blade stiffeners - Record Stay Set vs MF two-part lever cap

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Kees, the Brese planes are not what I would term "high angle". They are generally 50 degree beds. That is not too far off a common angle (45 degrees).

Take a look at this video, where Terry Gordon planes with one of his 60 degree smoothers ..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWUiu6tCFRE

In the next video, he uses a 55 degree trying plane. The shaving is not quite as straight, but pretty much so - quite different from the Brese plane ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5JJBK4lAQ4

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[ED65]

Hard to say what role the cap iron had in origin.

There is fairly good evidence that it was initially invented to help in controlling tearout. Certainly the first irons they were fitted to didn't need stiffening! They were amply thick by today's standards and bedded in a wooden plane under a substantial wedge.

 

[D_W]

Hard to say what role the cap iron had in origin.

There is fairly good evidence that it was initially invented to help in controlling tearout. Certainly the first irons they were fitted to didn't need stiffening! They were amply thick by today's standards and bedded in a wooden plane under a substantial wedge.

They also increased the cost of a plane considerably due to the extra work in creating a second iron that was threaded with a cap screw, and slotting the cutting iron itself. If stiffness was the goal, it would've been cheaper to just make the main iron thicker.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

Hard to say what role the cap iron had in origin.

There is fairly good evidence that it was initially invented to help in controlling tearout. Certainly the first irons they were fitted to didn't need stiffening! They were amply thick by today's standards and bedded in a wooden plane under a substantial wedge.

They also increased the cost of a plane considerably due to the extra work in creating a second iron that was threaded with a cap screw, and slotting the cutting iron itself. If stiffness was the goal, it would've been cheaper to just make the main iron thicker.

Probably. Mind you, it seems it was worthwhile to forge weld a small piece of good carbon steel onto a longer piece of average steel to make a single iron, which would be the expensive way to do it now.

 

[woodpig]

I rarely use a plane so I don't have a great deal of interest in them but I was surprised to learn recently how thick Japanese plane irons are and how well they work. Why are western plane irons made so thin?

 

[D_W]

For one, a thinner iron is faster to keep sharp when a grinder isn't handy.

Plus, western irons are held in place by a wedge, but japanese irons are unsupported across their width.

 

[ED65]

Or another answer: because they can be. No point in making an iron thicker than it needs to be to function as it should.

 

[nabs]

I think it is pretty clear the cap-iron was not only a stiffening measure - Leonard Bailey patented a modified cap-iron specifically to address issues that occur because he was using very thin irons (c.f https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=pate ... S72443.pdf) but cap-irons had been in use for at least 100 years prior to that, as discussed above.

Of course we can only speculate about why cap-irons were introduced, but it is surely plausible that they were added by someone(s?) trying to emulate the effect of a high angle plane, but with the convenient option to remove the effect when it was not needed (thus reverting back to an easy to push configuration). A good solution would be an angled piece of metal screwed to the top of the iron in a way that it can be moved back and forwards. Voila! the cap iron is born.

 

[Corneel]

Agree. That sounds like the most plausible explanation. And they were probably perplexed when the new solution actually worked a whole deal better then high angle planes.

 

[woodpig]

Or another answer: because they can be. No point in making an iron thicker than it needs to be to function as it should.

Lie-Nielson have their own view on that.

"The blade is the most important part of a hand plane. Our blades are thicker, sometimes much thicker, than other manufacturers’ for a solid cut."

I've seen one dissenter, mainly on the grounds of cost, many others seem to agree that thicker is better but as I said I'm not really a plane nut.

 

[nabs]

.. well that was the point of the original post - thin blades do feel less 'solid' under some circumstances, and there are various ways to make them feel better (thicker blades, 2 part cap irons, 2 part lever caps).

however, many (most?) people are more than happy with a standard bailey plane as they do everything they need without modification. The other salient point re. blade thickness, in addition to cost, is the thicker they are the longer they take to sharpen.

 

[D_W]

Or another answer: because they can be. No point in making an iron thicker than it needs to be to function as it should.

Lie-Nielson have their own view on that.

"The blade is the most important part of a hand plane. Our blades are thicker, sometimes much thicker, than other manufacturers’ for a solid cut."

I've seen one dissenter, mainly on the grounds of cost, many others seem to agree that thicker is better but as I said I'm not really a plane nut.

For someone with a good power grinder, thicker just means more time to grind. For someone without a good power grinder, thicker becomes a bigger problem.

The strange thing to me is LN makes A2 irons, some of them over 1/8th thick that are very hard and resistant to grinding, and then they suggest to their customers that they shouldn't power/dry grind them.

At any rate, the people at LN don't know much about cap iron use, and haven't. They made planes for years where the cap iron couldn't be set at the edge of the iron or the adjuster wouldn't have enough travel to get the iron out of the plane mouth.

The last I heard from someone who had talked to deneb, they (LN, with deneb speaking on their behalf) described the cap iron as being too fiddly to set effectively and they suggest high angle frogs instead. I can understand that from their view of 1) wanting to sell the frogs, and 2) having beginners calling in with questions - setting a cap iron, if they provided instructions, would yield all kinds of support calls. The high angle frog just makes a plane undesirable to use and encourages someone to set it aside unless it's absolutely needed.

Certainly by 1900, thicker irons could've been made (and thicker caps) if professionals would've preferred it - it would've cost little extra. Stanley sold what professional people preferred. Thick irons didn't really become a thing until the skill level in setting up planes became low enough that people needed them to cover up bad setup. With the market the way it is now with new planes (most of the premium planes sold will get scarce use, they're sold to people looking for some escapism), thick irons will be needed on premium planes for quite some time.

There have been sparse advertisements in the past (you guys are a lot better with the literature/ad copy history than me) of very thick "deluxe" or whatever they wanted to call them - anyway thick type irons for wooden planes. I had a Lamb jointer years ago that had one of those extra thick irons in it, and it was a pain even to grind on a power grinder. It must've been a quarter inch thick at the business end. I can't imagine what a user would've thought if they didn't have a power grinder or at least a very large coarse carborundum stone to maintain the bevel. Needless to say, you don't see them very often, which should tell us something. That was a double iron plane, too. It had little use, and so did the iron - perhaps due to the nuisance of sharpening it. It had been taken to a very steep bevel angle before it was put away, and it took a solid 5 minutes on a coarse CBN wheel to reset the bevel.

One last side comment - the premium tool makers and instructors are always going to favor what helps struggling beginners, and sometimes errantly suggest it for everyone else. I liked those planes with the thick irons when i first started, too. I remember spending 45 minutes solid to set up a new LN iron and probably 7 or 8 to resharpen them each time I used them. Time goes on, and that long sharpening time starts to get really annoying.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

The other salient point re. blade thickness, in addition to cost, is the thicker they are the longer they take to sharpen.

Thick blades - 1/8" to 3/16" - are quick to hone as long as they are hollow ground (which is favoured by those who freehand sharpen), or where the primary bevel is given a secondary microbevel (which is favoured by those that use a honing guide, but may also be freehanded). Sharpening thick blades is not efficient if one hones a full and flat bevel face (unless the blade is a laminated Japanese type).

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[nabs]

The other salient point re. blade thickness, in addition to cost, is the thicker they are the longer they take to sharpen.

Thick blades - 1/8" to 3/16" - are quick to hone as long as they are hollow ground


Derek

I did not say thick blades were slow to sharpen, just slower
As you rightly say, how much slower depends on your sharpening regime.

 

[swagman]

Within Baileys 1867 patent on the Cap Iron, the claim was made that the cap iron, a thin piece of metal with a curved edge that's fastened to the cutter to keep it stiff. http://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/leonard-bailey

Lets test that theory by removing the Cap Iron from a Stanley #4, and using the Lever Cap only to apply downward pressure over the Cutting Iron to it metal bed. For the sake of test purposes, the original Cutting Irons thickness was measured at 2.3mm (0.085 "). A much thinner gauge cutting iron when compared to most high end double iron metal bench planes being sold on the market now.



Its more than likely that prior to 1867, Bailey was fully aware of previous work on Wooden Bodied Bench Planes, that had proven that a closely set Cap Iron could successfully reduce the potential of tear-out on reverse grain. As was the case with single iron Bench Planes, bedded a higher than common pitch angle. Bearing those factors in mind, I will only be testing this modified Stanley # 4 with the grain on 2 types of timber. The 1st being a medium density Asian Hardwood, and the 2nd a high density Australian Hardwood.

Before I forward the test results, would anyone care to forecast the likelihood that vibration (chatter) will be experienced at the cutting edge.

 

[swagman]

The results are in;

working both fine and medium thickness shavings, no signs of any vibration or chatter was experienced from the cutting edge.









The reader is left to draw their own conclusions from the above results.

 

[Corneel]

Ha ha, those chattery thin irons :mrgreen:

I could imagine that in harsher situations, deeper cuts, endgrain, knots etc, this setup without a capiron would be more liable to chatter. But otherwise it is a remarkable result. BTW, I think the older Stanley irons are even thinner, more like 2 mm.

In 18th century single iron planes (when the double iron was invented) they also used very thin irons. 3 mm thick (1/8") was normal. Later on they grew thicker, up to 4.5 mm. Those very early single iron planes needed very carefull bedding to avoid chatter. They used wedges with fingers reaching rather deep, but not all the way to the mouth. And in even earlier planes seen on images, they used a crossbar and a simple wedge without fingers. If they used those thin irons in these planes too, one could imagine chatter under adverse conditions. The plane with abuttments must have been a great improvement.

 

[nabs]

thanks Corneel - that is very interesting. Although I had seen pictures of low angle mitre planes with thin blades, I always assumed that for bench planes they had always been thick and tapered (at least until the end of the 19th C).

Do you think think thin single irons are peculiar to the Netherlands or is that how it was in the UK also? Were the irons tapered or parallel?

 

[swagman]

I always assumed that for bench planes they had always been thick and tapered (at least until the end of the 19th C).

nabs; if your discussing traditional wedge abutment bench planes, your not alone with that understanding.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

thanks Corneel - that is very interesting. Although I had seen pictures of low angle mitre planes with thin blades, I always assumed that for bench planes they had always been thick and tapered (at least until the end of the 19th C).

Do you think think thin single irons are peculiar to the Netherlands or is that how it was in the UK also? Were the irons tapered or parallel?

An archaeological dig in Cutler Street, London unearthed from a wet pit (thus aiding preservation to some extent) a small coffin-shaped smoothing plane having a double iron. It's exact date of manufacture is uncertain, but may be between about 1750 and the 1770s. It's cutting iron is thin, about 2mm at the cutting edge, tapering to about 1mm at the other end, and the 'cap-iron' is not attached by a screw, but just held in place by the wedge.

http://taths.org.uk/tools-trades/articl ... -of-London

One plane does not make a trend. It's possible that it might be an atypical oddity, but the 'cap-iron' is roughly contemporaneous with the first known advert for same, and the iron is thin by later 18th century standards.