Hand tool aesthetics

[ali27]

I had read some very good things about Mr Holtey's A2 steel. But it seems I am just
a little bit too late :lol:

Ali

Wow. You were evidently in an archive. If Karl did still make blades, they'd be S53. He gave up A2 a VERY long time ago,.

Here's Brent Beach testing a S53 blade, back in 2002.

http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpe ... ytest.html

BugBear

Quite a negative review of the Holtey blade. Pretty sure that Brent Beach sharpens his plane blades with sandpaper. I think that is the reason why the result was not good. The S53 should be sharpened with diamond I guess.

Ali32

 

[bugbear]

One wonders if somebody testing steels ought to know the answers to the questions they raised themselves:

"The 0.5 microbevel looks much different from other irons. This is the only iron that showed this pattern of bright spots. I understand that these blades are made of powdered bits of carbide (or something like that). Perhaps the individual bits of carbide are reflecting separately from whatever holds them together. Then again, it could just be the angle of the light."

End quote.

"Or something like that... and "perhaps" "then again it could be..." -- none of this sounds very scientific to me.

Vastly more scientific than confident statements that aren't supported by evidence. He makes a clear distinction between facts and hypotheses. This is a Good Thing.

BugBear

 

[Trafalgar]

He's a lovable fool with a toy microscope. Why you frequently link to his page is beyond my conception. It's a curiosity at best. To the extent he's stumbled across truths they were mostly lifted from other sources, though to his credit I believe he has given attribution in these instances.

"Then again it could just be the angle of the light..."

Well, did he change the angle of the light to see? What sort of light? What sort of bulb? The bulb that came with the toy microscope? The 60 watt in the lamp sitting on his desk? Doesn't proper lighting play a role in microscopy?

This one sentence, "then again it could just be the angle of the light" calls into question every assertion he's ever made as a result of looking through his toy microscope. Every. Single. One. Full. Stop.

And, mostly, why didn't he change the angle of the light several times to verify? He saw what he saw and that was that? Totally unscientific and totally unreliable. That this apparently didn't automatically occur to him tells you all you need to know.

 

[custard]

I've got one of the replacement Holtey S53 blades. Sharpening is quite an undertaking, but once done it holds an edge for a l-o-n-g, l-o-n-g time.

 

[ali27]

I've got one of the replacement Holtey S53 blades. Sharpening is quite an undertaking, but once done it holds an edge for a l-o-n-g, l-o-n-g time.

Do you know if it is still possible to get one of those blades for a stanley plane?

How do you sharpen your plane blade?

Ali

 

[yetloh]

I have some S53 blades and it is true that they don't respond well to normal sharpening techniques. I use diamond paste on lapped plain Corian plates which works well and does not take too long. I can confirm that the negative comments about these blades that have been qouted are, in my experience, nonsense. Karl has discontinued the use of S53 now beacause of the difficulties some have with sharpening it and uses only A2. However, it seems that not all A2 is equal - I have experienced crumbling edges with Veritas A2 but never with a Holtey blade.

Jim

 

[Trafalgar]

Of course it's nonsense. Somebody with no credentials whatsoever saw something in the shadows cast by improper lighting through a $50 toy microscope whose plastic body even puts a blue cast on the specimen under certain conditions (according to Beach's website).

Proper illumination seems to be a key factor as of course is a quality instrument:

http://meijitechno.com/metallurgical-applications