Plane (and sharpening) training?

[D_W]

OK, i did it. The mill marks are too deep on the iron (some sort of coarse rotary finish) to not do anything to it at all, but I did not touch the back of the iron with anything finer than an india stone. I used washita, jasper, leather strop (no abrasive) on the bevel side. After removing the wire edge, I used the jasper again on the bevel side in case the burr came off nastily on the first go around (jasper cuts only just and doesn't make much of a burr, just as fine compounds would not).

Not a public video, so I'm not going to add annotations where I chose words poorly, people on here are smart (experienced) enough to figure it out.

My contention here is that (I'm agreeing with jacob) a bellied vintage iron would have been sharpened somehow to get that belly, probably on an india stone or something finer. It's not necessary to flatten and polish those irons, even for finishing work. It's just a pain not to be able to get to the wire edge laying the iron on the stone - inconvenience, but not necessity.

I also never finish the back of a new iron further than either india or washita these days (usually washita), even if it's going to be used for finish planing (with no scraping or sanding to follow it), there is very very little difference in initial sharpness because of it and the difference in finish is practically imperceptible.

(The $3 buck brothers irons with a sandpaperish finish on the back, I guess it's paint with abrasive solids in it - they really adjust like crap, though. They grip the frog like sandpaper. No clue why they do that - rust prevention maybe. )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?edit=vd&v=3LSehglaQ4k

 

[sploo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?edit=vd&v=3LSehglaQ4k

Interesting. Thanks David.

You also caught me out; I thought my daughter had woken up, before I paused the video and realised the noise stopped :wink:

 

[D_W]

One follow-up to the case I did above.

I left the india finish on the back of the iron, but replaced the jasper with a horse butt strop with oil and dursol on it (similar to autosol, same company). The results are nothing short of spectacular. The dursol works better than the jasper when you can't work both sides of the iron - it removes the wire edge on the leather without ever touching leather to the back. Just 10 or 15 strokes on the bevel side and the wire edge is gone.

It's very difficult to get the camera to look at shiny wood the way we do, so it didn't really focus on the surface that well except on the reflection of the cord from the turning saw in the background.

(wood is cherry).

http://s16.postimg.org/yjd8jnxdv/20151212_192530.jpg

 

[Jacob]

....

Many authors recommend just a 1/4 " or even 3/16" of flat polished back, adjacent to the edge of a plane blade. In fact anything continuous across the width will do.

Fit of cap iron is one reason.
Quality of edge is another,

That's it. No need to flatten the whole face. You've got it Dave.

 

[sploo]

....

Many authors recommend just a 1/4 " or even 3/16" of flat polished back, adjacent to the edge of a plane blade. In fact anything continuous across the width will do.

Fit of cap iron is one reason.
Quality of edge is another,

That's it. No need to flatten the whole face. You've got it Dave.

If I'm honest, I probably got less than 1/8" with the #4 1/2 iron, but it does go all the way across so it's good enough for now.

 

[bugbear]

OK, i did it. The mill marks are too deep on the iron (some sort of coarse rotary finish) to not do anything to it at all, but I did not touch the back of the iron with anything finer than an india stone.

An India stone is as fine as you need to go, both bevel and back, I've heard it said.

BugBear

 

[bugbear]

I used washita, jasper

What's the "jasper" stone? Not one I've seen listed in the older sources I have.

The only Jasper I know is a highly variable, semi-precious stone, with no abrasive properties I'm aware of.

EDIT; found it (and you, I'm guessing, DaveW )

http://straightrazorplace.com/hones/111 ... -jade.html

That's some obsessive stuff, there.

BugBear

 

[bugbear]

....

Many authors recommend just a 1/4 " or even 3/16" of flat polished back, adjacent to the edge of a plane blade. In fact anything continuous across the width will do.

Fit of cap iron is one reason.
Quality of edge is another,

That's it. No need to flatten the whole face. You've got it Dave.

There's a well known author who proposes only flattening edge-of-the-back
of a plane iron. and has a technique for doing so, simply and repeatedly.

You should look him up. :wink:

BugBear

 

[matt_southward]

Haha, yes - I did wonder that too: lifting it a bit is remarkably similar to DC's ruler trick. I wonder why Jacob didn't just recommend that?

 

[Jacob]

Haha, yes - I did wonder that too: lifting it a bit is remarkably similar to DC's ruler trick. I wonder why Jacob didn't just recommend that?

Because "lifting it a bit" is easier and you don't need a ruler. You could call it "the without a ruler trick".
It's what everybody has always done - from just increasing the pressure towards the edge, to a positive lift.

The new sharpeners tend to reinvent the wheel without necessarily improving it.

 

[matt_southward]

Fair enough, but I don't think the ruler trick is particularly difficult and I can't see how it's harder to do it that way, over 'lifting it a bit'. What's a bit? At least the ruler offers some consistency - particularly for some one new to sharpening. The general principle certainly helped me with some of my out-of-flat plane irons - I'm not a fan of wasting time flattening steel that doesn't need to be flat!

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

Just lifting it a bit, prevents cap iron effect, since the cap cannot be put close enough to the cutting edge. The ruler trick offers consistency so a longer back bevel can be produced, into which the cap iron can be set and therefore close enough to have a cap iron effect. If the iron back is flattened as far back as the cap iron sits, all is fine, lifting it a bit is lazy, and if extended to chisels too, a blooming PITA. Sometimes just doing something properly once saves a lot of trouble subsequently.

Mike.

 

[Jacob]

If by "lazy" you mean easier then yes that's it.
Why a PITA with chisels? Nearly all old chisels and plane blades end up slightly convex due to honing the face without going for the full flattening. Nobody found it a problem in the past.
Much of the new sharpening consists of fussy "correct solutions" to things which aren't really problems. In fact the word "correct" crops up a lot. Or "doing it properly". Needing to do it just once is also a delusion.

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

A paring chisel with a back bevel? That would be a fairly useless tool. A dovetail chisel chopping to a knife line with a back bevel, similarly useless. As regarding finding lots of old chisels with back bevels, so what? If we look to old tools for how they have been looked after, then we would have to conclude they were mostly used for opening cans of paint! Any makers I know actually USING tools have no back bevels on chisels and surely craftsmen who are active are the examples we should be looking to, for how tools are actually used. I cannot think of any one else who says chisels with a back bevel are anything but a nuisance. Even if one was to put up with an old tool that had one, certainly we wouldn't introduce back bevels to tools that didn't have them, because we were too lazy to keep the back flat on the stone.

Cap iron effect is still not possible with 'lifting it a bit' back bevels, I say again. Are there any other ways we can find to disadvantage ourselves simply by being lazy? Flatten the blades back once and it is done for the life of the tool and are techniques our never handicapped by the tools condition.

Mike.

 

[David C]

In Jacob's world of joinery, all cabinetmaking rules are turned on their head.

There is no logic.

Bellied blades come from hollow stones, poor technique or both.

David

 

[D_W]

Well, they are built into some high end japanese chisels, too, with the inclination of giving a skilled user the ability to bring a chisel out of a cut if it's wanting to dive in the cut.

I don't have any love for such things on chisels, but when every single vintage iron I've seen is not mirror polished to the edge, it makes me wonder.

I've seen other people who have made a fair bit of nice stuff mention that they don't work the backs of their irons, which is sort of the same notion. If the back of an iron was bellied some and difficult to work (but not mill finished, etc), I've already seen (and been surprised) by how well working fine compound on the bevel side avoids the formation of a wire edge and how bright the surface (kind of surprised by that).

We go around in circles a little bit with this, but I'd question if sharpness isn't the issue (and I tried my buck brothers iron without even removing the mill marks, and there was no problem with sharpness), and there's an argument that finishing off the plane isn't done to begin with, what purpose does perfect uniformity serve?

(I finish off the plane fairly often, so the answer is pretty easy for me. I don't need the back of a plane iron to be mirror finished, but I do need it to be uniform - washita is just fine, and I doubt anyone could tell the difference between an iron done on fine india on the back or on a washita and then compound on the bevel side of either of those, and one that was sharpened on both sides to a mirror polish with a 2 micron synthetic waterstone. It is no challenge with the former to get shavings in the range of half a thousandth).

 

[G S Haydon]

Nice to see the humble India getting in airing in your video David and your postings. I think it's terrific value stone. As your video pointed out the surface finish was excellent!

 

[D_W]

Nice to see the humble India getting in airing in your video David and your postings. I think it's terrific value stone. As your video pointed out the surface finish was excellent!

The more I use the old stuff, the more I like it more than the new stuff!!!

If I was more ambitious, I'd do a surface comparison with all of the various stones I have before I sell most of them off (and post it on youtube). I've had a huge swath of new synthetic stones, but I think they solve problems that have been created in the last 30 years - like using a whole bunch of various diemaking steels in irons in chisels, something that doesn't really benefit an experienced user at all. Such a comparison might convince some beginners to spend a little bit less on sharpening, and avoid some of the "wondersteel" fad.

The strange thing with the compound on the bevel and india on the back side is that the surface is a little better with the cap set close and a shaving a bit thicker (it's clearer and brighter). I assumed it would always be best with a half thousandth to a thousandth set of shavings (something I don't ever do), but in this case, it's not.

The picture does not do justice to show just how shiny that surface is - the camera refuses to see that shine, it either contrasts it out, or focuses on something that reflects on it, but the clarity on the string reflected if looked at closely is a good indication, even if the shine of the reflection doesn't show up everywhere. I was a bit shocked - hair shaving wasn't strained as much as the video, either (even the video is brighter than the camera makes it look. No clue how to get a picture of that shine.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Well, they are built into some high end japanese chisels, too, with the inclination of giving a skilled user the ability to bring a chisel out of a cut if it's wanting to dive in the cut.

I don't have any love for such things on chisels, but when every single vintage iron I've seen is not mirror polished to the edge, it makes me wonder.

I've seen other people who have made a fair bit of nice stuff mention that they don't work the backs of their irons, which is sort of the same notion. If the back of an iron was bellied some and difficult to work (but not mill finished, etc), I've already seen (and been surprised) by how well working fine compound on the bevel side avoids the formation of a wire edge and how bright the surface (kind of surprised by that).

We go around in circles a little bit with this, but I'd question if sharpness isn't the issue (and I tried my buck brothers iron without even removing the mill marks, and there was no problem with sharpness), and there's an argument that finishing off the plane isn't done to begin with, what purpose does perfect uniformity serve?

(I finish off the plane fairly often, so the answer is pretty easy for me. I don't need the back of a plane iron to be mirror finished, but I do need it to be uniform - washita is just fine, and I doubt anyone could tell the difference between an iron done on fine india on the back or on a washita and then compound on the bevel side of either of those, and one that was sharpened on both sides to a mirror polish with a 2 micron synthetic waterstone. It is no challenge with the former to get shavings in the range of half a thousandth).

I think the argument about polishing both sides of the edge to the same quality of finish is more about the finish it imparts to the workpiece than about sharpness. Taken to the slightly silly extreme, a toothing plane iron can be very sharp, but the finish won't win any prizes. The same applies to plane irons with a poor finish to the flat side; any unevenness of surface will produce a slightly ragged edge, which will reflect in the surface imparted to the wood.

There's a strong element of horses for courses, of course. It won't matter a jot on a jack plane iron set up for heavy stock removal, and probably won't matter much on a try plane iron, either - attaining the right dimension being more important than attaining a polish-ready finish during stock preparation. However, for the 'best' smoothing plane, an edge that's both sharp AND smooth will achieve the best workpiece finish, free of scratches and lines. Also, it's a matter of some importance to a fine cabinetmaker, but maybe rather less to a joiner who's work will be painted after installation.

 

[D_W]

I guess the question is what's fine enough, and do both sides need to be the same. I think the answer is it's variable and no, they don't need to be finished to the same degree as long as there isn't a mill finish on an iron and the wire edge is gone.

I can't do a good job of showing how highly polished the wood is on the picture link I attached, but safe to say that with an india honed back of the iron, and a compound honed front of the iron, it is a brighter surface than I ever get off of a washita plane iron on both sides (and wood planed with a washita iron and then waxed will always show a reflection on the surface of everything sitting on the piece that's made, a clear reflection).

From a functional standpoint, I guess what i learned fiddling with this is that if you can't reach the wire edge because an iron is out of flat, use compound on the bevel side because it has the ability to remove the wire edge completely without ever touching the back of the iron. This method would sharpen a jack iron leaving the back of the plane iron mill finish - to a degree that was far sharper than a jack ever needs to be.

Several years ago, I stopped polishing the back of the iron before I use it, but I do finish it on a washita stone (so that's like a step short of a polish), and once in a great while, only to the india stone, figuring that by the time I've resharpened the iron a half dozen times, the washita will have removed the india stria - and it does. Cap iron use has eliminated the need for anything keener than washita, and perhaps less than that is required by a long shot if a good surface finish is all that's desired. Uniformity is more important (so no lines). But the edge on the older oil and water hardening steels seems to stay uniform better off of a washita than anything else (better than india or modern waterstones). No clue why, but probably for different reasons from both stones.

Of all of the modern "musts" in woodworking, I wonder how many are "musts" just because it makes it easier to teach beginners. It's more curiosity than anything. I'll use my $3 iron for a while and see how well it holds up after it's been honed a dozen times or so. It's probably about as good as an O1 iron that I've made once you get past the initial part, and I didn't have to drill, file and sweat to put it in the plane (though the slot for the adjuster has an incredible amount of burring that had to be stoned off. I thought at first it was the sandpaperish finish fooling with the adjustment in the video, but it was, in fact, the burrs in the slot grabbing the adjuster wheel on the plane).

(I should add, the iron that I scratch made also cost three times as much in materials as the BB irons that are sold here cost finished. A $3 iron is nice to experiment, you can't lose much if you abuse it).