Argus
Established Member
Yes, I believe that he worked at Farnborough before he "retired".
Sadly-missed, old-school common-sense.
Out of square Narex 8116
- Thread starter nosuchhounds
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Yes, I believe that he worked at Farnborough before he "retired".
Sadly-missed, old-school common-sense.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
No but it's another task, a waste of stone and a waste of time flattening them. Plus a waste of money if you have to buy diamond stone or whatever, just to flatten another stone.
I never do it. For normal sharpening they don't have to be flat. Flattish will do!
Adam W.
A Major Clanger
Define Flattish?
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Well if you had to choose between two found lumps of stone the flattest one would probably be more useful, but any abrasive stone will do if you are desperate, even if approaching spherical!
PS they get flatter with use, but not with the modern sharpening fraternity - they get dished and have to be flattened again. In fact they talk of little else!
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Phil Pascoe
Established Member
Absolutely. I wonder what he would make of this thread. Can't imagine him being impressed.
Jim
Jester129
Established Member
This thread is soooo boring. Is it about sharpening (unfuzzed)?
My point is that you don't really have to polish anything. With any use at all, polish is unavoidable and of course not a bad thing at all. That said, there's not an insignificant amount of "polish" imparted with just the first two or three honings, assuming the unit isn't already polished by its manufacturer by the process of flattening before shipping. I'd rather just receive them with their concavity intact, like the Blue Chips I mentioned in my earlier post.
worn thumbs
Established Member
I'm on Jacob's side of the fence.Sharp is all important and if you develop a jig dependency,you will be stuck with it forever.Which might not matter if you need to sharpen a tool in your zen like workshop for a job undertaken with great reverence but no urgency.Away from the calm of the workshop and under pressure to get a job done,you need to be able to get the chisel back to good cutting efficiency swiftly.
I'm also at odds with those who think a mirror like plane sole is a wonderful thing.It adds friction by virtue of all the contact area in my experience and a finely hatched surface-say 180 grit-and a wipe with wax or linseed oil makes the plane slide more easily.
I'm also at odds with those who think a mirror like plane sole is a wonderful thing.It adds friction by virtue of all the contact area in my experience and a finely hatched surface-say 180 grit-and a wipe with wax or linseed oil makes the plane slide more easily.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
I've flattened plane soles on 80 grit wet n dry, wet with white spirit or similar. I do it against a bit of wood as a straight edge, so the scratches are straight and in line with the plane. It's useable immediately but will tend to skate in line, until the sharpness is taken off by use, or by a quick rub over with 400 grit. Once the sharp peaks of the scratches are taken off you have low friction and no need to take the visible scratches right down. Quick and easy + squiggle of candle wax every now and then
Sgian Dubh
Established Member
I can't/won't add much to this discussion, and I rather agree with Jacob on the need, or lack of need to go overboard with flattening the flat side of either plane irons or standard bench chisels, and I can't see much point in super shiny plane soles; for me, 80 - 120 grit striations on a plane sole will do, as long as that scratch pattern has at least a figure of eight pattern covering the sole perimeter and surrounding the mouth. Others have already agreed with him, but a limited numbers of contributors seem to either advocate or prefer a more extensive chisel/plane blade flat side flattening routine, as well as perhaps expending greater effort in plane sole flattening.
My limited addition to the discussion is to say that brand new chisels are frequently quite coarsely ground on the flat side, as well as generally being concave. With such chisels at a first sharpening I like to start by spending two or three minutes with the full length of flat side abraded on the bench stone until I reduce those coarse grinding marks at the tool's tip, and back a few millimetres to the scratch pattern of the bench stone. I do essentially the same with brand new plane irons, especially if coarsely ground, just to make sure the last few millimetres leading up to the cutting edge are flat in order to be able to get the cap iron to seat properly, which itself often benefits from a bit of tuning up to work well with the plane iron.
After that initial prepping of the tool(s) sharpening goes on as normal, and at each sharpening the flat side of the chisel/plane iron gets a bit of a work out which maintains the relationship between the honing angle and the tool's flat face. In my experience the small area of more finely abraded part of the flat face of the tool undertaken as minimal initial preparation for use gets larger in size with repeat sharpening. Slainte.
PS. As an aside, I don't use jigs for honing an edge. I've played around with a few that learners I've taught brought in for me to comment on. I can't say I've taken a shine to any of them, they all being fiddly and fussy to use.
My limited addition to the discussion is to say that brand new chisels are frequently quite coarsely ground on the flat side, as well as generally being concave. With such chisels at a first sharpening I like to start by spending two or three minutes with the full length of flat side abraded on the bench stone until I reduce those coarse grinding marks at the tool's tip, and back a few millimetres to the scratch pattern of the bench stone. I do essentially the same with brand new plane irons, especially if coarsely ground, just to make sure the last few millimetres leading up to the cutting edge are flat in order to be able to get the cap iron to seat properly, which itself often benefits from a bit of tuning up to work well with the plane iron.
After that initial prepping of the tool(s) sharpening goes on as normal, and at each sharpening the flat side of the chisel/plane iron gets a bit of a work out which maintains the relationship between the honing angle and the tool's flat face. In my experience the small area of more finely abraded part of the flat face of the tool undertaken as minimal initial preparation for use gets larger in size with repeat sharpening. Slainte.
PS. As an aside, I don't use jigs for honing an edge. I've played around with a few that learners I've taught brought in for me to comment on. I can't say I've taken a shine to any of them, they all being fiddly and fussy to use.
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Practically every wooden smoothing plane (or most other wooden planes for that matter) I've ever seen have/has a yawning mouth. They were not made that way originally. They became wide from successive flattenings by various owners. It's obviously easier to flatten a wooden plane than an iron plane, but it's pretty indisputable that the "old hands" liked their planes pretty flat. We justify out-of-flat iron planes because they're so hard to flatten, not because flat is not important. Flat certainly does not have to mean a mirror shine when it comes to iron planes.
Lousy two cents.
Ttrees
Iroko loco!
1,200 × 800
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
1 You have to pay to see it. No thanks!
2 It seems to be about secret mitre dovetails, which is an extremely uncommon joint and generally only ever used to demo woodworking skill. Or do you use them yourself on a regular basis?
Or does anybody?3 From the little illustration he doesn't seem to be doing anything which would demand these surgically perfect chisels, even less a whole set, honed and flattened to perfection.
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Best sharpening video for me! And yes I flatten the back leading edge! It's important. For those who say it isn't , well enough said. And yes I use a jig, it's easy, fast, and very repeatable, again for me! I use a diamond atoma stone to flatten stones and 3 Sharpon stones. Up to 6,000. I don't go into the polishing stratosphere, above 6,000. I personally don't need it. Anyone that cuts up another persons sharpening regime, is not really worth while conversing with if he is attaining good results. It's like anything in life there is more than one way to skin a cat. And I can sharpen a damaged blade in minutes To near perfection.
mudman
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Jacob
What goes around comes around.
23 minutes of another fast talking smart-alec crazy sharpening youtube guru! Too long by 21 minutes, life's too short. Just eat your popcorn don't wait for me!So many triggers for the resident troll in that video. Where's the popcorn?
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
He was correct, though.
mudman
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Aaaaand triggered...23 minutes of another fast talking smart-alec crazy sharpening youtube guru! Too long by 21 minutes, life's too short. Just eat your popcorn don't wait for me!
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Invited you mean.Aaaaand triggered...
I didn't want to disappoint you and have you waste your popcorn!
