# Veritas PM-V11 plane irons for Stanley & Record



## Sawdust=manglitter (24 May 2017)

I was looking to upgrade the plane irons of some of my old Record and Stanley hand planes, and saw that Veritas make some replacements in PM-V11 steel. Has anyone else upgraded any to these? Are they really worth that kind of money?


----------



## D_W (24 May 2017)

What do you use to sharpen your chisels and plane irons?


----------



## Sawdust=manglitter (24 May 2017)

I have a Tormek T7, but i'll be trying out some of the 3m lapping films shortly too. Just wondering if these blades are worth the investment


----------



## D_W (24 May 2017)

They are very good blades. If you do a lot of smoothing and you really have disdain for sharpening, you might wince at the initial cost, but you'll appreciate them. 

If you've ever tried A-2 steel, they are like a better version of it - about as hard to sharpen, about the same hardness, and finer grained (better for smoothers if you finish off the plane, and better also in the sense that irons that chip fail much earlier than they should for their wear resistance and hardness). 

Try one in the smoother you use the most if you're concerned about cost. You'll figure out your opinion on its utility pretty quickly.


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (24 May 2017)

Sawdust=manglitter":v5swozcz said:


> I was looking to upgrade the plane irons of some of my old Record and Stanley hand planes, and saw that Veritas make some replacements in PM-V11 steel. Has anyone else upgraded any to these? Are they really worth that kind of money?



They're excellent blades. I have a few that have replaced not only Stanley blades, but also a couple of A2 blades in LN planes. As David mentioned, they hold an edge very well, but the important factor is that the grain is as fine as O1.

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## essexalan (24 May 2017)

Gone up a lot in price since I bought one but they are excellent blades even better than the laminated Smoothcut blades. For some reason mine came ground at 30 degrees which seems a bit odd but easily resolved. I pushed mine honed at 25 degrees with some knotty cherry, just to test it, and it did suffer some micro chipping but nothing like LV A2, no problems honed with a 30 degree secondary bevel. I use Sigma waterstones, Shaptons do not like PM steels much IMO.


----------



## Sawdust=manglitter (24 May 2017)

Thanks all for the input! Very positive reviews so far.

That's what I was thinking of was to treat my no. 4 1/2 smoother with a new PM-V11 blade first, and see how it goes from there. 

Did anyone also try a Veritas chip breaker to compliment their new blade? Worth trying... or did the original Stanley/Record chip breaker work happily with the new blade?


----------



## Sawdust=manglitter (24 May 2017)

And to be honest I've not tried A2 or O1 steels, but hopefully the tormek would be ok sharpening the PM-V11?


----------



## D_W (24 May 2017)

Sawdust=manglitter":16oh5z9i said:


> And to be honest I've not tried A2 or O1 steels, but hopefully the tormek would be ok sharpening the PM-V11?


 
Tormek will grind it. It'll take about twice as long, that's about all. I asked about sharpening only because it's not ideal if you're using natural stones. 

re: the cap iron, I never felt the need to change that, but some like to. It won't make any difference in the results of the plane, though, and I'd skip it unless the old cap iron is damaged.


----------



## LancsRick (24 May 2017)

A2 are good then? Got those on some block planes I picked up and they were really slow to grind, that might explain it!

Presumably these comparisons are much like preferences for kitchen knives? Buy soft, quick to sharpen but dull quickly, buy hard and they're a pain to sharpen but keep it for ages.


----------



## Ttrees (24 May 2017)

Sawdust=manglitter":39mpujiy said:


> And to be honest I've not tried A2 or O1 steels, but hopefully the tormek would be ok sharpening the PM-V11?


O1 I believe, is the type of steel in Stanley and Record planes.
I believe the very oldest versions are a cast steel though.

I don't know the dates when they stopped the cast ones.
The oldest plane I've got is a American no 8,
I don't know if Patrick's blood and gore plane dating page refers to the American planes, but if it does, It would suggest that my 
plane would be a type 9 from 1902 to 1907 and it's not cast.
citation required on this though
Tom


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (24 May 2017)

Any blade is easy and quick to hone when the appropriate strategy is used.

I re-sharpen (free hand) my PM-V11 blades in around 30 - 60 seconds. I can do A2 and M4 in the same time. 

For me (your mileage may vary), I hollow grind all my blades. Working with a hollow reduces the amount of steel to work, and this makes all the difference. 

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## D_W (24 May 2017)

LancsRick":wzh6fblp said:


> A2 are good then? Got those on some block planes I picked up and they were really slow to grind, that might explain it!
> 
> Presumably these comparisons are much like preferences for kitchen knives? Buy soft, quick to sharpen but dull quickly, buy hard and they're a pain to sharpen but keep it for ages.



Or buy something in the middle that works well in a whole cycle (like run of the mill japanese knives or decent carbon steel western knives). 

That would be the stuff that's similar to vintage irons (works well in a cycle, as long as the person who uses them knows how to sharpen quickly). 

A2 is fine if you have something that sharpens and grinds easily, but it is lacking in a cycle of work if you compare it to something like vintage ward and mathieson irons that can be easily maintained with or without power tools.


----------



## CStanford (24 May 2017)

If you machine plane your lumber to thickness, usually leaving only the barest smidgen to clean up with a hand plane (leaving a lot contradicts the installation of machines in the first place) then replacements are a waste of money. If you hand dress your lumber from the rough, replacements could make sense but keep reading.

I've found that edges in the Stanleys and Records I've owned last about as long as I can to the next quick break -- thirty to forty minutes or so. One has to stop and check for wind, flatness, and general planing progress doesn't one? Planing for an hour ++ without a rest and a check of progress and reflection is a recipe for disaster. Maybe have a smoke and do a quick honing and back to work, any honing media will do by the way. I wouldn't let the thought of edges that 'never' go dull become an obsession (intentional hyperbole). If anything, they interrupt a normal shop rhythm rather than add value to it. You tire out before the edge does, take your break and check things, have a wee-wee, get back to work with plenty of energy and halfway into the next cycle the edge finally goes. You're good, the edge isn't. You try to get into sync with the thing but it will always last longer than you can to the next little rest, if honed on break. About the only way to get into some sort of sync is to hone it way before it really needs it, at your break, which of course defeats the entire purpose of buying it in the first place. No thanks. It doesn't get any sharper than any other decent tool steel, maybe not as sharp, why bother?

The takeaway: buy edge tools that go off predictably and last about as long as you can if working reasonably vigorously making solid, workmanlike progress. As long as said tools take a good edge, and Stanley and Record do, all will be well.

If you follow forums long enough you'll find certain folks who gush as reliably as the Old Faithful Geyser in Yellowstone Park over new tools and stuff. First it was A2, then Cryo A2, Ron Hock's carbon steel, now PM V11, I'm likely missing a couple, and I'm sure the list will continue to grow. Add 'em all up, these steels probably haven't planed .001% of the wood that has been planed with Stanley irons over the last hundred years or so.


----------



## woodbrains (24 May 2017)

Hello,

When the first became available, I had to try one, just because. I put one in a Record 07 and it has been fine. They take a little longer to sharpen, but not much, so not a problem. They do last ages, though. I had a job planing 18mm MDF, and it lasted phenomenally longer than a regular iron would have on that horrible material. I would say if you use abrasive timbers like iroko it should be on your list. They take a fine edge, too so give a fine finish. I've sharpened them on Waterstons and oilstones, and either work. I do use lapping film occasionally for some tasks, but haven't on the PMv11 yet, but should imagine there would be no trouble. If, however you plane ordinary stuff and you have good length original irons you might just carry on without one, unless 'you need to know.' I don't know how much the sell for now, so might be a bit rich if I didn't have to have one for ornery stuff. I suppose they will pay for themselves in longevity, but I suppose you have to be honest about how much planing you'll do in your life. A weekend warrior might not even see out one regular iron, so longer life is moot.

Mike.


----------



## swagman (25 May 2017)

> And to be honest I've not tried A2 or O1 steels, but hopefully the tormek would be ok sharpening the PM-V11?



That would make you a perfect candidate for PM steel. :lol:


----------



## essexalan (25 May 2017)

Problem with Record irons is finding good ones the modern versions sharpen up OK but seem somewhat soft and can deform in use, yes there are good ones out there but good luck on finding one. The LV PM blade is a good one but at 80 quid for a double iron is a bit on the expensive side. I don't think there are any other options except for the Smoothcut which will avoid possibly having to modify your plane to get them to fit. If you don't mind modifying your plane then I would go O1 steel or possibly a Quangsheng double iron which would be the cheapest option.


----------



## swagman (25 May 2017)

The real question is why the new generation of woodworkers, who are more reliant on machinery to dimension their timber, need a more wear resistant steel in their bench planes. If the answer lies in the fact that previous generations who were using 01 steel were more adapt within their sharpening technique, then providing a more wear resistant steel is a short sighted approach that will not address the key issue.


----------



## Jacob (25 May 2017)

I wouldn't bother replacing a blade until it's worn out. May or may not need more frequent sharpening but this isn't a problem. 
Then I'd buy 2nd hand planes, a whole plane will cost less than these dubious new blades. Steel isn't an issue - cheapo rubbish planes often the only bit with any quality is the blade itself.
nb 'PM-V11' doesn't mean anything it's just a bit of advertising hype coming from LV, means much the same as the advertisers 'new' or 'improved'.


----------



## G S Haydon (25 May 2017)

No question the blades are well made. However, unless you're working laminates, ply, silica rich timber then I would not worry about an upgrade. If you want to try something new then go for it. It'd be interesting to hear how you like it after 6 months of constant use.


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (25 May 2017)

There is nothing wrong with old Stanley blades, especially the laminated ones. For me, they are not the best choice because I predominantly use very hard and abrasive West Australian timbers, and O1/HCS does not last too long. I have a couple of old/original Clifton O1 blades (the hammered versions) and they take a great edge, but they do not hold it for long - again the wood I use, not the blades.

For many years I just used A2 blades, mainly in Veritas BU planes. They did a good job, but then I began using BD planes - Stanley, Veritas, LN - and choices were wider. Given that I am not going back to O1 (although I do enjoy using the Clifton blades when the wood is reasonably benign), the choice is really A2 vs PM-V11. The PM steel is the closest thing to O1, but also with better longevity than A2. 

Choose blades to suit the wood. Also take notice of what is required to hone them - for example, I would not use PM steel if all I had was oil stones and I could not hollow grind. It would be inefficient. I'd rather use HCS blades and hone more frequently. Honing PM-V11 is really not much effort at all on good waterstones, such as Sigma, or ceramic stones, such as Spyderco. Once set up with the appropriate sharpening media, there is no extra effort involved. If you need the extra longevity of these blades, and are prepared to spend for it, then they do offer real benefits. Do not be afraid of sharpening them. On the other hand, if the extra durability comes with a cost that makes you wince, and they are not really needed for the wood you work, then an older replacement blade will do just as well. 

The down side to old full length blades is that they likely have not been used by someone who knew how to prepare them, and you may be up for some work. The up side of new replacement blades from Veritas, Hock and others is that they will not require much work. The same may be said of the chipbreakers: my preference is for the new versions as they are almost ready to go (just add a high secondary to the leading edge), but the old Stanleys can work as well with some tuning. There are those who prefer them - strange people (Hi David  ) 

Lots of pros and cons.

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## Jacob (25 May 2017)

Derek Cohen (Perth said:


> .....Honing PM-V11 is really not much effort at all on good waterstones, such as Sigma, or ceramic stones, such as Spyderco. Once set up with the appropriate sharpening media, there is no extra effort involved.


Just enormous expense and difficult sharpening regimes!


> If you need the extra longevity of these blades, and are prepared to spend for it, then they do offer real benefits.


Who needs longevity? The typical modern woodworker would see most plane blades last a lifetime


> The down side to old full length blades is that they likely have not been used by someone who knew how to prepare them, .....


You mean they knew NOT to prepare them! Nobody in the old days bothered with modern sharpening rituals such as flattening the face. 
New blade, new chisel, 2 minutes max to sharpen and off you go!


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (25 May 2017)

> Derek Cohen (Perth, Oz) wrote:
> .....Honing PM-V11 is really not much effort at all on good waterstones, such as Sigma, or ceramic stones, such as Spyderco. Once set up with the appropriate sharpening media, there is no extra effort involved.



Jacob:


> Just enormous expense and difficult sharpening regimes!



Expense is relative. As I mentioned. And sharpening is just different from your system.



> Who needs longevity? The typical modern woodworker would see most plane blades last a lifetime



Longevity of edge when working, not over a lifetime. With Clifton on Jarrah I may get a few minutes of planing. With PM-V11, this will extend many times over. Which is reasonable is your decision. I know which is mine.

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## DoctorWibble (25 May 2017)

Worth stating, for the benefit of any newbies reading this thread, that its arguably better to start learning woodwork and to sharpen your tools with easily worked woods and softer steels. As you get better at using planes so you get better at sharpening and so you get better at using planes and so on. Eventually you forget about sharpening and concentrate on the work. Just as with driving you forget about making the car go and focus on where you're going. Same goes for chisels and saws. 

Don't be seduced into thinking you're missing out or making do with second best by not buying into thick hard steels, bevel up planes and all the associated paraphernalia. You're not. The online obsession with these subjects reflects the fact that they are not the best route for newbies. Otherwise these people would be talking about wood work. Not tools. 

Meanwhile it'll take you a lot longer to get your head round these expert debates than actually learn to sharpen and use an old plane.


----------



## Sawdust=manglitter (25 May 2017)

Thanks all for your views.

I'm always developing my skills (aren't we all), but I don't consider myself a noob at all and I'm very happy with my current sharpening regime. My reason for considering upgrading my old plane irons is convenience... its not that I find sharpening a chore, but it does eat into the productive/enjoyment time, and if I can get a blade that lasts 2 or 3 times as long between sharpening then I would find value in that.


----------



## CStanford (25 May 2017)

You should buy one and see if you actually double or triple your time between honings. I suspect you won't, but I'm naturally a pessimist.


----------



## Sawdust=manglitter (25 May 2017)

It's not like I'll be replacing all plane blades on a whim, I was just going to start with my No 4 1/2 smoother and see how that performed.


----------



## CStanford (25 May 2017)

Absolutely. It would be silly to replace them all without doing a trial on one plane first.


----------



## Racers (25 May 2017)

I have a LN 60 1/2 with a A2 blade that lasts a very long time between sharpenings, but it takes a long time to sharpen.
Its good to know that it will be sharp when you get it out of the cupboard!

But I have plained a lot of teak with O1 blades and I wish they where A2, you don't get long between sharpenings with O1 and teak etc.

Pete


----------



## Jacob (25 May 2017)

Sawdust=manglitter":32n2rz1e said:


> It's not like I'll be replacing all plane blades on a whim, I was just going to start with my No 4 1/2 smoother and see how that performed.


I bought a Japanese smoothcut and a Hock A2 to see what difference it made. They are different but not in any significant way from all the old blades I use - which also vary, some laminated, some not. I decided it was a slightly expensive and pointless procedure, and I might as well have stuck with the old instead.


----------



## iNewbie (25 May 2017)

Jacob":18mraznk said:


> Sawdust=manglitter":18mraznk said:
> 
> 
> > It's not like I'll be replacing all plane blades on a whim, I was just going to start with my No 4 1/2 smoother and see how that performed.
> ...



The question is about PMVII, though. Whats your experience with PMVII?


----------



## DoctorWibble (25 May 2017)

My old Stanley/records vary a little in their capacity to take a thicker blade. Theses Veritas blades are not thick but nor are they quite as thin as the originals and may not fit all your planes without help from a file on the back of the mouth. Especially as you'll likely be using a close cap iron. Won't do any harm filing there of course - it simply lets the frog move back a bit further and has no effect on the shaving. But if you'd rather not then might be worth making sure your chosen test bed has wiggle room for a slightly thicker blade.


----------



## Jacob (25 May 2017)

iNewbie":2r60z0u5 said:


> Jacob":2r60z0u5 said:
> 
> 
> > Sawdust=manglitter":2r60z0u5 said:
> ...


Non at all. 
My point is I just don't have any faith in the claims made for these expensive things. Most of the stories are just from novelty enthusiasts and salesmen. They'd have us buying new stuff every ten minutes if they could!


----------



## D_W (25 May 2017)

If you have a plane with an exceptionally tight mouth, Stu Tierney sells a very thin Tsunesaburo iron that is easier to sharpen than a V11 blade, but that lasts about as long in practical use. Lasts longer in a smoother than anything else I've ever used without going downhill on the finish quality. 

I'd mention that it's a lot harder than a stanley iron, but it's no harder to sharpen than any modern alloyed iron.

I say Stu (toolsfromjapan.com) because most of the other places that sell those irons think they're selling jewelry.


----------



## Bm101 (25 May 2017)

I'll mention it because no one else has. You might have to open up the mouth of your plane for it to be able to fit. No big deal but might be worth considering.

(edit. Sorry Dr Wibble, somehow missed your post)


----------



## Cheshirechappie (25 May 2017)

Just to add to the alpha-numeric soup of fancy steels, don't forget Ray Iles's D2 Record/Stanley replacement irons - edge retention as good or better than A2 and PM V-11, so just the job for working abrasive timbers and man-made sheet goods, but probably needs diamond or ceramic stones for honing. (That's the downside of abrasion resistance in service - abrasion resistance during sharpening). Available from The Old Tool Store - http://www.oldtools.free-online.co.uk/ - click on 'Replacement Plane Irons' on the left hand side. Perhaps the same or better edge life than PM V-11, but substantially less in first cost.

Personal opinion - unless you do enough planing work to wear out irons regularly, or you work hard, abrasive timbers a lot, or you really feel like experimenting for your own interest, just carry on with the iron you already have. If sharpening is a chore, try to make it simpler and get some practice in - a quick hone-up and reset of a plane iron should only take two or three minutes, including getting the honing stones out. Even quicker for chisels - no cap-iron to reset or depth of cut setting to faff with. The ability to touch up a cutting edge quickly is a very worthwhile skill to develop, and once you can, it doesn't really matter much if an edge dulls in fifteen minutes rather than thirty.


----------



## Jacob (25 May 2017)

Cheshirechappie":3ipio7rs said:


> ..... The ability to touch up a cutting edge quickly is a very worthwhile skill to develop, and once you can, it doesn't really matter much if an edge dulls in fifteen minutes rather than thirty.


In fact it's nice to have a little sharpening break anyway. Free-hand on a stone, stropping on your palm, whilst you listen to the radio, stare out of the window, and relax!


----------



## shed9 (25 May 2017)

On the same vein of replacement irons, I notice Karl Holtey sells his own stamped 9 1/2 irons on Ebay these days and sells some reduced to £22.50 if the stamp itself is slightly faded.


----------



## sploo (26 May 2017)

Jacob":cbphvwx2 said:


> ...Then I'd buy 2nd hand planes, a whole plane will cost less than these dubious new blades. ...


To be honest, this for me is probably one of the best points that's been made on the thread: get yourself a couple of planes of the same type. Spend a few hours cleaning up and tuning the plane and blade when you first get them (to your level of operational and aesthetic taste) then have two identically set up planes on your bench and swap between them as required (or set them up slightly differently - if you find you prefer one with a heavier cut than the other).

Have a tea break, spend 5 mins hand sharpening them, and carry on.

(Aw, heck... I've turned into Jacob )


----------



## Phil Pascoe (26 May 2017)

I paid £30 for a Stanley No.8, £15 each for as new Stanley No.6c and No.4c, £10 for a Marples No.7 - all the others, the 4, the 4 1/2, the two 5s I didn't pay more than £5 each for. Once in a while I grind and hone everything. When they dull I just move from one to another. They are all several decades old and I've never felt the need for anything better.


----------



## shed9 (26 May 2017)

Jacob":1miyo6om said:


> nb 'PM-V11' doesn't mean anything it's just a bit of advertising hype coming from LV, means much the same as the advertisers 'new' or 'improved'.



Actually it does, the PM part refers to Powdered Metal and is quite a high end process in producing a consistently grained alloy. They effectively atomise various metals into a very fine and graded powder and then form billet's using pressure and intense heat. The end billets are subsequently formed into the blade as they would any other form of steel.

The end result is a a very high quality alloy with incredible consistency and predictable qualities.

This isn't hype, a lot of companies are utilising and moving to PM. Veritas it would appear are simply ahead of the curve.


----------



## Jacob (26 May 2017)

shed9":1ywru2z9 said:


> .........
> This isn't hype, a lot of companies are utilising and moving to PM. Veritas it would appear are simply ahead of the curve.


PM V11 is their own name for it but there's nothing new about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_metallurgy
It's a money saver - less machining etc.


----------



## shed9 (26 May 2017)

Jacob":k9roiyyv said:


> shed9":k9roiyyv said:
> 
> 
> > .........
> ...



Yes, the v11 part is their designation and its certainly not a money saver by any stretch of anyone's imagination. My point was PM V11 does mean something and it's not hype.


----------



## essexalan (26 May 2017)

Still have to harden and temper the stuff so where do you get less machining? Base product will cost more because of the manufacturing. I bet you don't use TCT blades on your circular saws and router bits do you? Modern Record blister pack blades are pretty much junk IMO so you have to go to the trouble of hunting down old steel in the hope you get a good iron, not guaranteed and they are running out. Limited production and lousy exchange rate hence the price.


----------



## Jacob (27 May 2017)

essexalan":130hqk5c said:


> Still have to harden and temper the stuff so where do you get less machining?


It says so here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_metallurgy
Reduces cost apparently


> Base product will cost more because of the manufacturing. I bet you don't use TCT blades on your circular saws and router bits do you? Modern Record blister pack blades are pretty much junk IMO so you have to go to the trouble of hunting down old steel in the hope you get a good iron, not guaranteed and they are running out. Limited production and lousy exchange rate hence the price.


Yes of course I use TCT blades. Nothing wrong with PM technology but it's not obvious that PM plane blades have a significant advantage. Could be wrong but nothing I've read so far is very interesting! 
Normal ones are cheap, effective, and sharpening isn't much of a problem with any blade. It's another solution to something which isn't a problem. There's a lot of that in woodwork!


----------



## Cheshirechappie (27 May 2017)

Jacob":mdpu1pl8 said:


> Normal ones are cheap, effective, and sharpening isn't much of a problem with any blade. It's another solution to something which isn't a problem. There's a lot of that in woodwork!



Jacob, do you prefer to use wooden spoons for your stirring, or are you prepared to use one of those new-fangled and unnecessary metal ones? :lol:


----------



## Sawdust=manglitter (27 May 2017)

People are passionate about their opinions, fair doos. All very informative though

And you'd sware noone's ever discussed sharpening on this forum!?


----------



## Jacob (27 May 2017)

Cheshirechappie":70ozrhyt said:


> Jacob":70ozrhyt said:
> 
> 
> > Normal ones are cheap, effective, and sharpening isn't much of a problem with any blade. It's another solution to something which isn't a problem. There's a lot of that in woodwork!
> ...


Both, as necessary. 
Talking of wooden kitchen utensils - I have several wooden bowls and also chopping boards which have been in regular use for 50 years or more. One was made by my dad. They are amazingly durable. You wouldn't think it until you are faced with a 50 year old bowl still well used and in good nick!
Washed carefully in warm water (not too hot), dried and occasionally olive oiled. Should see me out.

Though it doesn't hold porridge too well 







Only joking, this one 100s of years old and not well cared for!

PS of on a brief hol - not been banned, back shortly!


----------



## shed9 (27 May 2017)

Jacob":2x22s2cl said:


> It says so here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_metallurgy
> Reduces cost apparently.


I have never seen any instance of this in my experience. I suppose the costs could be perceived lower in that producing similar quantities of alloy would produce consistent and known output for PM whereas other processes will result in many failed product within that same batch.



Jacob":2x22s2cl said:


> Nothing wrong with PM technology but it's not obvious that PM plane blades have a significant advantage. Could be wrong but nothing I've read so far is very interesting!
> Normal ones are cheap, effective, and sharpening isn't much of a problem with any blade. It's another solution to something which isn't a problem. work!


PM metal is in general superior to other types of standard tool steel, i.e. A2, O1, etc, that's just the sheer metallurgy of it. Yes there will be instances where it is not as easy to sharpen as some of those other steels however this is more than offset in the periods between sharpening anyhow. 

I always find it odd when people resist anything new under the guise of gimmickry, if we keep using the same materials because we are meant to be content with what we already have, we certainly wouldn't be discussing it via the Internet.


----------



## DoctorWibble (27 May 2017)

shed9":2w8grr7x said:


> I always find it odd when people resist anything new under the guise of gimmickry



Nothing odd in it at all. Comes from decades of new improved, best ever, and ultimate products. Lavished with enough totally made up technical gobbledygook to wobble the orbit of a small planet. Cynicism is the only natural and sensible response. Which is not to say that progress doesn't happen. But the Jacobs of this world will rarely be wrong. Or disappointed.

Confession: DoctorWibble worked in advertising for 25 years.


----------



## CStanford (27 May 2017)

It stays sharper longer. So what. It doesn't get sharper. If it got sharper and stayed sharper longer now THAT would be something worth crowing about. If you know how to sharpen (and it's not some absurd equipment-laden production) and otherwise take occasional breaks in your shop, then PM V11 steel, and others making similar claims, are a complete nonevent. 

Late middle-aged paunchy men (I'm one!) worried about, or claiming they need cutters in their hand planes that stay sharper longer is good for a laugh. That's about it. Keep the laughs coming, boys. Most of our wives are worried they'll come out to the shop and find us dead from a massive infarction, all the while we claim we need to be able to plane for an hour and a half straight instead of 45 minutes straight. Get real.


----------



## Phil Pascoe (27 May 2017)

DoctorWibble":3u7pzq1n said:


> ... Lavished with enough totally made up technical gobbledygook to wobble the orbit of a small planet.


Did anyone read the article in the press the other day about the world being phallocentric, feminism etc. Where after glorious peer reviews the authors admitted they had made the whole thing up, including many of the terms used in it? It showed brilliantly how gullible people are.


----------



## shed9 (27 May 2017)

DoctorWibble":3mqganre said:


> Nothing odd in it at all. Comes from decades of new improved, best ever, and ultimate products. Lavished with enough totally made up technical gobbledygook to wobble the orbit of a small planet. Cynicism is the only natural and sensible response. Which is not to say that progress doesn't happen. But the Jacobs of this world will rarely be wrong. Or disappointed.
> 
> Confession: DoctorWibble worked in advertising for 25 years.


Granted, false advertising exists, but again not a reason to ignore new technologies. To put this into context, my initial response to Jacobs was to his comment that PM was totally made up technical gobbledygook, which it clearly isn’t. Just as easy as it is for advertising to wax lyrical about the next best pointless product, it’s even easier for the Jacobs of this world to do the opposite for potentially useful product. 



CStanford":3mqganre said:


> It stays sharper longer. So what. It doesn't get sharper. If it got sharper and stayed sharper longer now THAT would be something worth crowing about. If you know how to sharpen (and it's not some absurd equipment-laden production) and otherwise take occasional breaks in your shop, then PM V11 steel, and others making similar claims, are a complete nonevent.
> Late middle-aged paunchy men (I'm one!) worried about, or claiming they need cutters in their hand planes that stay sharper longer is good for a laugh. That's about it. Keep the laughs coming, boys. Most of our wives are worried they'll come out to the shop and find us dead from a massive infarction, all the while we claim we need to be able to plane for an hour and a half straight instead of 45 minutes straight. Get real.


PM has advantages and disadvantages like every other type of tool steel out there, just more choice for people is all it is. I get it, you don’t want to use a different steel, could you not find another way to express that?


----------



## DoctorWibble (27 May 2017)

shed9":2ygm359l said:


> Granted, false advertising exists, but again not a reason to ignore new technologies....... Just as easy as it is for advertising to wax lyrical about the next best pointless product, it’s even easier for the Jacobs of this world to do the opposite for potentially useful product.



You are right in that Jacob might miss out occasionally but not anywhere near as often as willing believers will be disappointed and out of pocket. There's a lot of sense in being a late adopter. Early adopters are typically motivated more by social competition (having the best and so on) than any need to remove specific problems from their lives. These two groups are never likely to see eye to eye.

I guess if you put enough effort in you might be able to spot the real advances from the chaff before you buy. But even if PMV11 is indeed the dogs, the blades still cost £80 plus. And the buyers likely already have a blade. And they likely have several candidate planes. That's a lot of dough for what exactly? You'd really have to work hard to kid yourself this is likely to be money well spent. And yet punters do work that hard doing exactly this which is one of the marvels revealed by social media. Advertisers have of course noticed which is why they court "opinion leaders" on the internet and are actively seeking all kinds of other ways to "shape" debates like this thread. Jacob, in truth, doesn't stand a chance


----------



## Andy Kev. (27 May 2017)

Jacob":e490ltdq said:


> Cheshirechappie":e490ltdq said:
> 
> 
> > Jacob":e490ltdq said:
> ...


No, no, no!!! That's not the idea at all! Forget this 100s of years bit: it took you 100s of hours to make and it is a statement about something to do with modern society. That way you'll be able to sell it to Tate Modern for upwards of 250K.


----------



## shed9 (27 May 2017)

DoctorWibble":w8jy540k said:


> You are right in that Jacob might miss out occasionally but not anywhere near as often as willing believers will be disappointed and out of pocket. There's a lot of sense in being a late adopter. Early adopters are typically motivated more by social competition (having the best and so on) than any need to remove specific problems from their lives. These two groups are never likely to see eye to eye.
> 
> I guess if you put enough effort in you might be able to spot the real advances from the chaff before you buy. But even if PMV11 is indeed the dogs, the blades still cost £80 plus. And the buyers likely already have a blade. And they likely have several candidate planes. That's a lot of dough for what exactly? You'd really have to work hard to kid yourself this is likely to be money well spent. And yet punters do work that hard doing exactly this which is one of the marvels revealed by social media. Advertisers have of course noticed which is why they court "opinion leaders" on the internet and are actively seeking all kinds of other ways to "shape" debates like this thread. Jacob, in truth, doesn't stand a chance



I agree, there is more dross than good to be extracted from advertising bumpf and being a late adopter is often the sensible approach.

I also agree the PM blades are expensive comparative to any real advantage over the usual suspects but then that's always true of new developments. We rely on the early adopters to take it on, prove the concept and eventually lower the cost by economies of scale for the rest of us, or indeed disprove the concept. I personally have no interest in PM blades in my workshop due to the above comments but equally I'm glad they exist and that vendors like LN and LV continue to offer these options.


----------



## Sawdust=manglitter (27 May 2017)

From asking for people's experiences of the PM-V11 replacement blades this has turned into an interesting debate!



DoctorWibble":3l4lca9p said:


> But even if PMV11 is indeed the dogs, the blades still cost £80 plus.



Hi DrWibble, where have you seen the blades for £80odd? The only place I can find them for sale in the UK is Axminster, and they are £45...
http://www.axminster.co.uk/veritas-pm-v ... s-ax937586
It's a shame that Axminster/brimarc have a monopoly developing as they appear to have stopped supplying any smaller companies so they force us to buy through Axminster!? But I guess that's an entirely separate debate!


----------



## essexalan (27 May 2017)

Cost for a double iron at Axminster is just over 80 quid. I got mine from Fine Tools which used to be a lot cheaper and yes monopolies stink! Slotted straight in to a Record 5 1/2 but a Stanley Bailey might need a little mouth work. I prefer the Bailey cap iron but you might not and no it is not ready to use straight out of the box.


----------



## Sawdust=manglitter (27 May 2017)

Am I missing something here... When you say a 'double iron', do you mean with the Veritas cap iron?


----------



## D_W (27 May 2017)

shed9":1omv5cue said:


> Jacob":1omv5cue said:
> 
> 
> > It says so here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_metallurgy
> ...



I can't say I've seen any powder steel that works better in the cycle of work than a decent vintage iron, especially if you start counting things like Ward's better irons. In terms of smoothers with fineness and longevity, the inexpensive rikizai blue steel irons by tsunesaburo still reign supreme. 

I've got M2, M4 and V11 irons to compare. I think if a beginner is only taking smoother shavings and has a really long drawn out sharpening progression that takes more than three minutes and involves a bunch of gadgets, maybe. I don't see many professionals jumping to it, though, as this notion of extreme longevity doesn't have much play. 

Same thing applies in knives. Nicest cutting pocket knives I've ever used are tidioute 1095. They are properly hard unlike most new knives, and they don't get stuck making over-fat knives. Touch up is one minute on a washita stone, maybe another 30 seconds on a strop. Add alloying elements and the only thing you gain is rust prevention, but I don't work in salt water, so that's hardly a problem (though rust does often strike people who buy lots of things and don't use them - and again, I'd wonder why someone needs special metals if they aren't using tools often enough to keep rust off). 

I've bought tools with the new rubbery steels, but I'm just not seeing the real advantage, and they lose the tactile draw that the better vintage tools have. 

Recall that high speed steel irons have been around for a long time. You can find them from time to time, but they don't show up very often because they weren't much of a success - despite a public who was apparently willing to pay for expensive infill planes in the UK. It may be that the early tungsten steels were at least as good as the powder metals now, anyway, but they've gone to the wayside due to cost of the stock. They tried to make some razors with that type of steel, and they are OK, but not as nice as plain carbon steel razors - so there are few of them and they only appear over a short time in razor history.


----------



## essexalan (27 May 2017)

Sawdust=manglitter":jw8omllu said:



> Am I missing something here... When you say a 'double iron', do you mean with the Veritas cap iron?




Yes.


----------



## DoctorWibble (27 May 2017)

In all honesty I don't remember where that figure came from. Its been a while since I contemplated PMV. My bad.

Regardless £45 sounds a lot more reasonable. Decent old laminated blades can fetch £10-£20 on ebay and you can't be sure you're actually getting what you hope for. I guess if I was geared up already to handle hard steels and in the habit I might re-consider PMV at that price. If I actually needed a blade for a smoother. OTOH I don't enjoy sharpening and I'm not keen on learning a new method so there would remain reasons not to. For me at least.

So have a go. I for one would be interested to hear how you get on. Just watch the blade thickness point I made earlier in the thread. I have baileys with mouths so tight they wont even take a close cap iron with the frog as far back as the mouth allows and their current very thin blade. From memory the thinnest were maybe a mil thinner than the Veritas. Not that my memory is the last word in reliability! But if I've remembered that correctly the difference is potentially significant depending on your plane and predilection for taking a file to it.


----------



## essexalan (27 May 2017)

Are those Tsunesaburo irons the same as Smoothcut? No longer cheap in the UK £36.80 plus P&P plus the dreaded customs duty and Parcel Forces cut if they catch you. I don't know why Stanley and Record can't make blades the way they used to or even the planes themselves, not a big enough market I guess. Had to laugh I have just refurbed a UK made Stanley Bailey 5 1/2 and the PM-V11 slotted in with a bit of a mouth clean up. Tried putting a standard Stanley blade in and it would not bed on the frog depth and lateral adjustment were terrible. Found that somebody had replaced the rivet on the lateral adjustment roller and left a little too much metal sticking up so the back of the blade was pivoting on it. Quick rub with a file sorted that.


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (28 May 2017)

I used a Smoothcut blade in a LN #51 as part of the testing completed in a comparison with the Veritas Shooting Plane. In other words, shooting end grain.

The Smoothcut significantly outperformed the LN A2 steel in the #51. It is an excellent blade and, in my opinion, the best alternative to Veritas PM-V11. I believe that it is the same blade as Tsunesaburo.

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## CStanford (28 May 2017)

You've clearly not tried a new Russian iron on the market, called the Politburo, outperforms them all.


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (28 May 2017)

Charles, I think that is just typical Commie propaganda. 







Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## D_W (28 May 2017)

essexalan":11r6vkxp said:


> Are those Tsunesaburo irons the same as Smoothcut? No longer cheap in the UK £36.80 plus P&P plus the dreaded customs duty and Parcel Forces cut if they catch you. I don't know why Stanley and Record can't make blades the way they used to or even the planes themselves, not a big enough market I guess. Had to laugh I have just refurbed a UK made Stanley Bailey 5 1/2 and the PM-V11 slotted in with a bit of a mouth clean up. Tried putting a standard Stanley blade in and it would not bed on the frog depth and lateral adjustment were terrible. Found that somebody had replaced the rivet on the lateral adjustment roller and left a little too much metal sticking up so the back of the blade was pivoting on it. Quick rub with a file sorted that.



Yes, same as tsunesaburo. Not sure why they are marked with two different brands.


----------



## essexalan (28 May 2017)

D_W":2n5xthh6 said:


> essexalan":2n5xthh6 said:
> 
> 
> > Are those Tsunesaburo irons the same as Smoothcut? No longer cheap in the UK £36.80 plus P&P plus the dreaded customs duty and Parcel Forces cut if they catch you. I don't know why Stanley and Record can't make blades the way they used to or even the planes themselves, not a big enough market I guess. Had to laugh I have just refurbed a UK made Stanley Bailey 5 1/2 and the PM-V11 slotted in with a bit of a mouth clean up. Tried putting a standard Stanley blade in and it would not bed on the frog depth and lateral adjustment were terrible. Found that somebody had replaced the rivet on the lateral adjustment roller and left a little too much metal sticking up so the back of the blade was pivoting on it. Quick rub with a file sorted that.
> ...



Then they are good blades and I have used them, also called Samurai and I think Harima. Suggest reading veritas-pmv-ii-plane-blades-t70487.html Pretty much the same thing with the usual wrangling from the same suspects but the PM-V11 actually cost over 50 quid then with a much better exchange rate in favour of the UK.


----------



## swagman (28 May 2017)

HAP40 HSS http://www.toolsfromjapan.com/store/ind ... &chapter=5


----------



## CStanford (28 May 2017)

Derek Cohen (Perth said:


> Charles, I think that is just typical Commie propaganda.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Love it!


----------



## CStanford (28 May 2017)

swagman":o6r7s2sx said:


> HAP40 HSS http://www.toolsfromjapan.com/store/ind ... &chapter=5



Without doubt they do seem to have the waterfront covered with regard to steels for various applications and woods. HAP 40 sounds like PM-V11 or maybe that should be vice versa?


----------



## essexalan (28 May 2017)

Think the knife boys know what it is and the tool market is a lot smaller than that for kitchen knives. Might even be a PM designed and made in the US. I don't think it is HAP40 but it is quite corrosion resistant and mine self magnetise which is a pain.


----------



## CStanford (28 May 2017)

In the genre I suppose.

On the other hand, Stanley and Record both sold HSS cutters in the Southern Hemisphere decades ago and Kunz still make them last I checked (Two Cherries too; see below). They are pricey, though. One has always had options, though wallet-stinging ones. If it were all about 'getting the work done' and suffering actual quantifiable shop inefficiencies then Kunz would have been a logical choice or source the Stanley and Record cutters through used tool dealers. It's amazing, isn't it, how one's needs change when a new product comes to market. It's what marketers call 'supply creating its own demand.'

Sources:

http://www.petermcbride.com/hss_stanley/

Two Cherries 45mm, 48mm, and 51mm HSS replacement irons:

https://twocherriesusa.com/product/hss-plane-iron/


----------



## D_W (28 May 2017)

CStanford":706pq4jb said:


> In the genre I suppose.
> 
> On the other hand, Stanley and Record both sold HSS cutters in the Southern Hemisphere decades ago and Kunz still make them last I checked (Two Cherries too; see below). They are pricey, though. One has always had options, though wallet-stinging ones. If it were all about 'getting the work done' and suffering actual quantifiable shop inefficiencies then Kunz would have been a logical choice or source the Stanley and Record cutters through used tool dealers. It's amazing, isn't it, how one's needs change when a new product comes to market. It's what marketers call 'supply creating its own demand.'
> 
> ...




Oldest iron I've seen is Revlo High Speed Steel that shows up in old infills (some of them actually used almost to the slot). I don't know exactly how old they are, but I wouldn't be surprised if close to 100 years. No clue what they are, but would guess T series high speed steel (same thing that was tried in razors). In razors, it's no contest - simple is best. 

V11, IIRC, is a lot more like powdered 440C. HAP40 is nasty stuff - I can't think that there's a great deal of use for it in woodworking unless you somehow have a job planing wood with sand in it. 

At any rate, people chase after ward parallel irons with large wallets open (I have had trouble getting them to make a few infill planes, they seem to top $100 if they're remotely clean). That might have to do with putting the original-looking iron back into expensive pre-war infills, though - by sellers of planes. I don't see anyone running to get the Revlo irons. Or the old high speed steel razors.


----------



## CStanford (29 May 2017)

There is apparently a market for HSS plane irons comprised of people who can't/couldn't wait for boutique makers to get around to 'innovating.' These irons appear to have been in continuous production, by someone, for quite a number of decades. If you need durability you need it, whether or not it's ones pet or favorite manufacturer or not, no?


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (29 May 2017)

CStanford":1d4n53dk said:


> swagman":1d4n53dk said:
> 
> 
> > HAP40 HSS http://www.toolsfromjapan.com/store/ind ... &chapter=5
> ...



HAP 40 is nothing like PM-V11, and PM-V11 is nothing like HAP 40. Thank goodness! 

I have a chisel that Stu sent me in HAP 40. It is the hardest steel I have ever honed. It holds an edge nearly forever, but then you have to sharpen it. Stu described it to me as PM HSS. 

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (29 May 2017)

CStanford":31ru79gl said:


> There is apparently a market for HSS plane irons comprised of people who can't/couldn't wait for boutique makers to get around to 'innovating.' These irons appear to have been in continuous production, by someone, for quite a number of decades. If you need durability you need it, whether or not it's ones pet or favorite manufacturer or not, no?



HNT Gordon make them for their own planes, and sell a lot of them in Oz. 

In the tail end of the years they were in Australia, Stanley manufactured HSS blades for their planes. They are highly prized today.

You can still get them in Mujingfang planes. Damn good they are, too.

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## CStanford (29 May 2017)

Germans apparently like them too.


----------



## D_W (29 May 2017)

CStanford":25cfv6lh said:


> There is apparently a market for HSS plane irons comprised of people who can't/couldn't wait for boutique makers to get around to 'innovating.' These irons appear to have been in continuous production, by someone, for quite a number of decades. If you need durability you need it, whether or not it's ones pet or favorite manufacturer or not, no?



I wonder if there is literature for the german irons. I'd guess for plywood or construction work. Given that kunz was an East German company, the price is quite stiff!

Not sure about the stanley australia price, but I checked with some guy on the australian forum who said he'd found a bunch, and I guess had dispensed them for little or no cost. He was surprised there was a following for them now, but it has probably all to do with Brent Beach stating that they were the best irons he tested.


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (29 May 2017)

A post script on the Mujingfang HSS (M2) blades ...

The one I have is 1 3/4" and looks like a Bailey blade, except the hole is at the other end. Neverthless, I can get it to work very well in a Stanley #3. I recall that the blades are quite cheap, and possibly available on eBay. 

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## essexalan (29 May 2017)

I have a Gyuto made from HAP40 and it takes no more time to sharpen than any other steel just use the right stones. Of course hand grinding a big mortise chisel might be something else again but I will never have one so no problem, PM-V11 is no harder to sharpen than any other steel. PM steels have a distinct advantage over other high alloy steels in that they have a very fine grain structure and no big carbides. It is not how hard the steel is but how tough it is which will decide which sharpening medium to use so if you want to use Washitas for everything don't bother with PM steels unless you just want to burnish your Washita for razor use and suchlike.


----------



## Phil Pascoe (29 May 2017)

I was looking for HHS irons on Amazon and I found none but this caught my eye -
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kirschen-23060 ... lane+irons
I wonder what the purpose or gain from using stainless is?


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (29 May 2017)

No rust? :shock: 

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## CStanford (29 May 2017)

D_W":3o5xbsca said:


> CStanford":3o5xbsca said:
> 
> 
> > There is apparently a market for HSS plane irons comprised of people who can't/couldn't wait for boutique makers to get around to 'innovating.' These irons appear to have been in continuous production, by someone, for quite a number of decades. If you need durability you need it, whether or not it's ones pet or favorite manufacturer or not, no?
> ...



The Two Cherries irons are about $75 a pop. Of course these last years so the annual cost is peanuts. Same goes for any premium iron PM V11 and others.


----------



## Corneel (29 May 2017)

essexalan":39m0ucad said:


> I have a Gyuto made from HAP40 and it takes no more time to sharpen than any other steel just use the right stones. Of course hand grinding a big mortise chisel might be something else again but I will never have one so no problem, PM-V11 is no harder to sharpen than any other steel. PM steels have a distinct advantage over other high alloy steels in that they have a very fine grain structure and no big carbides. It is not how hard the steel is but how tough it is which will decide which sharpening medium to use so if you want to use Washitas for everything don't bother with PM steels unless you just want to burnish your Washita for razor use and suchlike.




I would say you don't have the terminology quite correct. Toughness is how good the steel can handle impact. It is usually meassured with a sharp swinging "hammer" which breaks the steel, and then the energy dissipated is meassured, the Charpy notch test. It takes a lot more energy to break a tough kind of steel, then a brittle steel which breaks at just the thought of swinging a hammer at it. For our tools toughness is important, not just because we don't want to end up with two chisels after some malleting action, it also determines the chippiness of the steel. A steel that is too brittle will wear out quickly because small chips are nicked out of the edge.

Hardness is meassured with an indenter puched into the steel under a certain load. The depth of the indent determines the hardness. More hardness increases the wear resistance, because the steel will resist deformation under the cutting action.

In simple steels it is all a matter of balancing the carbon content with the hardness. Making the steel harder usually also makes it more brittle. There is an optimum around 60 HRc for steels like O1, W1, white paper steel, cast steel. In a laminated iron, a carefull smith can go a little higher, because the softer lamination kind of protects the harder steel bit.

When you add alloys to the steel, especially the wear resistant ones like chromium, vanadium, moledenum, tungsten, cobalt, things become more complex. Those alloys mix with the carbon that hasn't been used up by the iron, and forms carbides. These are generally very hard. Way harder then the steel matrix around them. I don't think you really can meassure this extra hardness with a HRc tester, because the carbides are relatively small and well dispersed throughout the steel. But they sure make a difference in wear resistance. At the edge the steel around the carbides tends to wear off and those very hard carbides take the brunt of the cutting work. Because they are so hard the wear slowly. But they also wear slow on a grinding or honing stone. No free lunch! And when the carbides are harder then the stone's grit particles, like in Novaculite, then the stone is abraided more then the steel. The stone gets burnished which is really just a rounding of the grit particles.

In a traditionally made alloy steel, the carbides tend to form relatively big clumbs. These aren't very solidly attached in the steel matrix, so they brak out easilly. The edge tends to be chippy. Steel like A2 or D2 can have this problem. The nice thing about Powder Metal (PM) steels is that the carbides remain small. So you can get more of them into the steel without greatly reducing the toughness of the edge. They are still very hard, so the edge wears down slower, but they also are hard on the grinding stone, meaning it takes longer to grind.

There are many PM steels available today, all with a different mix of elements, optimised for a specific purpose. Many of them are for the industry. There they are looking for very long edge life to minimise the down time of the machinery. I wouldn't wonder if many of these tool bits are regarded to be disposable, so the grinding time isn't so important for them.

PMV-11 is a bit special. It is a stainless knife steel. It contains a lot of chrome (about 16%) and almost no vanadium. Chromium carbides are hard, but not the hardest. Vanadium carbides are a factor harder again. So the composition of this steel is a compromise between edge durability and grindability. It receives a lot of praise from the woodworking commun, so I guess the compromise is a good one. It grinds about twice as slow as O1, which is not an rediculous increase, but no free lunch again.

HAP40 is a PM steel with not a very high chromium content but with lots of vanadium, molebdenum and cobalt. That makes the steel very wear resistant, but also very hard to grind.


----------



## essexalan (29 May 2017)

Thanks Corneel that says it a whole lot better and more correct than I did. I would ask though that if LN quote their A2 hardness at 60-62, LV quote 62-63 for their PM-V11 why the PM-V11 is stated as easier to sharpen. I do not notice any difference between the two on my stones but I do notice that O1 and cast steel abrade faster. Is it because the carbides are smaller and more evenly distributed in the PM-V11? Kind of guessed it had a lot of chromium because of the corrosion resistance.


----------



## D_W (29 May 2017)

V11 isn't easier to sharpen. There may have been a specific method that lv used to come up with that conclusion, but a2 is a bit easier to sharpen and will sharpen on more mediums (like a washita). V11 can be sharpened on natural stones, but it grades them. It'll pretty much halt a washita's sharpening.


----------



## Corneel (29 May 2017)

DW's experience matches mine. LV themselves also say that A2 is in between O1 and PMV-11 when sharpening. I can't quite explain this difference. PMV-11 has a lot more chromium and more Carbon but is otherwise similar to A2.

The chromium in a stainless toolsteel doesn't all combine with carbon to make chromium carbides. There has to be a substantial amount of free chromium which is allowed to oxidise with the oxygen in the air to form a hard and closed chromium oxide layer on the outside of the steel. That is what makes the steel stainless. 

In steel like O1 you will find about 1% carbon. About 0.7 of this is used in the steel matrix to austenise the steel which is what makes the steel hardenable. The rest is either oxidised during the forging and heat treating, or it combines with other iron atoms to make a simple ironcarbide which enhances the wear resistance of the steel. A2 also has about 1% of carbon. If 0.7 is needed for the austenising, then there is 0.3 % available to combine with chromium and the small amounts of vanadium and molebdenum which are added to the steel too. I am not a metalurgist or chemist so I don't know anything more about that. PMV-11 has more carbon, so there is also more carbon available for the formation of carbides. So I think there are just more of them, making sharpening a bit harder.

But on modern waterstones or on diamond or on alumium oxide lapping films, the difference is not so large that it would be neccessarily very noticable. Because DW was investigating the limits of his Washita stone he probably just happened to find this limit in PMV-11.

But if a real metalurgist is around, I would happily have him correct all my dilletantist errors in the above writings ;-)


----------



## Jacob (3 Jun 2017)

Corneel":1gm9csn6 said:


> ......
> But on modern water-stones or on diamond or on aluminium oxide lapping films, the difference is not so large that it would be necessarily very noticeable.


So there's no point in it then?


> But if a real metallurgist is around, I would happily have him correct all my dilletantist errors in the above writings ;-)


Unless he/she does a bit of woodwork his/her opinions would be worthless


D_W":1gm9csn6 said:


> V11 isn't easier to sharpen. There may have been a specific method that lv used to come up with that conclusion, but a2 is a bit easier to sharpen and will sharpen on more mediums (like a washita). V11 can be sharpened on natural stones, but it grades them. It'll pretty much halt a washita's sharpening.


No point at all in V11 then? Seems to be a widespread opinion.


----------



## D_W (4 Jun 2017)

Jacob":3usogkwf said:


> Corneel":3usogkwf said:
> 
> 
> > ......
> ...



I wouldn't say no point. If someone is using synthetic stones, and they are relatively new and sharpening is difficult for them, then it's a nice steel. It's very uniform, it's not that hard to sharpen compared to a true high speed steel, and it doesn't rust. 

But for someone like me who doesn't mind quick sharpening on a single stone, it's not in the same league as the good quality older irons. It stays sharp longer than those older irons, but the feel of the old irons on a washita is super satisfying. Super. And the washita can keep sharpening them indefinitely without being graded by them. 

Diamonds are pushed as a sharpening solution. If someone has a full diamond setup (which is really just two diamond sharpening items), it sharpens like nothing on them. Even M4 sharpens like nothing on diamonds, and M4 is like rubber on most other things. It just skates on abrasive. 

V11 is a way to avoid bad A2, like what comes in Shepherd plane kits (or did). It is hard to sharpen, the irons were thick making them slower to grind and sharpen, and they failed in chunks. The best A2 I've used so far is Lie Nielsen's, but it's not cheap. There's not a great difference, it just seems a little less prone to chipping than other A2 that I've used (which is what makes an iron good to me, no chipping, no matter what type). 

So, not pointless, I'd say. For two reasons - beginners seem to have a need for aggressive abrasives, slow sharpening processes and steel that lasts a long time. That's reason number one. Reason number 2 is that LV seems to be able to sell it quite well. 

Pass the ward taper and parallel irons to me while everyone buys V11.


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (4 Jun 2017)

At the end of the day, we use what works for us. The problem making blanket statements of "best", "worthless", etc is that the conditions we base these on may not apply to others. It is important to recognise this point, and that "one man's meat is another man's poison".

In my experience - using Shapton and Sigma waterstones, and freehanding on a hollow grind - all tool steels are equally easy to hone. I can raise a wire on a Shapton Pro 1000 in 2 or 3 strokes. I rarely spend more than 60 seconds re-sharpening a PM-V11 plane blade. However, someone else with a less efficient set up and method may argue that anything more complex than O1 is too difficult and, as a result, "worthless". 

On the abrasive Autralian woods I work with, I probably have to re-sharpen PM-V11 as frequently as David does using O1 on his more benign US timbers. I suspect that the UK timber is similarly mild in this respect. Again, the context is relevant when choosing a tool steel. 

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## essexalan (4 Jun 2017)

Certainly would not recommend PM-V11 blades for a beginner and the OP was not one of those. Get some new Record blades cheap enough, coarse and fine India stones, honing oil, baby oil will do and have at it. Can't get a sharp edge and you wont then use a jig until you can get a sharp edge, practice, practice and then go back to hand honing only you will get there but nothing wrong with a jig. Now these Record .....clown has gone so let's call them joke or bean can special blades will get a sharp edge and plane softwoods quite nicely until you hit a knot when the edge will fold. Don't even think of the proposed one stone sharpening solutions unless you can afford an expensive 8" power grinder with CBN wheels to go with your Washita. Of course there are far better blades out there to buy when you are ready but a Ward blade will not fit in your Bailey plane ;0) Have no idea what the difference is between these much vaunted Ward irons and their many competitors, same steel, does sound like they may have been harder though. So you pay silly prices for Ward irons because they are harder, better engineered? Yet suggest buying PM-V11 because they are harder, very well engineered and you get slatted! I do not care if this steel lasts longer because I usually resharpen when I need a break and a quick touch up is better than waiting until the blade is blunt. In fact I think I will buy another one to stick in the smoother.
UK hardwoods are usually pretty benign unless you get something highly figured or teak.


----------



## D_W (4 Jun 2017)

Ward are generally a bit harder than other vintage. Some of them too much so. I've gotten them for about the same price as other double iron sets, but they do go high sometimes, like in a clean parallel iron set or something (which is apt to be bid on by someone with a Norris pre war plane missing it's original iron). You just have to watch them sell to someone else in that case. They're often reasonable over there if found in planes instead of by themselves .. Sometimes less than irons sold alone.

Mathieson are also good, as are i.sorby. same feel, maybe a little difference in hardness, but none are soft as newer marples an robt. Sorby can be (and many other makers).


----------



## CStanford (4 Jun 2017)

Alan Peters used a Record plane and irons throughout his entire working life which included an apprenticeship in the then unmechanized Barnsley firm where all stock was hand processed. It didn't seem to hamper his output or his art. Except for those more or less forced to use harsh woods because of geographic locales, the whole thing is simply a nonissue. It's hard to imagine the prospect of being able to plane an extra thirty of forty minutes between honings is cause for such celebration and joy, yet it apparently is.


----------



## iNewbie (4 Jun 2017)

Probably gives them as much joy as you moaning about them...


----------



## CStanford (4 Jun 2017)

Without a doubt, but mine costs me no money and only a little time. Those on the never-ending upgrade path... fun to watch the contortions when something new hits the market. Last season's Prada, so on and so forth. Just buy the new pair of shoes because you want them (because, well, they're new!), nobody is fooled by the rest of it unless it's somebody else who wants a pair too -- all just the woodworking equivalent of Imelda Marcos's shoe closet. If it exists, I have to have it, I could be missing something, no I'M SURE I'm missing something - the people who make it told me so. All covered in any university's first year marketing course. "New and Improved" works. And if it doesn't really work or only marginally better, no matter, you'll convince yourself that it does by leaps and bounds. None of us are totally immune. Some you think would be, but are anything but. Amazing and entertaining stuff for sure.

Don't believe me? Wait until PM-V12 hits the market.


----------



## iNewbie (4 Jun 2017)

CStanford":2ddps0mq said:


> Without a doubt, but mine costs me no money and only a little time. Those on the never-ending upgrade path... fun to watch the contortions when something new hits the market. Last season's Prada, so on and so forth. Just buy the new pair of shoes because you want them (because, well, they're new!), nobody is fooled by the rest of it unless it's somebody else who wants a pair too -- all just the woodworking equivalent of Imelda Marcos's shoe closet. If it exists, I have to have it, I could be missing something, no I'M SURE I'm missing something - the people who make it told me so. All covered in any university's first year marketing course. "New and Improved" works. And if it doesn't really work or only marginally better, no matter, you'll convince yourself that it does by leaps and bounds. None of us are totally immune. Some you think would be, but are anything but. Amazing and entertaining stuff for sure.
> 
> Don't believe me? Wait until PM-V12 hits the market.



Thats the _choice_ you make - I'm not sure why you're worried about what others do with their money or time. Apart from wasting your own time, telling others they're wasting theirs when they're quite happy to do so. Its their pleasure - where as your seems to be in a world of sometimes true: I told you so. 

Relax. Let people do their own thing. You don't have to save them, its how they'll learn from their _own_ experience or continue in their pleasure of purchasing whatever they can afford.


----------



## CStanford (4 Jun 2017)

I'm not worried about a thing. I enjoy these threads immensely, though it's probably worth noting that I never start them. You seem to be worried that I'm worried. Please, don't worry.

The OPs in these threads already have their minds made up, at least 90+ per cent do. That's all part and parcel of it. It's not the OPs question that makes it fun (though necessary to get the ball rolling), it's all the pseudo-scientific gobbledy gook (largely manufacturer ad copy) that people who've already made the same purchase used to convince themselves, and now the OP, that it made (or makes) perfect sense to buy this or that. And the 'this or that' doesn't matter. It's virtually the same mechanism in play.

These manufacturers are in fact selling quality tools. They will work. Some a little better than their precursors. But, the fact is that a lot of people buy them as stage props around which they can create a certain narrative about themselves (especially in their middle age) and is not lost on the manufacturers and certainly not lost on the people who develop their marketing. And this is true of lots of industries, goods, and products. It's a gift that keeps on giving on many levels.

If I can convince myself that I really NEED a longer lasting steel then perhaps one day I'll actually live into this rather benign delusion, but a delusion nevertheless. The fact that there have been longer lasting steels around for decades sort of spoils the fun but this inconvenient fact is pretty easily dismissed without too much mental effort, then, back to shopping!


----------



## D_W (4 Jun 2017)

iNewbie":3rugwso9 said:


> I'm not sure why you're worried about what others do with their money or time. Apart from wasting your own time, telling others they're wasting theirs when they're quite happy to do so.



Allow me to introduce you to Charlie Stanford. That's his 'thing'.


----------



## CStanford (4 Jun 2017)

Predictable, but still fun!


----------



## Jacob (4 Jun 2017)

iNewbie":1iw6meij said:


> ...I'm not sure why you're worried about what others do with their money or time.


Because the OP is asking "Are they really worth that kind of money?"
What do you think iNewbie - are they really worth that kind of money? Our OP would like to hear your opinion.


----------



## D_W (4 Jun 2017)

Sometimes we see a lot of concern for money that other people are spending. From the usual suspects. I think it's kind of goofy, too, but I get caught up in it sometimes ($500 - $1000 for krenov planes cranks me up a little bit). I doubt it will make much difference if someone buys nice tools and they build a lot, they'll waste a lot more money in supplies building things that aren't worth what the stock cost, unless you want to make things out of pine and poplar, paint them and give them fake wear.

Have a look at this:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Late-Victoria ... 2681809996

If I really just wanted furniture, I'd do that - it'd be a lot smarter than making it. My wife wants a couple of things that cost enough in supplies that I wish I was just buying a few expensive plane irons.


----------



## D_W (4 Jun 2017)

Jacob":2ovc6sk7 said:


> iNewbie":2ovc6sk7 said:
> 
> 
> > ...I'm not sure why you're worried about what others do with their money or time.
> ...



The OP is never going to be able to answer that unless he gets one and tries it. 

We're not talking about a $4000 infill plane.


----------



## CStanford (4 Jun 2017)

D_W":3ma7e6ve said:


> Sometimes we see a lot of concern for money that other people are spending. From the usual suspects. I think it's kind of goofy, too, but I get caught up in it sometimes ($500 - $1000 for krenov planes cranks me up a little bit). I doubt it will make much difference if someone buys nice tools and they build a lot, they'll waste a lot more money in supplies building things that aren't worth what the stock cost, unless you want to make things out of pine and poplar, paint them and give them fake wear.
> 
> Have a look at this:
> http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Late-Victoria ... 2681809996
> ...



You'd be hard pressed to build a dumbed down version in poplar for that piece's asking price. Makes spending a lot of money on tools and replacement irons seem even more absurd. Decent brasses alone, as pictured, would easily be over $250 though I guess if done in poplar you could put cheap big box rubbish on it -- still run $100 or so.


----------



## Phil Pascoe (4 Jun 2017)

Brown furniture fetches no money. 2007 I sold an exquisite mahogany roll top bureau that my mother bought in 1975 for £400, it fetched £800. It probably would have fetched two or three times that ten years before. The reason for its being so cheap? a computer wouldn't fit in it. The auctioneer told me that before he said anything else. Fashion is against it as well as often size - much of it won't fit in housing that's been built in the last two or three decades.


----------



## CStanford (4 Jun 2017)

It would sell for significantly more over here I think it's safe to say. Disappointed to see her asking prices are no longer on her website, but this lady moves a lot of pretty decent English antiques out of her Memphis shop. It would still be difficult to make one of these pieces at a price that would compete with the antique 'real thing.' You could make a little money, but not commensurate with the skill required to build most of these. Have to find a form that somebody wants that can't be found as an antique anywhere (hard to do in the internet age):

http://mfordcreech.com/furniture.html

Of course the Cuban mahogany used to make most of these antiques is simply unavailable now, and Honduran usually a poor substitute.


----------



## iNewbie (4 Jun 2017)

Jacob":1svzbc0b said:


> iNewbie":1svzbc0b said:
> 
> 
> > ...I'm not sure why you're worried about what others do with their money or time.
> ...



He first asked if anyone had upgraded their irons. You already posted you have no experience of them but suggest they're not worth it. Charlie is probably the same - hasn't had one. 

Are they worth the money? I guess they're worth it to anyone who wants to actually buy one.


----------



## CStanford (4 Jun 2017)

I demo'd a PM-V11 chisel. Based on that demo, I'd say they aren't worth it, but it's moot anyway because everybody has a different measure of 'worth' as my previous posts address. Perfectly fine chisel but nothing to arrange a girl jumping out of a cake over.

Anybody with the need to scratch an itch is usually going to scratch it. I'd rather buy a dozen golf balls that promise 15 more yards in distance through the bag. They never do, but the manufacturer contorts the statistics from some machine that tells you they will and still meet USGA criteria for distance in a 'legal' golf ball. It's a bunch of marketing hoo-hah of course, but people do fall for it. I actually don't any more but admit to having been intrigued a time or two in the past. Pretty cheap intrigue though -- you still need golf balls on a much more frequent basis than you ever would a plane iron, so you spend five more bucks than you otherwise would have just to see. If you have a slow swing speed a ball that spins a little less will go farther but you can't make them stop on the green. A lot of people don't care, they just want to be able to say they can hit a seven iron 170 yards, It's better to hit it 160, and high, rather than 170 comparatively low and screaming through the green. There is no real trade-off. Better players buy a ball that spins they way they want it to and has an overall trajectory that fits their eye. Raw distance is not a problem. Same with a woodworker -- an iron that goes a little farther is not a game changer, well not unless a couple of 90 second honings avoided during a work session is considered a game changer. Surely, this can't be the case can it? That's all we're talking about, a couple or three fewer honings during any given day. Five to seven lousy minutes. Big. Fat. Deal.


----------



## Jacob (4 Jun 2017)

iNewbie":3oamoi73 said:


> ....
> 
> Are they worth the money? I guess they're worth it to anyone who wants to actually buy one.


 :lol: 
What if someone says they are not worth the money - might that stop someone wanting to buy one?


----------



## Noel (4 Jun 2017)

CStanford":3bdxj4gy said:


> I demo'd a PM-V11 chisel. Based on that demo, I'd say they aren't worth it, but it's moot anyway because everybody has a different measure of 'worth' as my previous posts address. Perfectly fine chisel but nothing to arrange a girl jumping out of a cake over.
> 
> Anybody with the need to scratch an itch is usually going to scratch it. I'd rather buy a dozen golf balls that promise 15 more yards in distance through the bag. They never do, but the manufacturer contorts the statistics from some machine that tells you it will and still meet USGA criteria for distance in a 'legal' golf ball. It's a bunch of marketing hoo-hah of course, but people do fall for it. I actually don't any more but admit to having been intrigued a time or two in the past. Pretty cheap intrigue though -- you still need golf balls on a much more frequent basis than you ever would a plane iron, so you spend five more bucks than you otherwise would have just to see. If you have a slow swing speed a ball that spins a little less will go farther but you can't make them stop on the green. A lot of people don't care, they just want to be able to say they can hit a seven iron 170 yards, It's better to hit it 160, and high, rather than 170 comparatively low and screaming through the green. There is no real trade-off. Better players buy a ball that spins they way they want it to and has an overall trajectory that fits their eye. Raw distance is not a problem. Same with a woodworker -- an iron that goes a little farther is not a game changer, well not unless a couple of 90 second honings avoided during a work session is considered a game changer. Surely, this can't be the case can it? That's all we're talking about, a couple or three fewer honings during any given day. Five to seven lousy minutes. Big. Fat. Deal.




Remember square drivers and all the other junk that comes onto the market....best investment in golf is learning. 6 lessons may knock a stroke or two off your HC. 
Learning a good sharping regime is good too.


----------



## woodbrains (4 Jun 2017)

CStanford":3j5z0ki2 said:


> Alan Peters used a Record plane and irons throughout his entire working life which included an apprenticeship in the then unmechanized Barnsley firm where all stock was hand processed. It didn't seem to hamper his output or his art. Except for those more or less forced to use harsh woods because of geographic locales, the whole thing is simply a nonissue. It's hard to imagine the prospect of being able to plane an extra thirty of forty minutes between honings is cause for such celebration and joy, yet it apparently is.



Hello,

Alan Peters had 4 irons for his plane, all sharpened up at the beginning of the day and changed out when dull to prevent having to sharpen and break the work cycle. I suppose if he had something that didn't need honing often it would amount to the same thing. I seem to remember him commenting on his dissatisfaction of the irons quality. Looks like you picked the wrong subject to illustrate your point; it is entirely the opposite of what you are saying.

For abrasive wood, I think PMv11 is definitely advantageous. I once had a terrible time trying to plane some super hard stuff. It took half a dozen strokes and the iron actually curled at the edge. I bought a Hock A2 cryo iron and the problem was solved. I'm not sure there is much argument to sticking with bog standard irons here. Incidentally, Hock A2 is bloody superb compared to other types I've tried.

Mike.


----------



## D_W (4 Jun 2017)

Jacob":1o40ualo said:


> iNewbie":1o40ualo said:
> 
> 
> > ....
> ...



If charlie tells you they're not worth the money, you may want to buy one and see for yourself. 

If derek says they're not worth the money (he's usually too polite for that), then you're probably better off letting other people buy one and see for themselves. 

I never found much in common between irons and irons, but my golf clubs were made when tools were pretty terrible (1980s) and they cost me $115. I love them. There is a lot less difference between them and new forged irons than there is between a V11 iron and a 1980s stanley iron. Or a record iron for that matter. Records irons are nice, but given a choice between the two and I'd prefer a V11 iron in a smoother. Record irons in anything more coarse. Even better is to make your own iron for a stanley plane - it's about 2 hours, ten dollars and you get exactly what you want.

You will sweat making one, though, and you may have to work for a week or so before you get to the good part of the iron.


----------



## G S Haydon (4 Jun 2017)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7HjCFphaNk

Example of the different plane iron steels in action. What I liked most was how the Bailey adjustment found on the Lie-Nielsen is really effective on the move whereas the Norris adjustment on the Veritas looks awkward, as does the blade carrier set up. Could be due to David's experience with Stanley pattern planes but my experience with Norris style is similar, I did not find the Norris adjustment helpful.


----------



## D_W (4 Jun 2017)

G S Haydon":1i18i111 said:


> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7HjCFphaNk
> 
> Example of the different plane iron steels in action. What I liked most was how the Bailey adjustment found on the Lie-Nielsen is really effective on the move whereas the Norris adjustment on the Veritas looks awkward, as does the blade carrier set up. Could be due to David's experience with Stanley pattern planes but my experience with Norris style is similar, I did not find the Norris adjustment helpful.



I had 3 planes with the norris adjuster two weeks ago, now I have one (a big panel plane that a dealer fibbed about to me, so I'll probably have it forever to avoid eating the several hundred dollar difference in what I paid vs. what I should've). I could get used to it in a smoother, but in a way that it would still never be as good as a bailey plane in use, which is a shame, because the rest of the beech A5 planes (that are common as water) aspects are really nice. They're nice in proportion, they have strong (ugly, but strong) handles on them, and they aren't too heavy. Something about the iron bedding is bizarre - the tighter the lever cap, the deeper the cut, so even though the adjuster sucks, you can set it a tad light and then us the lever cap as micro adjust for depth just loosening and tightening it. 

The adjuster itself, though, is like a 100 mile an hour first gear in city traffic - it's several times too fast, and then it has the habit of losing lateral adjustment when you adjust depth. LV's version of the adjuster is far finer and better working, but I still like stanley better. In all fairness, I don't use the LV custom plane enough to use it well, and it could be me on that one. I am so used to the proportions of a bailey plane that the LV plane feels a bit like a metal european plane to me (Charlie might be quite fond of it if he could spend the money on planes instead of expensive golf balls). I wish I could convince LV to make a dead-on copy of the stanley bailey plane, but they can use bubinga handles to make it theirs (not that I've ever called them to tell them that - being such a fan of the double iron, I think Vic Tesolin would have my number blocked if I tried to call anything other than customer service).

My two favorite bench planes of all time are the attached (I had to give a guy a princely sum for that plane, though ($40 - I think, which is highway robbery for a type 20), and it came with the only stanley iron that I've ever had that was too soft). I don't like that stanley just because it's supposed to be junk, but because it's nicer to use than any stanley 4 that I've ever used, and I'll bet I've had 15 of them. ....


And a #7 sorby bench plane that I snarfed off of the island and that is just about the finest display of cast iron loveliness that I've used outside of a lie nielsen plane (but there is something more honest about it, it's just nicer to use in actual work).


----------



## CStanford (4 Jun 2017)

woodbrains":1bp0jwnq said:


> CStanford":1bp0jwnq said:
> 
> 
> > Alan Peters used a Record plane and irons throughout his entire working life which included an apprenticeship in the then unmechanized Barnsley firm where all stock was hand processed. It didn't seem to hamper his output or his art. Except for those more or less forced to use harsh woods because of geographic locales, the whole thing is simply a nonissue. It's hard to imagine the prospect of being able to plane an extra thirty of forty minutes between honings is cause for such celebration and joy, yet it apparently is.
> ...



Well Mike, he had a work cycle to break (full order book) but apparently preferred not to hone on break. I'm certainly not claiming Record irons don't need to be honed. Four irons at roughly thirty to forty minutes each -- 120 to 160 minutes of planing in a busy day, sounds about right. He didn't plane wood for eight straight hours a day and you know it, nor did he use four irons every day, day in and day out. 

I need this kind of dissatisfaction and poor performance:

https://www.google.com/search?q=alan+pe ... 78&bih=556

"I would like to own a Norris smoothing plane, but I would only put it on a shelf in the house and admire it, for I am pretty convinced that my $20 (he used symbol for the Pound) scraper plane would do the job equally well." From Cabinetmaking, the Professional Approach.

No secret that he scraped and sanded. Surfaces look fine to me, you? Or have we come to the point where a giant like Peters is now considered to be a piker because some pendejo shooting videos in the last 45 square feet of what's left of his garage informs us that anything less is a punt?


----------



## D_W (4 Jun 2017)

It's sort of strange that we bring up all of these guys who are no longer working and make assertions about what they were using. I couldn't say for sure they wouldn't use something modern and like it quite a bit. I don't know who would. 

The first person I know of to start making A2 irons (and I'm sure there are others) is George Wilson. Alan Peters was an excellent and prolific maker. I don't know that he ever made anything George couldn't have (i'd be extremely surprised if there was anything). George likes A2 just fine and uses modern stones, and you know that where he worked, he was forced to do his work in public for a decade and a half using only hand tools.

Maybe there was someone doing A2 irons earlier than George (late 1980s or so), but I don't know who. George did them to give to the coopers who were also doing their work by hand, and were struggling with the edge life of 1080 steel irons. I know he's stated that online before (i hope). George could've been born in any era and would've been a master's master. He is obsessed and talented. You follow that, right? The coopers working white oak and with piece rate they were trying to make were annoyed with the irons they were given, and before the internet or LV free shipping, he made the decision to sneak them some irons out of A2. They were "real" coopers who came from scotland and lived in an unheated building making two barrels a day there, barely getting by before they found life a little easier working at the museum. Not the kind of guys who would make prima donna complaints. 

I can't imagine that we have any clue what Alan Peters would use if he was given a full menu. I can't say he'd use anything other than stock irons, nor can anyone say that he wouldn't if something else was available.


----------



## iNewbie (4 Jun 2017)

CStanford":1iyn8ful said:


> I demo'd a PM-V11 chisel. Based on that demo, I'd say they aren't worth it, but it's moot anyway because everybody has a different measure of 'worth' as my previous posts address. Perfectly fine chisel but nothing to arrange a girl jumping out of a cake over.
> 
> Anybody with the need to scratch an itch is usually going to scratch it. I'd rather buy a dozen golf balls that promise 15 more yards in distance through the bag. They never do, but the manufacturer contorts the statistics from some machine that tells you they will and still meet USGA criteria for distance in a 'legal' golf ball. It's a bunch of marketing hoo-hah of course, but people do fall for it. I actually don't any more but admit to having been intrigued a time or two in the past. Pretty cheap intrigue though -- you still need golf balls on a much more frequent basis than you ever would a plane iron, so you spend five more bucks than you otherwise would have just to see. If you have a slow swing speed a ball that spins a little less will go farther but you can't make them stop on the green. A lot of people don't care, they just want to be able to say they can hit a seven iron 170 yards, It's better to hit it 160, and high, rather than 170 comparatively low and screaming through the green. There is no real trade-off. Better players buy a ball that spins they way they want it to and has an overall trajectory that fits their eye. Raw distance is not a problem. Same with a woodworker -- an iron that goes a little farther is not a game changer, well not unless a couple of 90 second honings avoided during a work session is considered a game changer. Surely, this can't be the case can it? That's all we're talking about, a couple or three fewer honings during any given day. Five to seven lousy minutes.* Big. Fat. Deal.*



And yet its a Big. Fat. Deal. for you someone else might do that. You'll be worrying about the glues they use, next.


----------



## CStanford (4 Jun 2017)

He used stock Record irons in a Record No. 7. Photos abound throughout his career of him holding the 7 and a fair number of them were taken close enough to see the Record brand on the iron. See Fine Woodworking, et al.

I have no idea what I'd be using if I lived to be 150. It has no bearing on anything. Peters had choices, and ones he could have afforded at points in his career. There is no indication that I am aware of that he ever went away from the Record.


----------



## CStanford (4 Jun 2017)

iNewbie":2zwkrfso said:


> CStanford":2zwkrfso said:
> 
> 
> > I demo'd a PM-V11 chisel. Based on that demo, I'd say they aren't worth it, but it's moot anyway because everybody has a different measure of 'worth' as my previous posts address. Perfectly fine chisel but nothing to arrange a girl jumping out of a cake over.
> ...



In a regular working day that involves a good bit of planing (not all do!) you might save two or three honings. That's about seven minutes, ten tops, and not even every day. Again: Big. Fat. Flippin'. Deal. It's meaningless. Most people spend that much time changing the shop's music play list, text-messaging your wife, Twitter, Facebook, this forum, adjusting the thermostat, and stuff like that. The whole thing is a joke. It really is.


----------



## woodbrains (4 Jun 2017)

Hello,

Charles, you chose Alan Peters as an example to prove Record irons are as good as we ever need. In fact he is actually an example of someone who decided to circumvent the need to hone during a work cycle. You might not think honing is a big deal, I agree, it isn't, but you must realise that some people, some professionals, in fact, do find it desirable to not have to hone at inopportune times. Perhaps the break in concentration is off putting, perhaps he had paperwork to do during his teabreak, perhaps he didn't want to get oil near his wood, I don't know, but there it is, he didn't want to hone during the working day. To be honest, neither do I. I like to have a sharpening session, do everything in the shop that needs it and then work. I go a stage further than having 4 irons, since I got my Record planes dirt cheap, I just put a dull plane down and pick up another, not even having to change out the double iron, I bearly miss a plane stroke. When I'm designing I don't sharpen pencils, I have a box ready to go, pick up a new one and away. Perhaps I'm daft, but Mr. Peters must have been daft too. 

Mike.


----------



## CStanford (5 Jun 2017)

Mike, the time he spent honing was simply moved to a different part of the day. Still, it was ten or so minutes worth of work at the most. It doesn't affect the argument one way or another when somebody does it. He could have gotten up at 3:00 a.m. and honed them when his children were in diapers. Doesn't change a thing. I'm not saying that Record irons don't need to be honed. I am saying that the differential in using an iron that lasts longer is completely insignificant in the rhythm of the day, whenever one chooses to start it.


----------



## Jacob (5 Jun 2017)

woodbrains":1qi0ed3q said:


> .... some people, some professionals, in fact, do find it desirable to not have to hone at inopportune times. ....


The time to hone is the point in use at which you decide that the tool needs a hone. There isn't a more opportune moment - otherwise you could find yourself wasting minutes honing things unnecessarily! :shock: 
Similarly with sharpening pencils, blowing your nose, wiping your ****, making a cup of tea, etc.

Hope that helps.



> some pendejo shooting videos in the last 45 square feet of what's left of his garage


 :lol: What is a pendejo? (not a UK term)

PS found it - it's a single pubic hair! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_profanity


----------



## iNewbie (5 Jun 2017)

CStanford":2hrrrw5e said:


> iNewbie":2hrrrw5e said:
> 
> 
> > CStanford":2hrrrw5e said:
> ...



How can it be meaningless when it provides you with such entertainment value. Here you are 4 years later having said we won't be hearing about PM-VII in a year. I guess you derive as much pleasure from your posts as someone who likes to sharpen less cuz it makes 'em feel all warm and fuzzy. Both examples could be considered a joke. They really can.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread. ... ost2102048


----------



## D_W (5 Jun 2017)

> Or have we come to the point where a giant like Peters is now considered to be a piker because some pendejo shooting videos in the last 45 square feet of what's left of his garage informs us that anything less is a punt?



Who might that be, Charlie?

Skated right around George's opinion. Do you think he's not in the same class as Peters as a maker? You know he's actually more skilled and much more broad, though the wine might argue that he's not, I'm sure.


----------



## swagman (5 Jun 2017)

Good time for the mods to close this discussion.


----------



## CStanford (5 Jun 2017)

No, George is not in the same class.


----------



## D_W (5 Jun 2017)

> And yet its a Big. Fat. Deal. for you someone else might do that. You'll be worrying about the glues they use, next.



In a regular working day that involves a good bit of planing (not all do!) you might save two or three honings. That's about seven minutes, ten tops, and not even every day. Again: Big. Fat. Flippin'. Deal. It's meaningless. Most people spend that much time changing the shop's music play list, text-messaging your wife, Twitter, Facebook, this forum, adjusting the thermostat, and stuff like that. The whole thing is a joke. It really is.[/quote]

How can it be meaningless when it provides you with such entertainment value. Here you are 4 years later having said we won't be hearing about PM-VII in a year. I guess you derive as much pleasure from your posts as someone who likes to sharpen less cuz it makes 'em feel all warm and fuzzy. Both examples could be considered a joke. They really can.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread. ... ost2102048[/quote]

Keep in mind that Charlie posted to someone's blog that he thinks Lee Valley is out to get him by lobbying to have him banned from forums (next thing you know, he'll tell us they're little green men). We know why he gets banned, though, and it has nothing to do with Lee Valley.


----------



## CStanford (5 Jun 2017)

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread. ... ost2102048[/quote]

I was wrong. We're still talking about it.


----------



## D_W (5 Jun 2017)

CStanford":2yztb7nu said:


> No, George is not in the same class.



That's funny. The difference between the two of them is that there is nothing Peters has done that George couldn't do, but the other way around isn't close to being true.

And George has far better design sense.


----------



## CStanford (5 Jun 2017)

D_W":1a33w841 said:


> CStanford":1a33w841 said:
> 
> 
> > No, George is not in the same class.
> ...



This sort of idiocy speaks for itself.


----------



## D_W (5 Jun 2017)

CStanford":3kueatqy said:


> D_W":3kueatqy said:
> 
> 
> > CStanford":3kueatqy said:
> ...



You're thinking you're absolutely right more than other people think you're right. It's gotten you far, I see. Don't forget to pack your wife's lunch today.


----------



## Jacob (5 Jun 2017)

swagman":5m67c3uq said:


> Good time for the mods to close this discussion.


Don't be a pendejo!


----------



## ED65 (5 Jun 2017)

Gents, this sort of thing has no place in a thread like this. Ad hominem is the resort of the lowest sorts, just sayin' (hammer)


----------



## CStanford (5 Jun 2017)

David, are you talking about George Wilson, the retired instrument maker from Colonial Williamsburg? I guess you are, but I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt that there's another George you're talking about that made furniture and at the level and scale of Alan Peters' operation or somebody of similar stature. Can you clarify? Provide examples, etc.?

Peters was one of the most important designer/makers, of furniture, of the 20th century.


----------



## Phil Pascoe (5 Jun 2017)

:lol: We know from the header approximately how many pages the thread will run, where it'll end and who'll be left. Amazing! :lol:


----------



## Jacob (5 Jun 2017)

phil.p":1lznv3gw said:


> :lol: We know from the header approximately how many pages the thread will run, where it'll end and who'll be left. Amazing! :lol:


The best thing to come out of it for me is a new word 'pendejo' so it hasn't been a complete waste of space. 
I've added it to my list of words to use as often as possible whilst I can still remember what they mean. I've got 'rebarbative' and 'egregious' on the list but i might have to look up 'rebarbative' again. :roll:


----------



## G S Haydon (5 Jun 2017)

Don't lock the thread! I have no idea what tangent we're on now but these pub style "arguments" are always fun.


----------



## D_W (5 Jun 2017)

I hope the op tries an iron if he's curious. It's basically a better version of a2, and if the trial iron seems like it's not worth it, there's little to be lost.

Even George (better than just a furniture maker) Wilson is quite fond of it.


----------



## G S Haydon (5 Jun 2017)

I tried some once and I think my expectation was a little skewed. I thought it would be like 01 to hone based on the information and feedback I'd read, however it seemed very similar to A2. I'm unlikely to need anything more than 01 or older W1 stuff. The only replacement irons that have suited my needs have been the Ray Iles 01, they have a great range for common bench planes. Perhaps if I feel the need to shave a vast amount of "pendejo" PMV 11 could be just the ticket.

On a side note I do appreciate Charles' input. He does, from what I can tell, actually make stuff and has a wide range of skills. Without DW, Charles and Jacob it would much less informative and without input like theirs forums can become an echo chamber.


----------



## Sawdust=manglitter (5 Jun 2017)

I did not realise that my post would unleash such passion. Thank you everyone for your opinions... and entertainment. 

Reading such strong conflicted opinions did put me off for a bit, but I do think I'll take a punt next payday for my smoother plane to see for myself and form my own opinion... and I hope that doesn't offend anyone :wink:


----------



## Phil Pascoe (5 Jun 2017)

The one that always cracks me up is the Mitsubishi "Pajero" - they didn't research that one.


----------



## Phil Pascoe (5 Jun 2017)

It might have been interesting to have had the views of our Australian and Dutch friends thrown into the cauldron. :lol:


----------



## D_W (5 Jun 2017)

G S Haydon":2ooup162 said:


> I tried some once and I think my expectation was a little skewed. I thought it would be like 01 to hone based on the information and feedback I'd read, however it seemed very similar to A2. I'm unlikely to need anything more than 01 or older W1 stuff. The only replacement irons that have suited my needs have been the Ray Iles 01, they have a great range for common bench planes. Perhaps if I feel the need to shave a vast amount of "pendejo" PMV 11 could be just the ticket.
> 
> On a side note I do appreciate Charles' input. He does, from what I can tell, actually make stuff and has a wide range of skills. Without DW, Charles and Jacob it would much less informative and without input like theirs forums can become an echo chamber.



We'd love to actually see Charlie's work, but finding it is like looking for hen's teeth. 

O1 and W1 are still the best types of steel for razors (and shaving), though a slightly softer V11 would probably work. Henckels made tons of straight razors out of 440c that was cryogenically treated, and V11 seems a lot like powder 440c. The henckels razors were good enough that they are very popular with Japanese barbers.

At any rate, I see that the LV V11 irons are about 44 pounds over there. I'll bet if someone didn't like them, they'd be out about 10 pounds after resale. I wouldn't buy ten at once, but there's no harm in one. They're actually pretty easy to sharpen even on oilstones (as is A2) if you add a fine india to the mix.


----------



## D_W (5 Jun 2017)

Sawdust=manglitter":1x1socd6 said:


> I did not realise that my post would unleash such passion. Thank you everyone for your opinions... and entertainment.
> 
> Reading such strong conflicted opinions did put me off for a bit, but I do think I'll take a punt next payday for my smoother plane to see for myself and form my own opinion... and I hope that doesn't offend anyone :wink:



That is exactly what you should do. When everyone loves something, you're pretty safe getting it. When everyone hates something, it's probably good to avoid. When 1/3rd love something, 1/3rd hate it and 1/3rd are indifferent, you'll need to try it for yourself.


----------



## swagman (5 Jun 2017)

phil.p":20x4i1mm said:


> It might have been interesting to have had the views of our Australian and Dutch friends thrown into the cauldron. :lol:



Count me out.


----------



## G S Haydon (5 Jun 2017)

D_W":17tstlwr said:


> G S Haydon":17tstlwr said:
> 
> 
> > I tried some once and I think my expectation was a little skewed. I thought it would be like 01 to hone based on the information and feedback I'd read, however it seemed very similar to A2. I'm unlikely to need anything more than 01 or older W1 stuff. The only replacement irons that have suited my needs have been the Ray Iles 01, they have a great range for common bench planes. Perhaps if I feel the need to shave a vast amount of "pendejo" PMV 11 could be just the ticket.
> ...



Sure, I think Charles did post a picture of a Walnut table he'd made when there was a thread about how long projects would take when done by hand. I saw a picture of him sweaty after a session with a jack plane 8) and he has discussed that he does construction carpentry too. So no PM V11 for my "Peddejo", I'll revert to vintage.....


----------



## Corneel (5 Jun 2017)

It's all highly entertaining. That's my (dutch) view on this thread.


----------



## D_W (5 Jun 2017)

CStanford":2syz1aru said:


> David, are you talking about George Wilson, the retired instrument maker from Colonial Williamsburg? I guess you are, but I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt that there's another George you're talking about that made furniture and at the level and scale of Alan Peters' operation or somebody of similar stature. Can you clarify? Provide examples, etc.?
> 
> Peters was one of the most important designer/makers, of furniture, of the 20th century.



There is more to life than furniture. The term "maker" doesn't limit someone to furniture.

As far as George goes: instrument maker (I see nothing that Peters did that looks more difficult than the spinet George makes on video), tool maker, gun maker (not assembler, but maker of 18th century guns including fabricating the metal parts), machine refurbisher (not tablesaws, but things like Hardinge HLVH lathes - you know, the ones that NASA uses that will work to 4 100 thousandths of an inch), die maker, jeweler, pattern maker. Went to college and learned design from Will Riemann. 

I went and looked at more Alan Peters items. It's great that he got picked up and recognized, and that he influenced future makers (the work of some of his follow-ons looks more interesting). Some of the things are just awful to look at, like a cabinet with intentionally exposed through dovetails in the drawers - staring right at an onlooker. I'm not a professional anything when it comes to design, but I just wonder what someone was thinking making something like that - I hope it was due to a deep-pocketed customer making that decision.

I see nothing to suggest he's a better maker than George Wilson - not close - he just has more notoriety and made only one thing. I see scads of things that George has made that Peters probably couldn't dream of making (pan/olympus lute, brinkley compass,...) - he's not alive and young to give it a go, so who knows?

Maybe if George wrote a book about himself and taught more people, he'd have more notoriety - I'll bet he was actually busy making in his off hours. His opinion about A2, and use of it in a practical situation before there were forums or toolmakers using it, carries plenty of weight. I wouldn't value my opinion over George's, or suggest anyone else should. Nor would I give yours any weight compared to George's. Zero. He made a living as a maker - the kind where he was primary wage earner. No books, no students. A small fraction of his work is pictured all over the internet - both machine assisted and completely by hand.


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (5 Jun 2017)

> His opinion about A2, and use of it in a practical situation before there were forums or toolmakers using it, carries plenty of weight.



... and his high opinion of PM-V11 as well :wink:

I couldn't resist that ...  

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## nabs (5 Jun 2017)

re. 'pendejo' , you may be interested in this pubic hair factoid: it is possible to get pube-toupees, and they are called a 'merkins'. The historically minded amongst us will no doubt be doubly interested to know that they date back to the 1400s! 

no need to thank me!


----------



## D_W (5 Jun 2017)

Derek Cohen (Perth said:


> > His opinion about A2, and use of it in a practical situation before there were forums or toolmakers using it, carries plenty of weight.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yes, he does like that quite a bit! I thought we might see some exotic pocket knives made of it, but I don't know if he ever got stock to do that.


----------



## Phil Pascoe (5 Jun 2017)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Merkin-Set-Dar ... B00A784PP6 :lol:


----------

