....
Mozart and Moog having a few arguments on what knob style and patch cord colors to use.
http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/PICKOVER/pc/moogrc.html
Somehow the 'studio speakers' do not seem to fit with the Moog instrument.
I'm thinkin' of 16 inch Bass with 50 lb magnets weighted down with sand bags and tweeters that look like a fog horns. And in the background, glass enveloped, driver tubes that glow different shades of purple between 3 and 150 Hertz.
Made a Moog from a kit LONG ago. It WORKED! TO bad I did not know about how to make music! I had fun but drove my wife nuts making 'sounds'. No music!!
Edited 2/16/2009 11:17 am by WillGeorge
Would-be-heretic esquire,
You must not mistake your random thoughts for philosophy, as this can lead to all sorts of strange conditions, such as becoming a member of a cult that believes we are all an alien experiment. At this point you find yourself dressing as a robot and believing you can make an C18th piece of furniture with nobbut a blunt adz. (Maybe you can but it will take ages and you will need to invent a Cherubini "it's supposed to look rough as an olde dawg" theory).
Perhaps you have just got a case of Platonisis and have come to believe in a golden age of the past from which point we and the tools we use have all slowly degenerated into an unsatisfactory present? This condition is merely a meme-phart and is easily dealt with by an hour or two of surgery without an anaesthetic.
Lataxe, who feels the golden age is always "now" as the other ages are no longer available and therefore have no colour except "dark & misty".
I wouldn't call it heresy so much as Luddism. Beware of zealousness in that direction -- too much and the powers that be may transport you to Australia just as they did during the day when furniture was built with the tools you prefer. ;)Verne
If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to cut it up and make something with it . . . what a waste!<!----><!----><!---->
Ah Verne,
I must not have explained myself well. You said:
"I wouldn't call it heresy so much as Luddism. Beware of zealousness in that direction --"I could't be less of a Luddite. I use all sorts of power equipment in conjunction with hand tools. My point, in simple straightforward terms, is that tools must be seen/taken/used in the context of the work you want to do with them. Others here are, I believe, focussing so deeply into details of the details of tools, that they have lost all thought of the furniture they were meant to build. I take Brian Beach as the the essence of the silliness. It is to be expected that people who make and sell planes, like Philip, and people who stay close to manufacturers of planes, such as Derek, would get into these discussions. But I think such discussion is better off in a place like Handplane Central, if they have a place to discuss things, than in a woodworking place such as Knots. To me, it is like an M.D. In order to diagnose, he has to understand the underlying causes and mechanisms of disease. He has to know how viruses work. HOWEVER, HE DOESN'T HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THE MOLECULAR STRUCTURE OF THE VIRUS. Furthermore, he doesn't have to know the atomic structure of the molecules. That is for another group to work on. When one shoots pool, one must stand back from the table, and understand the situation in order to determine the next series of shots. He does not need to know the molecular structure of the balls and the stick. That is for others to worry about. Find a tools that help you achieve what is in your mind, and use them. If those tools are completely mechanized, and computer controlled, use them. I am not a Luddite. I just believe in "using tools" and not "being used by them", or "being a slave to their details". If they work for me, to do the job I want them to do, then, then they fit into the context of the situation. Did I make myself clear, this time, Verne.
I apologize for being a poor writer and not explaining well the first time. No one has ever seriously called me a Luddite. When you walk into my humble shop, all you see are machines and a bench. While I am moving toward hand tools, it has nothing to do with being anti-machines. I use hand tools where machines can't go. Do you want to get into a discussion on that one?????? Naw. That one is too easy. Machines don't get me as tight a miter joint as a hand plane on a miter board. I can do MUCH better with a miter board than with a chop saw. However, I don't cut long rips by hand. I use my table saw. I don't use a scrub plane. I use a jointer and a planer. I hope that helps.
Mel the non-LudditeMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Yes Mel, I understand because I am much of the same mind. Please forgive me -- I knew I was poking a broomhandle into a bee hive, but I pushed the "post" button before I could stop myself. That said, I still think that the particular notion to which I was responding -- that if a thing can be done well by hand, 'tis better done that way than t'other -- is nearer, though not truly, Luddism than heresy.
Ah, the joys of phlosofizing! ;>)Verne
If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to cut it up and make something with it . . . what a waste!<!----><!----><!---->
Verne,
You understand Mel!? Please provide a translation of his rambles into one or two cogent statements. I tried it myself once but the whole post seemed to just cancel itself out so there was merely a sort of phrrrrrting noise left at the end.
I'm starting to think he's an especially good agent provocateur personality implemented by Mr Voodoo of Stanforth.
Lataxe, trying to tune to Channel Mel but just getting static.
"Please provide a translation of his rambles into one or two cogent statements."
Ah, now, that would be cheating. Besides, Mel is a phlosofizer and his communications aren't easily turned into the sound-bites we're used to encountering in this day and age. I think they're best contemplated over a couple of fingers of Maker's Mark or your favorite single malt. Some of my own musings are like that -- at least they seem that way to me after the second pour of the good stuff. Verne
If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to cut it up and make something with it . . . what a waste!<!----><!----><!---->
Verne,"Ah, the joys of phlosofizing! ;>)"I'll drink to that.MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Others here are, I believe, focussing so deeply into details of the details of tools, that they have lost all thought of the furniture they were meant to build ..... I think such discussion is better off in a place like Handplane Central, if they have a place to discuss things, than in a woodworking place such as Knots.
Mel, of course you are right! That makes so much sense!!!
I can see it now. We need lots of websites - everything should have its own place. For example, a website where we only discuss shoulder planes. Nothing else. Although I am sure that this will eventually fail as someone will object to these being infills or not. Perhaps there will be a call for a separate forum for those that use adjusters and those that do not.
One website per woodjoint (the building type, not the other kind..). A website for those that want to plane rebates. Of course first we need to decide whether we need a separate forum for those who prefer rabbets. We could have sub-forums for the various plane types - straight, skew, steel, wood, LA, HA, BU, BD, the different manufacturers, their pros and cons and, Heaven forbid, how to sh-sh-sharpening (there I said it!) them. Lets keep the tools out of the discussion of technique. After all, we are men, and we do not need to actually know how things work.
Can we decide whether Knots will be the furniture website? Or knot. If it does, do we only discuss handmade or power made furniture? Or only Regency or Shaker or Jacobean, Early American, William and Mary, Queen Anne, Colonial, Georgian, Pennsylvania Dutch, Chippendale, Robert Adam.... Remember, we specialise, so it can be only one. We will go to another website(s) for the others.
Teasing in Perth
Derek
As they often tell me. Now I am suggesting to you.Derek,maaaybeee yoooou have had to much coffee. ?>After all, we are men, and we do not need to actually know how things work.<ROFLMAOYou know . . . this segregated woodworking network can ONLY hold up if we further divide it up into Republican and Democrat websites.And I am unanimous in that ( quote by Edith Bunker )rocPS: check this outhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MalapropismGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Edited 2/17/2009 6:17 am by roc
Ah Derek,
You know the problem of the mathematician. He can't get out of the room because first he has to go half way, but before that he has to go half of that, etc etc etc.Your analogy was fun. I use analogies all the time. I wish they worked.Actually, people self-segregate. It is always good to see the trio of Derek, Philip and Lataxe in full agreement. Woodworking is big enough for all types, groups and subgroups and philosophies, and it should not seek to impose artificial boundaries. Actually, I did not suggest such boundaries. I merely thought if I really wanted some good answers to the question, I would be far more likely to find people with the background and interest to answer it over there. It reminds me of the story of the cop who walked up to a drunk at night under a street light and asked the drunk what he was doing. He said, "I am looking for my watch." The officer asked, "Where did you lose it." The drunk pointed a half block away, and said, "Over there." The cop asked, "Then why are you looking here." The drunk asnwered, "Because the light is better."It is interesting to see how people go about getting answers to a question. It is even more interesting how they take what their situation is and formulate a question. I find that after more research, I often have to re-formulate. I am only suggesting that woodworkers who focus on questions like that being posed in this thread might want to "reformulate", and rethink. I suggest that they come up with a list of the ten (or so) greatest woodworkers in history in their estimation, and do research on those ten, and check to see if they were fascinated by the issue of this thread, or if they were able to create masterpieces without thinking about it. I believe the latter will always be the case. I am reminded by the number of people in their twenties who I have met in the last five years who said they wanted to become professional woodworkers and open their own shop. In talking to then, ONE THING WAS CLEAR. Not a single one of them had given any thought as to how one goes about finding or creating customers. I suggested that each of them rethink their priorities, and research the problem of finding customers. I gave them each the names of professional woodworkers to contact. You know, I failed in every case. Darn! THey were more worried about which tools to buy first, and stuff like that.I guess that trying to save others from stupid mistakes is a thankless task. Besides who am I to say that a woodworker-wannabee needs to think about getting customers? or more to the point of this thread, who am I to suggest that these discussions on ultra-fine-Brent-Beach-like discussions of making edges really takes a person's focus away from the big picture of designing and making masterpieces? I am resigned to continuing to write such pap, with the full knowledge that no one reads it, and that if they do, they certainly will be more inclined to go along with Cohen-Marcou-Lataxe than the wordy heretic, Mel.I have thought about this, and it doesn't bother me. I don't really write for others. I write because I am. It is an imperative. It is my way of trying to work things out in my mind. If I wanted others to read my stuff, I would write more like you, clearly and with photos and simple steps.Keep the faith. Without you, this place would be the worse. Knots needs people who are more tool-oriented than woodworking-oriented. Maybe in the future we should do a thread on "a woodworking versus a tool orientation". We have all types. We have Philip who used to be a professional woodworker, and is now a professional toolmaker. We have you, who writes almost exclusively about tools. THEN INTERESTINGLY ENOUGH, we have Mike Wentzloff, who was a woodworker who became a toolmaker, but who still thinks like a woodworker. By the way, I didn't dream up that last statement. I got it from your friend, Rob Cosman. When are your going to retire, and have fun all the time? I often wonder how you do so much tool related testing and writing, and still have time to be a psychologist. Have fun.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,Your post here and the one in the water stone pond thread make it appear that you may believe the clearance angle issue is trivial and somewhat irrelevant. While it's somewhat esoteric it is real and important. It's also not solely connected to low bed angle planes.Clearance angles are important when tuning up planes but, for the most part, ignored in plane tuning articles or books covering the subject. Some knowledge and observation of clearance is important to anyone looking for success with their planes. It's important to understand what conditions require larger clearance angles and even the intended use of the plane. The steeper the effective angle the more clearance you need, likewise, the more obtuse the angle forming the cutting edge the more the clearance angle needs to be increased. Heavier cuts require more clearance than very fine cuts.Let me give you an example. One of the planes I use a lot is a middle pitch coffin smoother. I grind the iron at 25º and hone somewhere around 30º. I hone free hand and the angle is just set by eye and habit. At times, the honed flat gets big enough that it takes more than a few passes on the stones to sharpen. I should regrind but if I have only a little to do I sometimes fudge things and lift the iron at more than 30º. If I get it up around 35º the plane gets difficult to use. It requires more force, seems to want to balk and chatter and it acts like it might be dull even though it's not. What I'm fighting when this happens is an inadequate clearance angle. I don't take heavy cuts with this plane and with a 35º edge on my iron in the 55º angle plane I have around 20º of clearance. That 20º isn't enough for a middle pitch plane even when taking fine finish cuts.Recently one of my partners made a traditional strike block plane, a bevel down miter plane bedded at 40º. We wanted it to take to a show so as soon as it was ready he brought it to Don and me. Don immediately tried it on a miter shooting board and he initially decided it was acting as if it wasn't really sharp. When he checked the edge it was fine but looked to have a somewhat obtuse grind. It turned out that it had been ground and honed at around 30º. Don looked at the finish the plane left and it was burnished. Just regrinding to 25º and honing slightly above that tamed that plane and it began to work just as we expected. Because the strike block is bedded at 15º less than my smooth plane it doesn't need as much clearance but 10º wasn't enough. For or five additional degrees made a lot of difference.What that strike block plane showed about why miter planes likely evolved the way they did would be a topic better suited for a plane makers' forum but the problems created by inadequate clearance are of interest to anyone who might want to tune a plane for optimal performance. While it takes severe problems with clearance to actually stop a plane from working, anyone using planes will most certainly benefit from knowing what happens when there's not enough clearance.I don't ever expect to change Derek's or Philip's minds about how much clearance is necessary. But anyone else who pays attention and knows what problems inadequate clearance can cause will enjoy working with their planes a lot more. Some other planes that often end up with obtuse grinds on the irons that cause clearance problems are moulding planes. I'm betting you'll run into this when tuning your hollows and rounds. If you understand what's impeding the performance of those planes, you'll find them very easy to fix.
Edited 2/17/2009 10:06 pm by lwilliams
Larry,
That was an enlightening post. Sometimes, due to my poor writing ability, I am misunderstood. That is always MY fault. No one elses. You thought I was saying "make it appear that you may believe the clearance angle issue is trivial and somewhat irrelevant."That is not what I think. I believe that specialists can see things that generalists do not have the background to fully comprehend. You are a planemaker, and as such, you MUST delve deeply into the areas under discussion. There is no other way. Just like "Men are from Mars, and Women are from Venus", I believe that furniture makers and tool makers think differently because they have to focus their limited energies on what they are doing. That is the essence of what I meant. I meant no disrespect to either woodworkers or toolmakers, and I am certainly not an expert on toolmakers. Sorry for having written so poorly.
Mel
Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
Larry,
Can you expand a bit on the "burnishing" you mentioned in your post?
Thanks,
Tony
Hi Tony,
Evidently, I'm having trouble getting my points across. Let me see if I can make this more clear.
In most cutting processes the material being cut deflects ahead of the cutting edge. Wood is no exception and how much wood deflects depends on how much resistance the cutting action creates. Some of the main ways you can increase the resistance by increasing the effective cutting angle, taking a heavier cut or by using a more obtuse cutting edge. Wood fibers are pretty resilient and what's not cut away will spring back to their original shape and location after what is removed is severed. Or it will go back to its original shape and location unless something stops it. In a hand plane what can try to stop the spring back is lack of clearance. In this case it's the portion of the iron that's behind the cutting edge and as the wood fibers spring back they rub on the area behind the cutting edge. This is what creates the accelerated wear on the back of the iron in a 12º bedded plane. It also burnishes the wood.
This burnishing isn't helpful. If you examine wood surfaces under magnification what you want is a condition where all the pores of the wood are open and the surface uniform. The burnishing lacks both these qualities. The burnishing closes the pores and varies according to the density or underlying grain orientation of that very specific area. The closing of the pores inhibits penetration of adhesives, stains and finishes. Finishes won't appear uniform in this situation and significant sanding to give a uniform finish will be necessary. If you're gluing two surfaces the joints won't be as strong on burnished wood because of the impaired penetration.
Derek is using Lee's book as his reference and says it's all scientific. Well, the scientific method requires a number of steps. It requires asking a question, doing background research, constructing a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis by doing an experiment, analyzing the data and drawing a conclusion. None of this appears in my copy of that book, it's just stated that 7º is all the clearance that's needed. I don't see what that is based on and it contradicts the evidence I often see. There's nothing scientific about it and I'm sure anyone who pays attention will see what I see.
As an example, I earlier quoted Machinery's Handbook and what they say about relief angles as clearance angles are called in metal working. While the quote isn't formulated in scientific terms, it is based on result oriented trade practice. That quote about single point metal cutting is "...The size of the relief angles has a pronounced effect of the performance of the cutting tool. If the angle is too large, the cutting edge will be weakened and in danger of breaking when a heavy cutting load is placed on it by a hard and tough material. On finish cuts, rapid wear of the cutting edge may cause problems with size control on the part. Relief angles that are too small will cause the rate of wear on the flank of the tool below the cutting edge to increase, thereby significantly reducing the tool life. ... the relief angles recommended for turning copper, brass, bronze, aluminum, ferritic malleable iron and similar metals are 12 to 16 degrees for high-speed steel tools and 8 to 14 degrees for carbides.
Larger relief angles generally tend to produce better finish on the finish machined surface because less surface of the worn flank of the tool rubs against the workpiece...."
Roc didn't like my quote because he doesn't understand that cutting on a metal lathe is done on the left or right shoulder, not scraping the perimeter of a cylinder or that it also applies to single point cutters used in milling. Because of your business, I'm sure you're familiar with the importance and necessity of adequate relief angles.
The mentioned metals are ,are dense and more rigid that wood so they deflect less than wood. Metals are also less resilient, tending to conform to their deflected shape, so they spring back less than wood. This means these require less relief than wood does and yet they require more than Lee's claimed 7º clearance angle for wood.
What it all boils down to is, if you want a good surface from your plane, you'll pay attention to clearance angles. A 12º bedded plane will give you marginal clearance only if you take very light cuts and use a relatively acute bevel angle of around 25º. I think Stanley knew what they were doing when they offered block planes in both 20º and 12º configurations. The 12º was intended only for very light cuts with acute bevels and the 20º version was for heavier work.
lwilliams,>Roc didn't like my quote because he doesn't understand that cutting on a metal lathe is done on the left or right shoulder, not scraping the perimeter of a cylinder.<What Roc doesn't respect is some guy that jumps in here with a comment to me and then refuses to have a discussion but snipes from behind a wall of softer wood and traditional planes yet claiming to have something new and superior pertaining to the wood I AM discussing and then shoots me down for using that wood but has no responce when I ask for help determining which woods should be avoided because they are endangered and then not even being willing to show his hand for this superior tool that I should have.THAT is what I don't understand. (: )>cutting on the perimeter of a cylinder<You mean parting off. Ya that happens once in a while to. Hey would you, or any one else ( Philip )since we are back to this metal lathe thing, have some good info on parting tool set ups. Seriously. I have tried about all the angles and I tend to get juddering. Kind of scary. Tends to want to brake something or not cut smooth. No matter how carefully I feed the cross slide it tends to cut in bursts. It tends to kind of pull forward into the work almost as if it is self feeding and feeds too fast once it starts to cut. I set the jib with some drag but that doesn't smooth things out entirely. There is not much info on this in books that I have found.I have a precision block that I made so I can come up and touch to be on center then I have experimented with a tweek above and a tweek bellow.It just occurred to me maybe I am cutting out too far from the chuck but seems like cutting closer to chuck doesn't help much.I know rigidity is the key. I use an Aloris quick change tool post on a 13 x36 lathe.http://www.machinetoolsforsale.com/Aloris.htm#cutoffOf the three tool posts shown mine is the one on the left called the Standard Tool Post_.My cut off tool is#7, #7RNot sure where you will come in on this link. You may wind up right at cut off tools like I did or you may need to scroll down quite a ways to Cut-Off & Grooving Tool HoldersthanksrocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )Edited 2/19/2009 4:47 am by roc
Edited 2/19/2009 4:53 am by roc
Roc writes, "What Roc doesn't respect is some guy that jumps in here with a comment to me and then refuses to have a discussion but snipes from behind a wall of softer wood and traditional planes yet claiming to have something new and superior pertaining to the wood I AM discussing and then shoots me down for using that wood but has no responce when I ask for help determining which woods should be avoided because they are endangered and then not even being willing to show his hand for this superior tool that I should have."
Discussion? Discuss what? How to avoid working with endangered wood species? Okay, here ya go:
http://tinyurl.com/bq49k6
I wasn't aware that saying I had no intention of purchasing a wood likely supplied by poachers of endangered timbers obligated me to start holding the hand of anyone who couldn't figure out what timber species are endangered. Oh please forgive my oversight!!! But then, I have the excuse that finding that link took all of 30 seconds. Oh sh!t, if I mention using a search engine am I now obligated to teach anyone who reads this how to use one?
Maybe I'm jumping the gun a little here. Maybe I was supposed to respond to your first questions to me:
".... . . and this is where I am supposed to bite and ask ooohhh kind sir please oh please show me a picture of a plane that works because I am too ignorant to understand anything else .
Of course I have wood bodied bevel downs Japanese and European. Iron and bronze bevel ups and bevel downs, scraper planes. That about covers it for designs in my book. There is the matter of fettling. Done em.
A plane that doesn't require sharpening on purple heart . . . can't wait to see your pics . . .
( and while you have the camera out show it planing some purple heart with reversing grain that tears out while using a bevel down with no back bevel. ) ( Show me the tear out to prove it.)"
Was that a question or target practice? First, I did reply to your request that I go out and obtain some endangered googaboola wood. Second, and here's the shocker, I don't know of any plane irons that don't need sharpening. Maybe someone into googaboola metals can help you but I don't care for googaboola in metals or wood. All I expect of my irons is for them to quickly and easily take a good edge and to keep that edge through a decent amount of work. That part is easy, metals for this kind of plane iron have been available for a few hundred years.
As to your problems with your metal lathe, I'm no expert in adjusting and tuning up metal lathes. Still though, the intermittent balking cut sounds familiar. Have you checked the relief angle of your tool bit?
>endangered list<Thank you ! I searched and came up with this one. I admit to dismissing it when it did not include bubinga which was my test because I knew it was endangered.If this is what you go by. That is good enough for me !Don't get me wrong. I just wanted to know.The first page seemed to be a disclaimer or some such with places to fill in for the name of a business etc.It didn't fit my search image so I moved on. Now that you give it some credibility I will look closer at it.Thanks.>relief angle of your tool bit<I guess I wasn't clear. I thought I said I had tried all the angles. I meant regrinding since this holder makes no provision for changing the bit angle.That is why I included pics of the post and bit holder. You didn't look did you ?>Discussion<I imagined it may have gone some thing like this :Well just hold on there a second ya upity scamp. I don't cut that stupid endangered stuff and you shouldn't use it either. But when I find some really hard stuff, say a burrel etc. I use a plane that looks like thispicThis is why it is better than what you are usingDetailsThis is what happens when you don't have the clearance rightlink to article or other person having a similar problem caused by my low angle/clearance.And I come back and say well I have not had a problem like that, or at least I was not aware I was having that sort of a problem. I will look for it. I will give my bevel down another go.And you say but you will still have problems because you are using a 45° bed. If you use the plane I recommend with the steeper bed ( I assume and still don't know if you are saying 50, 55, 60 etc.) the key is the thicker wedge angle that you won't get with a 45 but you will need to go more clearance because of the steeper angle. A back bevel is not the way to go . . . etcor some suchI am piecing this together as best I can and guessing some.I admit I was wrong in my imagination.I admit that I was short with you and dismissed you. I had no idea that I was talking to a national treasure.I am not using that title in jest. I mean it.I HAVE been at this long enough I was pretty sure you had nothing but a snide comment to contribute.I had not taken into account the use of a steep bedded wooden plane.That was my error and over sight and I apologize.For this little tiny, bad boy nitch of purple heart that I temporality strayed into I had written off wooden bodied planes. The Maple one I have picks up fibers from the purple heart and they imbedded them selves in the maple. Doesn't cause a problem short term but I don't like the long term ramifications of this.Well that might have been part of my contribution to the DiscussionSo was I right in my from the hip assessment of your original comment? I think I was.Was I a decent human being and did I give you a chance ?I was not and I did not. I did ask for your further elaboration but at that point you had dismissed me.Am I proud of the way I handled it looking back ?No sir I am not. Forgive me please.I put humor and flippancy before common decency. From your first post I took it that you were doing the same.I may have been wrong.rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Edited 2/19/2009 6:20 pm by roc
Bravo, Bravo. (from the peanut gallery)
Tom.
Edited 2/19/2009 9:41 pm ET by gofigure57
Roc
Put Your cut off tool in the back upside down. Then cut off from the back. See if you still get shatter.
Hilmar
Hilmar,Hey Thanks for responding !I have read this is possible. The way my quick change post is set up it is not an option. As far as I can tell. I may have to get a set up that allows me to do this. I have tried about every thing else.The cut off blade is a bit on the wide side. Last time I was looking at my problem I was considering going to a thinner cut off blade but then it is so frail for deeper cuts.I was surprised because I like my lathe other wise and I like the Aloris QC tool post.On brass it is no prob but on steel parting off is a bit intense. I wind up sawing on the cut off band saw and then finishing in the lathe.I should make up something so I can use the upside down on the back method. Thanks again.rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Edited 2/20/2009 11:13 pm by roc
Roc, put the blade in the front, upside down and on center, and run the lathe back wards.
Hilmar
>blade in the front, upside down and on center, and run the lathe back wards.<Hilmar,I am going to try that. Thanks.
I am a bit leery because my lathe chucks don't lock to the spindle. ( possible to unthread the chuck off the spindle if it catches badly )Unless I am not understanding what you are telling me, which is quite possible, I think at this point I would be in the realm of a negative rake on the " top " business part of the bit.Or I could grind it so it is less so.Negative rake may be OK. I hadn't considered that. I don't know. Worth a try. Probably couldn't catch if a negative rake.thank you,rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
"I am a bit leery because my lathe chucks don't lock to the spindle"
You may well be leery, but I assure you it works-I mean I tried it when I had a Myford lathe and made sure the chuck was well tight....Another danger is making a spastic move -since all is reversed...
But I still think one should expect to be able to part off without a flap. I got a dedicated Seco throw tip tool for this and all is well now and the expense long forgotten.
Philip Marcou
>Another danger is making a spastic move -since all is reversed...<Well you know me and spastic movements . . . so there is no hope I will be able to pull this off then ? : )Thanks for answereing/encoragment. I need to search this "throw tip" that you speek of. Just to know what the heck it is.Thanks again metal man !PS: first I found http://www.helium.com/items/1322396-shower-ideas-for-experienced-momsBut that doesn't quite sound like you . . . I am continuing my search.rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Edited 2/22/2009 1:30 pm by roc
>one should expect to be able to part off without a flap. I got a dedicated Seco throw tip tool for this and all is well now and the expense long forgotten.<Aaaaahhhh. Seems like you mean a carbide holder that obviously has throw away tips. This one you have from Seco appears to use a "normal" not negative rake.My lathe must not be ridged enough to part off with the tools I have with out resorting to unorthodox measures. Not a big deal but I always wondered why it had trouble. He is a stout lathe over five hundred pounds. ( ~ 250 kilos actually ).rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Rocky,here is the parting off tool I mentioned.And guess what? I couldn't give a frantic fig what angle of clearance, rake, fake, negative , positive or neutral it has -so it must be okay.
Edited 2/23/2009 4:45 am by philip
Philip,Thanks ! That one is different than I thought it would be.rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Rock, You grind the tool for the material you are using. There is no change on the tool grind. If you have no negative rake when the lathe runs normal then there is no negative rake if the tool is upside down ,on center, and the lathe runs the opposite. The chatter comes not so much from the tool but more so from the play in the cross slide and the Saddle assembly. Believe me it is there. New lathe or not.
Your chuck must have a locking screw so not to come of the spindle in reverse.
Hilmar
Hello Hilmar,As far as negative rake I was refering to Philip's coment to just run lathe backward with my existing fixed angle tool post with the bit in upside down but on the front side of the bed.Note that the bit angles up so if I am cutting on the bottom side of this bit then it seems to be a negative rake. That is why I included the links. So you and Philip could see the tool bit is specialized and angles up to the work at a fixed angle. It is solid carbide as I remember. Sorry if you can not open the links. I don't know why some times they are not viewable.
previously I posted these links:I know rigidity is the key. I use an Aloris quick change tool post http://www.machinetoolsforsale.com/Aloris.htm#cutoffOf the three tool posts shown mine is the one on the left called the Standard Tool Post_.My cut off tool is#7, #7RNot sure where you will come in on this link. You may wind up right at cut off tools like I did or you may need to scroll down quite a ways to Cut-Off & Grooving Tool Holdersend of copied textIt looks like I can grind the angled bit back to where the top of it is parallel to the floor or at zero rake and run it normally that way. I do lock the carriage and snug up the jibs to eliminate play in cross slide and compound.I believe the main advantage to running things upside down is so the type two chips that are like little gatling gun belts don't stay in a deep slot in the work but fall down and away so it doesn't jam the bit against the side of the slot.I have yet to go down to the shop and fire up the lathe so this is all just pecking at the keys on my part so far.thanksPS: >Locking screw so not to come of the spindle in reverse.<Nope. I guess that is one of the differences between a four thousand dollar lathe and a ten thousand ( or more ) dollar lathe. Scary huh ?I just looked in the manual and there is a " cam lock spindle nose " option but I didn't get that. Mine just screws on " spinnnnnn thunk " and that is it.rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )Edited 2/22/2009 5:59 pm by roc
Edited 2/22/2009 6:01 pm by roc
Phillip and Larry,
To both of you, thanks for very detailed responses. I'm leaving within an hour or so for a short trip and will not return till early next week. At that time I will try to digest both of your views and try to apply to experiences I have had.
In short, however, my question was rooted in a condition I have experienced (albeit infrequently) occassionally when gluing up or in finishing, when a planed surface was so smooth, that certain times, either glue would not adhere completely or finish would give a less than satisfactory surface appearance( variable on same piece of timber-oil or film finishes). Bear in mind that the wood I mostly work with is cherry and since I'm a hobbyist, the wood is mostly QS. For secondary woods I generally use poplar.
As far as planes used for smoothing operations, mostly a Clifton #3, LN #4 with high angle frog and a Stanley #4. Occassionally I have used an LN #62 and a LV bevel up smoother, although I always seem to go back to the first three. I can't quite get my hands around the BU concept completely-although I do like the LV with a toothed blade for difficult areas.
Again, thanks for the detailed answers and both are enlightening views. I need to print out both to read and re-read several times.
T.Z.
Larry,
I have only just seen this statement:
"I don't ever expect to change Derek's or Philip's minds about how much clearance is necessary."
Since I don't know what you think there is in my mind when it comes to clearance angles I would say it is necessary to lay it out for all to see - otherwise you could be creating false impressions unwittingly or otherwise.
I would like to point out that I do think I have a reasonable grasp of the importance of suitable clearance angles because a) I have been working wood for most of my life and b) I have also had and used metal lathes for the last 28 years- small lathes like a 9 inch SouthBend which are not forgiving of cutters prepared any old way.The luxury of disposable tips is recent for me.
I make a 12 degree bed bevel up plane for end grain work, not smoothing. The choice of 12 degrees was based on that Stanley #62 but there the similarity ends. I have not planed a great range of timbers with this model but have yet to come across anything burnished, although some woods appear to shine and I put that down to either silica or something else in the wood.I use a blade steel that you don't approve of , but others do-possibly because I make sure there is no hit or miss type heat treatment. So until I see concrete proof that this plane suffers in any way from a lack of clearance I am not about to change the bed angle. (It is also heavy and not a wooden plane which may hide some symptoms of clearance deficiency but I see no evidence of this on any surfaces worked so far).
Since wood is not homogeneous like metals then I have come to the conclusion that there must be ####range of clearance-as you have said, but , again for woods I have been working with, I think the lowest one can get away with is ten degrees-see the picture of a plane with a 40 degree bevel down blade ground at 25 degrees and honed at 30.No burnishing there, but some (me) may notice a sensation of reluctance to stay down. I will make another at some stage and bed it at 421/2 or 45 to get a 121/2 or 15 degree theoretical clearance.So I would like to be on the safe side and any smoother I make will not have a clearance angle of less than 15 degrees.
You know about the 15 degree bevel up smoother-seems to me that there is enough clearance there going on the state of worked surfaces. Ditto the 20 degree bevel up. Should I do a 221/2 like K. Holtey does? I don't have that inclination yet, and ofcourse it would be nothing new. So enough of bevel up stuff that you don't like.
What about bevel down planes made by me? I have done them all starting from that 40 degree thing and ending at a 55 degree bed smoother. Apart from the dubious 40 degree one I don't need to change my mind there.
Is a wooden plane with identical cutting features to a heavy, metal plane going to produce the same surface when compared?
Philip Marcou
Ray,
I suspect that in some cases the pvt email option is not working as I see no replies that you mention. In fact there was a mention of this apparent fault recently.
I think I have missed something that you have in your mind when you say "If a bevel-up blade is backed up by the plane's frog and bed clean down to the cutting edge, is there any clearance angle at all?"
The blade will only be supported "clean down to the cutting edge" if the bed comes to a sharp point with the sole, in which case there will be no void behind the blade except for that miniscule void formed by the blade projection and the sole-virtually nil if one considers that the blade may only project say 2 thou. This is also not good because especially if the bed is at 12 degrees there is a long shallow ramp ending in a delicate point: untenable with a wooden plane, bad with a cast iron (eg Stanley #62 I think) and not too good with a steel soled plane.
But if there is a vertical step or shoulder of say 1mm before the actual bed ramp begins to go up then there is plenty of space behind the blade between it and that ramp shoulder and the blade is still well supported almost to the cutting edge.Philip Marcou
Edited 2/16/2009 12:06 am by philip
>Larry<OK I am attempting to piece together you all's little mystery.Are we talking this Larry Williams of Clark & Williams ?
and if so why all the silliness just post a link.As far as a standard plane geometry verses a 12° low angle plane re:
>Perhaps it's appropriate for anyone who works such woods use a plane where the design is known for accelerated wear to be back of the cutting edge as a result of an inadequate clearance angle.<this articlehttp://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesPDF.aspx?id=2091suggests that 12° is more than enough clearance and from all my experimentation, making without a power jointer or thicknesser, I agree.When the blade wears, on the microscopic level, the clearance is reconfigured to near zero whether or not the blade angles up at 50° or 12°. Think about it. Not to mention the sharpening angle getting our magical 50° bed plane back down to around twenty degrees clearance.However there is significant resistance to bending the ground edge portion of the blade down into the work with the bevel up that is lacking in the bevel down. With very hard wood that resists penetration this is more of an issue in my experience because rather than the blade bending down and momentarily creating more clearance on a worn blade, in the harder wood the cut just stalls when the bevel down bends down.But thanks to the lack of gymnastics of the cutting edge in a bevel up there is less tearout, more control and simpler and fewer sharpening steps to obtain an optimum cutting geometry. Why make an added step of a back bevel if it can be avoided? Or the expense of a 50° plane just for use when a steep angle is needed once in a while ? The coffin smoothers are beautiful and wonderful but not for the very hard stuff. Perhaps for the maples that are all reversing or crumbly. I can't speak to that having little experience.Most of my work will be in walnut, camphor, poplar and primavera. So I am giving up my outlaw pillaging of the earth and returning to sustainability and respectability even without the tung lashing.rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Edited 2/12/2009 8:07 pm by roc
>If a design can't stand on its own, all the expensive googaboola in the World won't keep it from soon rotting in a landfill somewhere.<Ha ha ha,....that's a quote worth hanging on to. There's a lot of radio static in these forums - heck, I've probably created some of it myself - the trick is to pick out things you can really learn from,....
I have been spending some time over at Handplane Central. Digging around. I was all excited after it was suggested that was where the high tech stuff was and not on Knots.
I must not be using the search-ability of the place to full advantage. I found almost nothing on clearance. One guy claimed 5° was all that was needed. When challenged he simply said well use more then if you think you need it.
End of story. Nothing really beyond what we have heard here. They did seem rather confused about wheather a tight throat was needed for end grain. I would think it is obvious that it is not since there can be no splitting of the wood ahead of the throat just perpendicular shearing of the fibers.
Before I went there, from what I have learned here, I was begining to want to test if more clearance might actually be a good thing for endgrain work because I would think there would be even more compression and spriing back on end grain because it seems it would be so easy to bend the fibers over. Nope they are liking farily low angle for endgrain.
I am going to try the bevel down with lots of clearance for end grain. I think I just always assumed low angle was the only choice there. People here have said they use the bevel down no prob for end grain. Back when I tried it I was sharpening straight across, no radius, so blade could not get any depth and dulled quick. Perhaps with some radius . . .
I did find this bit that has given me pause to reevaluate the term Finish Plane. It is an article written back around 1888. It is called:
“Bench Work In Wood: A Course Of Study And Practice Designed For The Use Of Schools And Colleges” by the writer W.F.M. Goss. which was first printed by Ginn & Co, Boston in 1888. W.F.M. Goss was a professor of practical mechanics at Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana. Many of the illustrations in the book were produced by Mr. M. Golden, of the School of Mechanics and Engineering at Purdue University. The exerpt says:
The stock of a smooth-plane is made short so that, by its use, a surface may be smoothed without incurring the necessity of straightening it.
The fore-plane will smooth as well as the smooth-plane, but not until it has first straightened the surface.
If a rough board is to be made smooth, or if a considerable amount of material is to be removed to bring a piece of wood to size, most of the surplus stock should be taken off by the jack-plane, after which the smooth-plane should be used to give the surface desired. If the finished surface is to be straight as well as smooth, the fore-plane should follow the jack-plane. It is never necessary to follow the jack-plane with both the smooth-plane and the fore-plane.
end quote
So the Fore plane, basically a jointer plane in our time, could be thought of as the final plane to touch the surface.
Woh
thought you might like that. I will probably keep using the short guy for the final even though I am getting full length shavings with the jointer.
roc
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Edited 2/19/2009 11:25 pm by roc
Edited 2/19/2009 11:28 pm by roc
Edited 2/19/2009 11:36 pm by roc
Roc,With moderate interest (probably mostly because I am the OP), I have continued to follow this thread.I am afraid of participating on other forums - I spend too much time on this one as it already is. By the way, this is the only forum I am active on and I feel that we get a lot of good discussions which have enough, if not too much scientific research into it. From my experience, (*NB: hands-on, working experience, not through scientific testing and magnification) the opening of the mouth makes not difference when it comes to working end grain. I have not noticed a difference with between low and high cutting angles in hardwood end grain. The only difference is the amount of force required to push. Remember, these are my personal, observances only.A QUESTION FOR ALL:
Low angle planes have a 12 degree relief angle. Bench planes, with a 30-degree blade plus 2-degree microbevel makes for a 13 degree relief angle. So why is a low angle plane so inferior regarding relief angles?I liked that excerpt regarding plane lengths. I have found that for what ever reason, I find it easier to do final smoothing with a smoother than a jack. I'm not sure if it's because one is always sharper than the other, or one is set up for a lighter cut, or because the smaller surface area allows me to exert greater PSI, resulting in less chatter.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Chris asks:
"A QUESTION FOR ALL:
Low angle planes have a 12 degree relief angle. Bench planes, with a 30-degree blade plus 2-degree microbevel makes for a 13 degree relief angle. So why is a low angle plane so inferior regarding relief angles?"
How much clearance angle you need depends on what you're doing. My objection to the way the low angle planes are promoted is that you supposedly can sharpen them to get any included angle you want. You can but increasing the included angle increases the amount of clearance required. There's this claim of versatility, that these planes replace the three or four planes one would use for stock preparation. The reality is that you're converting all your planes to smooth planes or, worse, scraper planes.
For someone like Latax, who's said he only wants planes to replace his finish sander, this may be a legitimate approach. I'll guarantee you one thing, no one is going to find dimensioning stock with a finish sander satisfying or enjoyable. While you'd think it ludicrous to suggest dimensioning stock with a finish sander, that's essentially what's being suggested with all this bevel up versatility nonsense.
In your example of common pitch bevel down plane with its iron sharpened to 32º you're probably pushing the limits of clearance depending on the depth of cut and what kind of wood you're working. If you put a 5º back bevel on the face of the iron, you're not going to have enough clearance. You'd want to back up and grind and hone at 25º if you wanted to use a 5º back bevel.
As I said earlier in this thread, there are conditions which will increase or decrease the required clearance of a plane. Increasing or decreasing included angle, increasing or decreasing depth of cut, the angle at which a blade is sharpened, the type of wood being worked and its grain orientation all have an impact on how much clearance is necessary.
A 12º bedded bevel up plane with a 50º blade has an included angle of 62º. Lee Valley's web site says this will produce a type II shaving. If you look at Leonard Lee's sharpening book a type II shaving is what one gets from a scraper plane. Are you going to try to tell me you use a scraper plane to joint edges or dimension stock?
A few years ago I was talking to Thomas Lie-Nielsen trying to tell him about the advantages of increased included angle planes for hard woods. This was before they had high angle frogs or all this nonsense with bevel up planes and obtuse angles started. He told me he thought one would have to be awfully subjective to tell any difference. I wasn't looking for an argument so I just dropped it. A couple years ago, I did one of the Lie-Nielsen hand tool shows and was given a bench to work at with a piece of interlocked grain hickory on it. I just grinned thinking to myself, "Well I guess they've learned a few things." If I had known I was going to be in a parlor trick competition, I would have packed my sharpening stuff. We can certainly hold our own in that kind of venue, I'm not too sure we didn't invent that game at shows. I'd shipped all my stuff there and couldn't ship flammables so I didn't have my two oil stones or strop so I just threw that piece of hickory under the bench.
And now to something different. American plane makers of the 19th Century got so many things wrong. One of those that drives me crazy is their blurring what a fore plane is. A fore plane is a roughing plane, maybe like a jack plane or a little longer. It's not a trying plane which is capable of finish cuts as traditionally set up. A traditional fore plane would not be used for finish surfaces because it will be heavily cambered.
This was before they had high angle frogs or all this nonsense with bevel up planes and obtuse angles started.
So Larry, you don't like BU planes?
In your example of common pitch bevel down plane with its iron sharpened to 32º you're probably pushing the limits of clearance depending on the depth of cut and what kind of wood you're working. If you put a 5º back bevel on the face of the iron, you're not going to have enough clearance. You'd want to back up and grind and hone at 25º if you wanted to use a 5º back bevel.
As I recall, David Charleswork has advocated a 25-30 degree backbevel for some of the reversing grain he planes. And this on a common pitch plane. Curious.
Perhaps you might wish to review this FWW article here, written by Lyn Mangiameli, in which he recommends BU planes for their high cutting angle (up to 65 degrees), and also suggests a 10-20 degree backbevel on a common pitch BD plane.
A 12º bedded bevel up plane with a 50º blade has an included angle of 62º. Lee Valley's web site says this will produce a type II shaving. If you look at Leonard Lee's sharpening book a type II shaving is what one gets from a scraper plane. Are you going to try to tell me you use a scraper plane to joint edges or dimension stock?
I must tell my mate Terry Gordon (HNT Gordon planes, that his 60 degree (BD) jointer and trying planes really do not work, and that the shavings are a figment of his imagination.
all this nonsense with bevel up planes and obtuse angles
Larry, methinks you protest too much.
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Are these shavings or scrapings? Do we care?
Regards from Perth
Derek
Derek,
In part you wrote, "So Larry, you don't like BU planes?"
That's not accurate at all, Derek. Back before Lie-Nielsen released their #2, the second bench plane produced in their line, I learned that if I called on Saturday about 7:30 a.m. Maine time Thomas answered. I took advantage of that and over period of time called maybe 10 to 15 times asking him to please produce the #164.
The low angle bench type planes are incredible tools. They'll do things other planes can't but they're also specialized tools. I received one of the very first #164 planes LN shipped. While I wasn't doing much of the kind of work I originally wanted it for, I knew I had uses for it. In fact every molding plane I made for years had the toe and heel cleaned up with my LN #164. When kept sharp and taking a very light cut, I could plane right past all the detail work on chamfers, shoulders and gouge cuts without worry about blow-out of grain or details at the back of the cut. That plane was a critical tool to my work.
That plane also bailed me out when I coauthored an article with Doug Stowe about a table he was making. He was making the top from some curly spalted maple with some crotch feather and knots. He knew that wood would have to be hand planed and asked me to do it and write about it. There were some areas of punky wood in the spalting and the reduced cutting resistance of a low angle plane was important to getting the job done.
BTW, nice set of smooth planes in your post. I know in your world every plane functions as a smooth plane but I don't think that's an effective way to work. I'm sure you and I will continue to talk past each other on this. I noticed that in your web site article about stock preparation you used a Stanley #5 for the heavy removal of stock. In the article you say you prefer it for that and anyone with any experience knows why. It's the job the plane was intended to do. Have you noticed that Stanley called its #62 and #164 butcher block planes? Here's a news flash for you--they didn't pull that out of a hat.
Don tells me that my use of the term included angle in my last post was misleading and thinks I should have used "cutting angle" or "angle of attack." I'm not sure and did look it up before I used it. Don says that, to a carver, the term included angle refers to the actual angle of a carving tool after accounting for the bevel angle and the inside bevel.
Well Larry, I am pleased that you now like BU planes. I just wish that you had not been so reticent in the past at saying so :)
I noticed that in your web site article about stock preparation you used a Stanley #5 for the heavy removal of stock. In the article you say you prefer it for that and anyone with any experience knows why. It's the job the plane was intended to do.
It is pertinent to repeat something that I have stated many times. I will emphasise in advance that there is a context to this statement, and must not be re-phrased out of that context.
In my opinion, if your preference is to hone freehand (as I do), then you are likely also to do as I do, and reserve BU planes for the outer extremes of cutting angles. For example, the LA end for shooting and the HA end for smoothing. I don't like the interruption of a honing guide, along with the limitations that come with secondary bevels (e.g. they restrict stropping), which BU planes rely upon. I prefer a hollow grind at the angle of choice, and hone coplanar to the bevel, thus creating a microbevel on this.
Following on from my sharpening preference, the LA end of the spectrum is fine for a BU plane (as a 25 degree grind produces a 25 degree bevel), but the HA end is not (I would not attempt to hollow grind a 50 degree bevel as this is difficult to camber - refer to my article on cambering BU planes) - it is a testament to the superior performance that one can get from a BU plane as a smoother that I use them. I also love their low centre of gravity, which makes for better feedback when planing. However it is easy to see why "traditional" woodworkers who only freehand will not like these planes. Like everything, it is a case of "horses for courses", and the BU plane has a place where it shines like no other.
For the woodworker who has but one or two planes, then the BU range, with their great flexibility, will come as manna from Heaven. For myself, with a wide range of planes, I prefer to set them up for specialist tasks. While I could use the LA Jack in a "coarse" role, I reserve it for the shooting board and as a panel plane. For coarse work, whether as a near-scrub or as a traditional foreplane/jack, I will use a Stanley #5 1/2 (actually I love using planes I have made, and in this context am building a jack around a 1/4" thick D1 blade - perhaps I will send it to you for a review).
Don tells me that my use of the term included angle in my last post was misleading and thinks I should have used "cutting angle" or "angle of attack." I'm not sure and did look it up before I used it. Don says that, to a carver, the term included angle refers to the actual angle of a carving tool after accounting for the bevel angle and the inside bevel.
I would consider that "angle of attack", "included angle" and "cutting angle" could be used interchangeably. They mean the same thing.
One question to end. You stated above, There were some areas of punky wood in the spalting and the reduced cutting resistance of a low angle plane was important to getting the job done.
From this I take that your experience of LA planes is essentially in the low angle area. Have you actually put in any extended use as a HA (60 degrees) smoother and compared this with lower cutting angles on other planes using wood with much reversing grain?
Regards from Perth
Derek
"...From this I take that your experience of LA planes is essentially in the low angle area. Have you actually put in any extended use as a HA (60 degrees) smoother and compared this with lower cutting angles on other planes using wood with much reversing grain?"
Extended use? No. I did try it and, when I did, I expected to find two things. I expected to find accelerated wear on the back of the iron and I expected the spring-back to be self-limiting when it came to control of depth of cut. That's exactly what I found.
All my Lie-Nielsen planes except one were from the time when Lie-Nielsen was putting water hardening steel irons in their planes, some of the very finest modern steel I've had the pleasure of working with. My shoulder plane had A-2 steel and I didn't like it because I found the flat back of the iron too tedious to flatten each time I sharpen, a critical step in sharpening BTW. Mark, LN's pattern maker, told me he could probably come up with a W-1 iron for it and I pleaded with him to also get a second W-1 iron for my LN #2. I got those irons but I didn't want to push things and ask for a second iron for my #164. I kinda regret that now.
I saw no future in radically shortening the life of my #164 W-1 iron on what I saw as an exercise in stupidity. You know, access to what I have no doubt are the very finest York and middle pitch bench planes made in the last 250 years isn't a big problem for me. I'll let you in on a little secret, there's considerably more skilled handwork in one of these wonderfully agile and user friendly planes than in a Holtey costing $7,000 more. Should I ever decide to spend a day weight lifting, I think I'll see if I can't find a gym where there are a number of women hanging around who are into taking care of their bodies. The pleasant distraction of such a place might off-set all the extra work.
Hi Larry
I have just one of those W1 blades. So far my experience is very positive.
There is a story that goes with it ...
About a year or so ago I won a LN #140 on eBay. No one wanted it (!) as it was in really poor condition - carroded and grotty, with missing parts. I mean, really, how much rust do people think that you get on bronze?
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I cleaned it up, but the fence was frozen and the blade was quite skinny - much thinner than I had on my other LN planes.
Thomas (LN) helped me out. I think of this as a combined effort as he did part of the work. It turned out that this was one of the very first #140 skew rabbet block planes LN made (1985). The bronze is a different colour and the dimensions are slightly larger than the current model. This meant that he had to custom make the steel side piece (could not use a current models').
While we were at it he replaced the blade with one made from W1. This had to be made specially as this blade is a little wider than the current version. He said that he had very little stock left.
You can't see much, but here are the two blades alongside each other.
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At the last Perth Wood Show I was the Demonstrator for LN planes. I did this for fun after being asked to fill in by Thomas and the guys here in Oz. I had taken the plane to the Show and Phil Dixon prompty gifted me a Cocobola knob. The combination now is quite stunning. This is a special plane because of its associations ..
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Regards from Perth
Derek
Edited 2/21/2009 10:50 pm ET by derekcohen
Edited 2/21/2009 10:51 pm ET by derekcohen
Derek,I forgot one thing. As I've learned more and come to understand the capability of hand tools, my list of "must have" planes has shrunk. Looking back on a life-time of professional woodworking, I could build every thing I've ever built or can envision building with three bench planes. Given the condition of my left arm, I'd want a 1 5/8" middle pitch smooth plane, a jack plane (over a fore because of my arm) and a trying plane. Maybe it would be four bench planes if you count a strike block plane as a bench plane. With those bench planes, I could prepare and finish the stock for any job I can think of because I wouldn't be using stuff like punky wood for art's sake. Even my list of "must have" molding planes or specialty has shrunk. That, I think, is real versatility.
Hi Larry
With the exception of the pitch for the smoother, I agree with you. The timber in Australia - even the softer woods - really does benefit from high cutting angles. Terry Gordon did not develop his plane range to meet the dictates of fashion. I often envy the woods you have in the US. Not only do they look very attractive, but they seem to be far less complex - or perhaps you have more alternatives than we do.
When you are a hobbiest, or starting out, all the many different types of planes look either important, desirable, or both. Some just like to surround themselves with as many tools as possible. As a hobby it is fun. By contrast, I would not expect a professional woodworker to keep anything that did not pay for itself. This goes for me as well in my private practice - I only purchase equipment that I really need. I do not purchase "the latest and greatest" psychometric test, for example, since I consider what I have plus my 25 years of experience in this regard are enough to see me through. I react, as you must in your own area, to new graduates depending on test scores to guide their judgement. In woodworking, as in everything, skill will win out. But, as in everything, it takes time to develop.
In my own workshop I use relatively few tools. I have many planes - more than any sane person would have in several lifetimes. I love using them all. I am a tool junky - no doubt about it! At the end of the day, nevertheless, I prefer using tools I have made myself. I will turn to a chosen manufacturer's tools for a project, partly just because it is fun, and partly to keep my observations current.
I am current making a new brace to replace the one I built for the WC competition last year.
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I gave that one away as a gift. The new one will be for myself.
The materials are a Tasmanian Blackwood head with a She-oak body. Man, the She-oak is Hard. I roughly cut out the shape on my bandsaw, then tried to spokeshave it - all I tried just bounced off. So I have rasped it all.
Here is the head ..
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Regards from Perth
Derek
Derek,I have been wanting to make myself a brace for years (inspired by this catalog cover) but haven't figured out how to make the hardware. Where did you get your nice fittings from?
Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Hi Chris
In the first brace I made a fitting for the head out of steel rod into piping. Then epoxied the ends in and connected with an allen head bolt ...
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It was not quite flush when it turned and so, with a rush of blood to me head (feeling white obsessional at the time), I epoxied the contact so it would not move. I immediately regretted this - there was a charm to the imperfections. I should have just accepted it. Anyway I gave it away as a gift later, telling the new owner that he could free it up with a little heat. Later, when the competition was judged, Christopher Schwarz marked me down as a result of the fixed head. Who knows what would have resulted if I had been more tolerant.
In this current I was determined to get it right. So far so good. The mechanism comes from an old, decrepid Stanley brace. I cut off the important bit, removed the rust with a deburring wheel, and have fitted it. It moves as smooth as Philip around the ladies.
The other end, the bit holder, is (in another life) a clip-on holder for drivers. The brace is small and is designed for holes for screws. In other words, an alternative to a eggbeater. And may alsoi be used as a screw driver. Here is a close up of the driver I made as part of the original set. I deburred off the anodising and back to steel...
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Hope that helps.
Some features ..
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Regards from Perth
Derek
Thanks for the enlightenment Derek. I will have to keep my eyes open for some nice brass fittings to pirate. Did I mention I was planning a trip Down Under? Just kidding.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
>W-1 or 1095 is very close to O-1. What I like about the basic water hardening steels is the incredibly fine grain.. . . O-1 can take nearly as keen an edge as W-1 but just not quite as keen. . . . early carving tools command such high prices and it's largely the quality of the steel. W-1 is really basically what was used in all the early woodworking tools. Like so many things all the so-called innovations really don't represent improvements for the end user. I think A-2 is great for the high volume manufacturer but not so good for the end user, it's simply not as fine grained. <I totally agree.Hey Chris great thread you have still going here !I have not looked up the "1095" but unless I am wrong all the expense comes from handling the heat treat because this is basicaly the same steel in your basic "ACE is the place" Nicolson file. If you want to have some fun heat up a file until it is red hot, bend it into a specialized shape, ( I made a soft zig zag like a plane float ), then dunk it and hold it in a big bucket of water until it cools, then put in the oven at around two or three hundred degrees for a half hour and viola you have a custom made file.I didn't heat treat mine and left it full hard. I dropped it or it broke in use ( little thin file ) I can't recall how it broke ; has been too long. That was not a bad thing in my case because it broke near the tip and made a fine sort of steep angle chisel. I use it on brass brazed joints so that worked out great.I look for this steel stock in the supply catalogs. Nothing. Then I just go to the junk yard and pick up another file out of the dirt and I have my fancy steel.Tomas Edison said all an inventor needs is imagination and a good scrap heap. I don't have the imagination but I have the scrap heap and that is a start.rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Roc,161 posts and still kind-of, sort-of on the same topic. At least it's a more-or-less unified topic, rather than 50 different avenues.You know the saying - one man's junk...The metalworking side of toolmaking is something I have wanted to try for years. Making a wooden brace and a long wooden plane are also ideas I've been kicking around for years.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
I have made several plane blades form old files but it does get old grinding off the file teeth. One is limited in the width also. Maybe some day I will start banging on them with a hammer. I can't do that in the spot I am in; duplex. Or maybe that is just an excuse to buy more shiny manufactured tools from Lie-Nielsen etc.: )rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Edited 2/22/2009 2:14 pm by roc
Larry,How does W1 compare to A2 or O1 steel? I know the differences between A2 and O1 but am unfamiliar with W1.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Larry,Boy, this thread is starting to take off again. It sounds to me like you are a fan of LA planes, but not how they are marketed as a super-multi-purpose tool that can "do it all". My interpretation, for what it's worth, is that, with the right blade, they are suited to any type of wood, not to replace several planes. In my mind, the length of the sole ultimately determines how many planes are required (scrub plane exempt). My casual eye has not noticed much of a difference between a type II chip and a scraper shaving, save possibly thickness (the chip being thicker). I don't think that there is any plane capable of taking a heavy shaving with a high-angle blade in a wood that would require it. To clarify that last sentence, you will not be taking heavy shavings in a tough hardwood with a 50-degree effective cutting angle. I find, when taking a 2-1/4" wide cut with a freshly sharpened 50-degree blade, it is all I can do to push it across a piece of bird's eye hard maple set for a 2-thousandths thick shaving. It would be totally unrealistic for me to try to take an 8-thou shaving. If it makes a difference, I'm not a big guy though. Perhaps this is justification enough for a toothed blade."While you'd think it ludicrous to suggest dimensioning stock with a finish sander, that's essentially what's being suggested with all this bevel up versatility nonsense."
You could make a case for this on hardwoods with a high angle blade when you are concerned with tear out, but how different would it be with a bench plane?No, I do not use a scraper plane to dimension stock. I use my LA jack plane, usually with a 50-degree blade (good workout!). While the shavings are the same (or at least very close), the force required to move each tool through the wood varies greatly, so a much heavier shaving can be taken with the LA plane than the scraper.And I agree with you on the fore plane. Good talking to you Larry.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Chris,
W-1 or 1095 is very close to O-1. What I like about the basic water hardening steels is the incredibly fine grain. Properly heat treated O-1 can take nearly as keen an edge as W-1 but just not quite as keen. You may have an early carving tool available to use as an example. There's a reason Addis, Charles Buck, W. Butcher and other early carving tools command such high prices and it's largely the quality of the steel. W-1 is really basically what was used in all the early woodworking tools. Like so many things all the so-called innovations really don't represent improvements for the end user. I think A-2 is great for the high volume manufacturer but not so good for the end user, it's simply not as fine grained.
"...I don't think that there is any plane capable of taking a heavy shaving with a high-angle blade in a wood that would require it. To clarify that last sentence, you will not be taking heavy shavings in a tough hardwood with a 50-degree effective cutting angle. I find, when taking a 2-1/4" wide cut with a freshly sharpened 50-degree blade, it is all I can do to push it across a piece of bird's eye hard maple set for a 2-thousandths thick shaving. It would be totally unrealistic for me to try to take an 8-thou shaving. If it makes a difference, I'm not a big guy though. Perhaps this is justification enough for a toothed blade...."
Oh wow, in responding to this I could spend the whole day and write a 20 page article. There's just so much in those few sentences but I have to work today.
Let's see what I can get out quickly.
If you're only taking a .002" thick shaving in the first stages of stock preparation you're more patient than me. It's also why I think so many people give up on hand planing their stock.
The first thing I probably should say is the first step in stock preparation involves you saw, not your planes. Begin by reducing the different parts you need to rough dimension and a manageable size.
Obviously I don't need to explain the advantages of the traditional bed angles. I also don't need to convince you that double irons aren't necessary. But I do need to write a little about them.
I think double irons were an "improvement" mostly aimed at making planes more economical for makers, wholesalers and retailers in the modern retail distribution system. With the introduction of double irons traditional pitches disappeared and those involved in the distribution system only had to make, package, ship, stock, display and market only one of each type of bench plane instead of four of each. That's the improvement double irons offered.
One of the real issues with double irons is that a solution to shaving clearance in the mouth and around the double iron were never resolved. Changing the cap iron or even setting the tips of the wedge back far enough result in changes inside the plane. Moving the pressure point back required thicker irons and this complicates things even more. Here's a look at the problem areas inside the mouth of a wooden plane. There are three moving parts and each will set differently according to where the cap iron is. Look at this photo and all the areas to trap shavings which will choke the plane becomes very evident:
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To deal with this planes were made wider and only the center area of the iron was used. Talk to anyone using double iron wooden planes today and you'll find that practice continues.
This is where all those wide-@ssed road grader planes originated. When metal planes came along the width of the planes continued. If you look at the early single iron bench planes you'll find them much narrower.
When we originally designed our planes we didn't have access to early single iron bench planes. Most of those we could find to look at were double iron American planes. In refining the designs of our molding planes we became aware of how sophisticated, refined and evolved the mid 18th Century British planes were compared to the American planes or even somewhat later British planes. We've been studying mid 18th Century British bench planes and finding out they were also superior to the American planes or later British bench planes. We've redesigned our entire bench plane line around those better early British planes. We've had 'em ready to go on the web site for months, I just haven't gotten that done. Silly inconveniences like surgery have gotten in the way.
When I posted earlier that I'd choose a jack plane over a fore plane for my own use, it was based on iron width. Our jack plane uses a 1 3/4" iron and the fore has a 2" iron. I broke my arm pretty badly nine years ago and have some loss of function so the jack suits me better.
You above quote, Chris, is exactly what I don't like about all this versatility nonsense around bevel up planes. Your plane is way too wide for use as a roughing plane. 12º isn't enough clearance for a York pitch plane using an obscenely obtuse 37º bevel angle on the iron. If you try to take a heavy cut with that set-up the lack of clearance for spring-back is going to try to plush the cutting edge right out of the wood. I don't know if you can overcome that but if you can you weigh a lot more than me and you'll be working real hard. Then you have to spend a lot of time dealing with sharpening because of accelerated wear and, for a roughing plane, grinding and honing an overly large camber on the iron.
The claimed versatility of your plane is proving to be very limiting, isn't it? It's actually setting you up for failure and that .002" shaving limit shows me that failure is real and in your face. I'm willing to be you don't really prepare much stock with hand planes.
I wouldn't normally post without taking time to go over things but I'm late. I'll regret hitting the post button but here goes.
Larry,Don't worry about not re-reading your post. It read pretty well to me. And there's always that edit feature.Are you thinking that O1 replaced W1 due to the manufacturing process? I believe that A2 is great for the end user - just not for final smoothing. In the early stages, why not compromise the ability to take a keen edge for edge retention? Who cares if the surface isn't perfect. That said, I do use O1 blades for their ease of sharpening. I also think that a lot of woodworkers (hobbyists, mostly) use hand planes for fun and want a blade that stays sharp for a long time and don't have to sharpen very often. And they may finish off with sanding or scraping afterwards, so again, a smooth, planed surface isn't necessary.I know that I don't need to tell you how to flatten a board, but for the record, this is my general method. When surfacing a rough board, I start with my Scrub Plane. The scrub plane does the bulk of work and I don't care about how the surface looks at this point. Then I switch to my jack, set to a heavy cut because it's only taking of the peaks left by the curved scrub blade. The more I work, the longer and wider the shavings get. When I can no longer push the plane, I lessen the depth of cut, so - I really am only taking 2-thou shavings at the finishing stage.I agree wholeheartedly with your idea of the saw being the first step. The flatter you can saw boards, the less work for the plane.I am not a fan of double irons/chip breakers either. I don't feel that they "break" chips as their name implies. If anything, the chip breaker transfers clamping force from the lever cap down to the base of the frog. It also adds mass to the blade, which should reduce chatter. A thick, well supported blade eliminates the need for a chip breaker. The chip breaker does provide a place for the depth adjustment mechanism to locate on, though on bench planes."To deal with this planes were made wider and only the center area of the iron was used."Are you referring to a cambered iron, or something different? One of the reasons I only take a 2-thou shaving with my 50 degree blade is because it is straight with the corners taken off because I use it for jointing edges as well. I should buy another blade which I can properly camber. A cambered blade acts like a narrower blade, so it would also be easier to push. Sorry to hear about your arm. I was tempted to make a bad joke about a plane accident, but I refrained (kind of).You are dead on with your statement about limited versatility. I use my jack almost as a smoother. Perhaps a new cambered iron will change that. Perhaps not. How much stock do I prepare with hand planes? Well, I have a nice set of surfacing tools - a 8" jointer and a 13" planer. But that's not my answer. Until April '07, I surfaced all my stock by hand. Granted, this is not nearly as much as I do now. Most of what I can throw through these machines, I do, however I also deal with really wide slabs (up to ~36") as well as some pretty stuff I'm afraid my machines will eat. So I do prep stock by hand, but I save my energy for materials that demand it. Otherwise I don my safety gear...Edit: Did I really spend an hour writing this post?Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com) - Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Edited 2/22/2009 1:45 pm by flairwoodworks
Chris,O-1 didn't replace W-1. There are a wide variety of tool steels available today but these two represent the most traditional of choices. As a small volume business, I can't get W-1 in anything near the sizes I need. O-1 is readily available even if I have to pay for "precision grinding" that's anything but precision and increases our work with problems we have to fix. I don't care for A-2. Heat treating of A-2 to get anything close to the grain size of O-1 or W-1 requires a huge investment and a lot of careful control. I don't have a lot of experience with the stuff because my experiences with trying to sharpen and use tools made with it has been less than satisfactory. I think part of the appeal A-2 to amateurs is what you say, you don't have to sharpen often. Well, I find A-2 a deterrent to sharpening 'cuz sharpening the stuff is a royal PIA. Sharpening is a very simple and easy to learn skill and there's no reason to work with dull tools that just make your work more difficult and frustrating. In less than a half hour, I could teach about anyone to sharpen well enough that sharpening becomes a pleasant but all too brief a break. It's a shame all the paraphernalia and gimmicks out there have turned sharpening into a chore that becomes a barrier to working with sharp tools. Don't even ask about D-2 or some of the other googaboola steels out there, I'd just have to irritate people by saying how foolish working with that cr@p is.
>A-2 a deterrent to sharpening 'cuz sharpening the stuff is a royal PIA<Would you please elaborate what makes this a Pain. I am not saying it is good or bad or that I sharpen it. Just want more info.thanksrocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Holmes,If you have ever reground an A2 blade to a different angle or grind out a camber, or any reshaping, you will understand how much harder it is than O1. Using a 60-grit platter on a motorized sharpener, it may take hours to change a 25 degree bevel to a 50 degree bevel, removing all evidence of the 25 degree bevel. Yes, this is a lot of material to remove, and no, this isn't a likely situation, but an indication of hardness.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Watson ! There you are ! How are you my dear fellow.I must say. An hour to change the bevel on a tool bit ( plane blade ) that will never DO !I am positive I could do it in half the time or less with this guy http://secure2.data-comm.com/servlet/RBIS/-strse-130045/Grinder-Universal-120v/Detailwhich is what I use for my Cobalt HSS lathe tools. http://www.amazon.com/3-Cobalt-Rectangular-Tool-Bit/dp/B0007OV5SA/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=hiqid=1235338648&sr=1-7http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCLatheSurfaceFinish.htmlThese tool bits are a half inch square (they didn't have good pic of 1/2 x1/2 so I posted 3/4 ) and a few inches long and come as little more than a stick of bar stock. Major grinding to make it into any thing.The small white wheel gets you close then the wet wheel takes the bevel down to the edge.You just need the right grinder !Flattening the back. Well that is a different game entirely. A lot of surface area. The hard tool just surfs along and hardly anything changes on it even when using a brand new extra coarse diamond plate.PS: oops I am involved in more than case at the moment old chap. Gooood to see you Watson glad you could join me in this little adventure.PPS: much better illustration of a ground cutter here ( takes a while to load but worth it )http://www.akpilot.net/How%20To%20Grind%20Lathe%20Tools/How%20To%20Grind%20Lathe%20Tools.pdfrocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Edited 2/22/2009 4:59 pm by roc
"Would you please elaborate what makes this a Pain. I am not saying it is good or bad or that I sharpen it. Just want more info."
The difficult part of sharpening is maintaining a flat back or face. I do this both for repeatability and to make sure both surfaces that make up the edge are crisp. This is why, BTW, I dislike honing guides so much--they cause people to concentrate on the bevel when they really need to pay attention to the flat face. A-2's abrasion resistance mostly shows up when you're trying to maintain that flat face but doesn't have much effect on the bevel.
I think almost all the sharpening problems people have result from not refreshing the flat face all the way to the edge. They end up with half of their edge dubbed and flawed which means their edge will never be really sharp. There's wear to both parts of the edge and the face needs to be refreshed and maintained every time one sharpens.
A-2 increases the difficulty of this task considerably. I'd much rather have a tool that's a snap to sharpen than one which makes the difficult part of sharpening even more difficult.
Dubbing of the face at edge is a real problem and the large number of people writing about success with Charlesworth's ruler trick confirm my observations about this. The problem with the ruler trick is that the intentional dubbing has to be removed every time one sharpens or it creates the same problem with subsequent sharpening except that each time the ruler trick is used the flawed area grows.
Charlesworth once posted on a forum, maybe this one, that the ruler trick was developed to get people's tools functional for workshops. I can sort of understand the logic but I believe the flaw here is that those who can't sharpen learn this and are then sent home with a time bomb that will quickly make their tools non functional. I'd make a different choice, even if it meant that those who can sharpen end up twiddling their thumbs for a while.
Larry,I don't pay very much attention to the back of my blades but would definitely call my sharpening better than average. When I first acquire the blade, I lap it flat, but after that, bringing the edge back is simply a matter of honing the microbevel with an 8000x stone, then lapping off the burr on the 8000 strokes, usually three strokes crosswise on my Norton water stone. Do you think this is adequate attention to the bak of the iron? If not, perhaps that is my answer to why the 50 degree blade I sharpened wouldn't shave.Look at this! 173 posts and still on the original topic!Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
No Chris, I don't think it's enough but then I also don't have an 8,000 grit stone. I have no idea how fast they cut and I'll bet I never go to the expense of learning. Get some magnification and you'll easily see the wear on the face of the iron and figure out what it takes to take care of it.I also think you'd be a lot less likely to put off sharpening if you got rid of all the gimmicks like honing guides, 8,000 grit stones, water ponds and the rest of the baggage most retailers love to push. Here's a bit of self-promotion and if you don't want to read it go on to something else. I have a DVD that'll be out in a month or two on sharpening. Just to show you we all screw stuff up, one of my big dilemmas right now is to figure out how to fix the last part of the DVD. I really botched the last tool I sharpened or, at least, didn't show what I wanted to show. I went through a lot of tools in that DVD which was taped almost exactly a year ago and I've got excuses for screwing up but it jacks my jaw a little that I didn't show what I wanted to show. I think there's a lot of good information in the DVD but all I've been able to focus on every night for the last year is the one step I tripped over.
Larry,I have never taken the time to look at my blades under magnification. I sharpen them, put them, in the tool, and use it. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. Out of curiousity, I will have a look though. Yes, there's always room to improve.I'm not sure it you're speaking to me or the public when you say to throw away the gimmicks. When I sharpen, I use a 4000x/8000 Norton combo water stone and a DMT diamond stone to keep the norton flat.I talk to a lot of people about sharpening, and only two of those people have walked away with an oil stone. One young fellow had a strict shopping list from his mentor, which I would look at and shake my head and point him another way. But he was told told to get the other one, so he did. The other fellow simply had this for justification to use an oil stone: Water makes steel rust. I don't understand why oilstones are still used. I used one for the first couple years, then switched and haven't looked back. I have yet to try the Shaptons.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Larry,>A-2 makes the difficult part of sharpening even more difficult. <I see.Yes to get a new blades back flat for the first time takes for ever even on a new extra coarse diamond plate. And as you said the same problem for future wear removalrocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Larry,Just a curious note: I visited Karl Holtey's website today and it says that all of his planes "come with my own A2 blades - using an alloy to my chosen composition with a complex heat treatment and cryogenics." I'm still an O1 fan, but it's hard to argue with such a detail oriented perfectionist like Holtey.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
That's nice, Chris. I realize many think of Karl Holtey as the premier plane maker but I'm not so sure. If I were to consider buying an infill or other high-end metal plane, I'd be looking at one from Konrad Sauer or Wayne Anderson. There's a lot more hand work and personal investment in the planes I'd be looking at and I believe these two make better planes because of that. I'm not sure what steel Wayne prefers, I've never discussed it with him. I do know that Konrad uses O-1 and came to that after experience with other steels.Michel Auriou's company has been making woodworking hand tools since 1856. Have you ever asked him about steels? I have. He wouldn't consider making a chisel or plane iron of A-2. I also remember sitting and discussing with Chris Schwarz his experience with sharpening the exotic steel Holtey was promoting as the ultimate steel for plane irons a few years ago. After considerable effort, Chris managed to get that iron what he thought was only passably sharp and expressed his disinterest in trying to sharpen any more of the stuff.BTW, Karl Holtey's web site says he started making planes 20 years ago. That would by 1988 by my calculation. My first commercial sale of planes I made was in 1981, seven years earlier. We also make a full line of planes, something which hasn't been done in the US since the closing of Sandusky Tool just before the last Great Depression. It used to be that the plow plane was the shelf jewelery of hand planes. Today it's the smooth plane or, at least, planes that perform as smooth planes. There's a wide range of choices out there. While I'm confident our smooth planes can hold their own in the market, I do take consolation in the fact that we don't have to slug it out in such a crowded environment.
Edited 2/23/2009 11:44 pm by lwilliams
Hi Chris
I suspect that my approach is very similar, if not the same, to Larry's. Our rationale may be slightly different, but should overlap.
The given is that the front and back of a blade must be honed to the same high level. "Sharpness" is really about "smoothness", and one can only be as smooth as the side with the lesser surface. So you must use your 8000 waterstone equally on both the front and the back of the bevel. The following is how you get to do that ...
Firstly, I do not have a problem with A2 steel. I used to feel that it was an issue and that O1 steel was so much better for honing. The reason for the change of heart is that I now see this as a reflection of sharpening technique, not the steel, per se.
Secondly, there are differences in the way one approaches BD or BU blades. I tried to treat them the same for a few years, and struggled.
Thirdly, I think the same way about David Charlesworth's "Ruler Trick". This is a terrific strategy for speeding up the sharpening of old blades - ones with pitted or warped backs - which is what I believe David conceived the method to be. It should not be necessary to use on modern blades, which now either arrive flat or require very little work to become flat. As you will see, the Ruler Trick actually makes sharpening more difficult.
My approach to sharpening keeps "re-sharpening" in mind. I really do not want to be going back to my waterstones all the time. I also do not want to rely on the steel to be so tough that it holds its edge a longer time - because then there will be an emotional aversion to sharpening the dull blade. If sharpening can be just a few seconds, or hardly needed at all, then it does not feel intrusive. I love sharp edges but I hate sharpening.
What I do: All BD plane blades and all chisels are hollow ground. Some steel is best with about 30 degrees, some will cope with about 25 degrees. I have found that my A2 steel improves as it is ground back, so I have not had a problem with edges folding when a 25 degree bevel is used in the LA Jack on the shooting board. It also gets very sharp, certainly sharp enough for my purposes. At one time I considered that 30 degrees would be too high in a paring chisel (my Bergs are at 20 degrees), but the Blue Spruce dovetail chisels get very sharp and hold a good edge at 30 degrees.
I prefer to hollow grind on a Tormek (although I also have a half-speed 8" grinder with a blue 46 grit wheel). The Tormek makes it so much easier to grind to the very edge of the bevel. With so little steel to hone, at this point, one can easily get away with just a 1000 (to flatten the bevel) and 8000 (to smooth the steel) waterstones.
The other point is that I do this freehand. I hone directly over the hollow, using the hollow as a reference for stability. Just hold the bevel flat on the hollow and move it until you feel an even wire edge (your guarentee you have not dubbed the edge). It takes about three swipes. That is all. I use a side sharpening technique as this also avoids the danger of dubbing. You end up with a microbevel that is coplanar with the back of the bevel. This is also relevant.
The importance of avoiding a secondary bevel ("grinding at 25 and honing at 30") is that re-sharpening is made easier. I depend on a strop to maintain the edge between honings. There is an article I put on my website recently on this. It is extremely difficult to maintain the angle of a microbevel when freehanding on a strop. It is easy enough to create a microbevel on a stone, but returning to it later is a recipe for dubbing.
Another of the reasons I avoid a non-coplanar secondary bevel is that adding one to a chisel is like using the Ruler Trick with plane blades. What it does is make stropping more difficult, but also remove the registration from the chisel bevel when using a chisel bevel down. I know that some argue that they can pare with a non-coplanar bevel, but I am simply pointing out that a coplanar bevel is more reliable and easier to use.
Hopefully you are still with me. This reply has turned out longer than I expected! (My next appointment has not turned up!).
So on to BU planes. I know Larry goes on about the wear bevel - and I am not refuting that they occur or that they cause deterioration of a plane's performance. Brent Beach has some convincing evidence on his website - however I do not experience any issues myself, and this may be due to my blade maintenance strategy.
Where BU blades differ from BD plane blades is that the cutting angle is a combination of the bed and bevel angles. Since I use steep cutting angles on the BU smoothers and want to add a little camber, it is not appropriate to attempt to hollow or flat grind these at that angle. That is why I came up with a cambering strategy for BU blades in this article. I fought against using a honing guide for a long while, but eventually just accepted that BU planes must be done this way. While the bevel angle is relatively unimportant on a BD plane blade, the accuracy of it is all important on a BU plane blade. This is what turns so many older woodworkers off BU planes. However their performance is just so good that I will put up with the extra rigour of a guide.
The problem with using a secondary/microbevel on the BU blade is that it restricts stropping for edge maintenance. Since you cannot get away without using a microbevel, stropping can only take place on the back of the blade. So - full circle - you cannot use the Ruler Trick as it would prevent stropping. Of course, ignore all the above if you do not plan to strop. My sharpening system is built around stropping.
The act of stropping the back of the BU blade is what removes the wear bevel. I simply do not allow it to get to the point where it might intrude (I empasize "might" since there are many BU plane users who do not experience in practice what is stated in theory).
So there you have it. A more complex answer to your outwardly simple question!
Regards from Perth
Derek
Edited 2/22/2009 9:50 pm ET by derekcohen
Edited 2/22/2009 9:51 pm ET by derekcohen
Dr. Cohen,I read your prescription thrice and agree with what you have to say and don't have too much to retort.When I first get a new blade, I flatten the back, finishing up with my 8000x stone. For touch up, I hone the microbevel with my 8000x stone with about 3-5 strokes drawn towards me. I will try the side sharpening technique though, just for fun. Then I lap the wire burr off the back with three more strokes.Currently, I only strop my carving tools. Do you use only leather or a honing compound as well?Perhaps this week I will get a chance to read your website. Yes I know that's a big task, but for someone who's got the flu and is getting bored, it fits the bill.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Chris,>fought against using a honing guide for a long while, but eventually just accepted that BU planes must be done this way. While the bevel angle is relatively unimportant on a BD plane blade, the accuracy of it is all important on a BU plane blade. This is what turns so many older woodworkers off BU planes. However their performance is just so good that I will put up with the extra rigour of a guide.<>Get some magnification and you'll easily see the wear on the face of the iron and figure out what it takes to take care of it.<As I was saying to some one else. There is more than one order of magnitude in sharpening. There is sharp like a chisel or a pocket knife and then there is sharp like a precision milling cutter. Precise flat angle all the way to the edge, consistent level of sharpness along the length of the edge. Rather than scratches with the high parts between the scratches polished. The faces that make up the sharpening angle are flat not all rounded over ( at least the small areas at the edge that come into contact with the wood ).I swear by magnification while learning how to sharpen. Even to the point of getting a little hand held microscope which I originally bought to look at my air brush needles. My air brushes can blow a line the width of a pencil line after you have been writing a while but is not dull. Until they get tweaked putting one in or while cleaning up.And then the final luxury is to have a stack of blades. Rather than stop to strop ( I couldn't resist ) or to hone I just change blades. I learned this from Ian Kirby.Philip, this article shows Ian Kirby using the thumb nail method to check level of sharpness. Maybe that is where I picked that up.http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/FWNPDF/011029067.pdfIn another article that I could not find he says he pretty much does everything with a #7 jointer and a # 4 1/2 smoother. The same size blade fits both and he says he has over twenty blades that he just swaps and goes.I never "touch up" a blade. By the time it does not cut right it needs a good bit of metal removed to , as Larry said , make both faces refreshed and flat all the way to the edge.Rather than polish the dubbing I find it best to cut it all away and that means my jig and all the stones.Takes time to cut real dovetails, takes time to put on a real finish, takes time to sharpen.Bottom line: making fine furniture takes a lot of time. I lucked out cause I enjoy the sharpening, I enjoy cleaning a nice brush, I don't make a lot of furniture. I enjoy about all of the process though. And to make up for it I don't power sand. I can't remember the last time I did any hand sanding on wood to speak of.I power sand the metal projects so it isn't like sanders aren't available here. I have many sanders. Two hand held belt, two rectangular pad sanders, two square pad and a random orbital not to mention the air disc sanders and mini belt sanders.Ok I am tired and starting to ramble so signing off for nowrocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
oops sorry I just started to catch up on this thread some and saw the >A-2 steel and I didn't like it because I found the flat back of the iron too tedious to flatten each time I sharpen, a critical step in sharpening BTW.<rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Larry,Last time I was at my local Metal Supermarkets, I was looking for some tool steel. I know they had O1 and recall that they had W1 as well in bar stock, though I didn't ask how wide it came (I was making a knife). Their website http://www.metalsupermarkets.com lists drill rod in O1, W1, and A2. Flat stock is only listed in O1. Next time I am by, I will inquire further.While you look at A2 as a deterrent to sharpening, I look at is as encouragement - Wow! Sharpening my O1 blades is easy! I've spent a lot of time at shows sharpening A2 blades. Regrinding is tedious to say the least. A lot of people I talk to would rather spend longer sharpening, but have to do it less often. Some, I do manage to convince to go with O1.The market for sharpening aids is well saturated and somehow continues to see new products (okay, so not technically saturated). Maybe we woodworkers talk about sharpening too much and make it too intimidating. When I sharpen, it takes me less than a minute, from stopping work to going back to work. People are amazed at how little effort it takes to maintain a well-maintained blade.I laughed at how the computer turned your cr@p into an e-mail address.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
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