Veritas BU Plane Blades

[Harbo]

Reading through some Veritas stuff I see that they can supply their BU planes with 3 different bevel angles: 25, 38 & 50.
The 25 is good for end grain and shooting.
The 38 is a good general purpose one for smoothing
The 50 is good for difficult timbers - less tear out.

So if the 38 is the general purpose blade why do they general supply the plane with a 25 iron as standard?
Am I missing something?

Rod :?

 

[Karl]

Rod

I believe the 25, 38 and 50 degrees refer to the primary grinding of the relevant blade. Obviously a 25 degree blade can be "converted" to a 38 (or any other) degree blade by honing a microbevel at the required angle.

There have been a few threads recently, but notably by Derek Cohen in which he recommends grinding these BU blades at 25 degrees, then honing your individual blade to whatever microbevel you wish.

HTH.

Cheers

Karl

 

[Philly]

Rod
The bevel up planes are commonly known as "low angle" planes - 25 degrees plus the bed (12.5 degrees) gives 37.5 degrees, lower than a regular bench plane.
As Karl says, it is a piece of cake to re-hone the iron to suit your needs.
Hope this helps
Philly

 

[Harbo]

Philly, Karl - I realise that about BU angles - it just seems strange that even on the BU Jointer they sell it normally with the 25 angle.

The 25 is good for end grain but end grain is very rarely joined?
I would have thought the 38 angle would have been the standard issue for the Jointer?
I have a LV BU Jack with a 25 angle blade and have found that good for smoothing as well as end grain shooting - so perhaps the 25 degree Jointer performs equally well?
But why the different angles if it cuts OK with the 25?
My previous post was quoting the Veritas blurb - perhaps I should just ignore it?.

Rod :?

 

[Waka]

Harbo

Some woods like exotics require a higer angle on the blade than the standard 25 degree, I have the 3 bevel up planes and tend to use the 38 or 50 degree blade in mine. I think what LV have done is give you the ability with one plane to attact all type of wood with the different blade angles.

 

[woodbloke]

I have the same three Veritas BU planes as Waka and use a standard 25deg bevel on each with a micro bevel honed at 38deg so giving an EF on 50deg if you take into account the 12deg bed angle - Rob

 

[Harbo]

My main point was really why Veritas sell the Jointer with the low angled blade as standard when I would have thought the 38degree one would have been more suitable?
I have just taken delivery of the Jointer (ordered at West Dean) which came with the 25 degree blade. Gave it a hone etc using my Veritas II guide with a micro bevel. Tried it out on a piece of oak that had a good finish from my P/T - sadly tear out on half it (where the grain changed direction). Tried my Stanley Bailey No. 7 with corrugated bottom - no tear out.
I had a 38 degree blade that I bought with my LV BU Jack as a spare - again tear out. In the end could do no more as visitors arriving but will have another go tomorrow. Perhaps altering the micro bevel angle a bit more or regrinding one of the irons to 50 degrees?
Rob with your 38 micro bevel - are you in effect grinding away another 13 degrees from the 25 i.e. 12+25+13 = 50?
The other thing was that the blade with the 38 degree angle was actually ground 35 - that confused me a bit trying to use the guide!!

Rod

 

[Karl]

Rod

No need to re-grind the blade to 38 degrees. Just hone the blade as normal, but with a 38 degree projection. Just the very tip of the blade needs this higher angle.This should solve your tearout problems.

I've just been having a play with my LA Jack, which also comes with a 25 deg blade. But using a 20mm projection (from my eclipse style honing jig) gives a microbevel of approx 45 deg - with the bedding angle of 12 deg - late 50's effective pitch. With a fine shaving, produces excellent results on some timbers where a 45 deg standard plane would produce tearout.

HTH

Cheers

Karl

 

[Harbo]

Had another go with my planes and the piece of troublesome oak (which to be fair was just picked up at random).
Firstly the Stanley No. 7 started to tear out so I have left that out of the frame.
Honed the 25 blade with a 38 degree micro bevel - still tear out though it cuts beautifully on other stuff.
Honed the 38 (35) blade with a 43 microbevel (effective angle 55) - still tear out.
Rolled out my little 11A smoother from its green bag ( effective angle 59 degrees) - magic - no tear out. But it is hardly a jointer?
Rehoned the 38 blade to 48 microbevel ( effective angle 60 degrees) - no tear out. Lots of lovely shavings.
Bit of a palaver but the rehoning is very quick especially using the Veritas II guide and at least I proved to myself that my new plane works even on the difficult stuff.

Rod

 

[Anonymous]

If they supplied the 38 as the default angle, anyone wishing to have a 25 would have to regrind the primary bevel. Changing the 25 to a 38 is done by simply honng.

 

[woodbloke]

Harbo wrote:

Rob with your 38 micro bevel - are you in effect grinding away another 13 degrees from the 25 i.e. 12+25+13 = 50?

Rod - that's correct. The blade is the standard one that came with the plane and I have a 33deg honed bevel from the DMT and then a 38deg micro bevel from the 10000g Spyderco, which gives me a 50deg EP. The 33deg bevel makes the edge a little bit more robust - Rob

 

[Harbo]

Roger - yes you have hit it on the nail.
I had never bothered too much about the micro bevel angle before - just generally using the Veritas II guide to add about 2 degrees.
It was a bit of an Eureka moment when my brain finally sussed it!
I now appreciate it more why David C grinds to 23 (I think?)

I still think Veritas are a bit naughty as their blurb is a bit misleading about the 3 blades they offer?

Rod

 

[woodbloke]

Harbo wrote:

I now appreciate it more why David C grinds to 23 (I think?)

...as do I - Rob

 

[bugbear]

Just a jargon tip; whilst British Woodworkers (and their magazines and books) were agreed on the meaning of primary (or grinding) bevel, secondary (or honing) bevel, and (much later) micro bevel, Leonard Lee's very influential book on sharpening ascribed a new meaning to microbevel - to whit, what Brits call secondary bevel. Aargh!

As a consequence, I think I detect some confusion in this thread.

BugBear

 

[woodbloke]

Just to ease the confusion. On BU Veritas blades I grind the main primary bevel at 23deg, hone a secondary bevel at 33deg on the DMT stones and a final 38deg micro-bevel using the 10000g Spyderco, giving an EP of 50deg - Rob

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

The reason why Lee Valley offer 25, 38 and 50 degree bevels is just a service to buyers of their BU planes. For those who are not aware (!), the BU Smoother, LA Jack, and BU Jointer all share the same blade. This allows one to switch blades between the planes as needed (if you have the "set").

There have been a few threads recently, but notably by Derek Cohen in which he recommends grinding these BU blades at 25 degrees, then honing your individual blade to whatever microbevel you wish

.

My recommendation is for those interested in cambering their high angle blades. The plan is to use a low (e.g. 25 degree) primary bevel and a high secondary bevel. Thick blades with high angle bevels require too much effort to camber, so the aim is to reduce the thickness to a manageable level. Do this via a secondary bevel.

I have all the data in an article at: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/WoodworkTechniques/TheSecretToCamberinBUPlaneBlades.html

If you are not planning on cambering the blade, that is, leaving it straight, then there is nothing to stop you using the high angled blades offered by LV.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Rob Lee]

Reading through some Veritas stuff I see that they can supply their BU planes with 3 different bevel angles: 25, 38 & 50.
The 25 is good for end grain and shooting.
The 38 is a good general purpose one for smoothing
The 50 is good for difficult timbers - less tear out.

So if the 38 is the general purpose blade why do they general supply the plane with a 25 iron as standard?
Am I missing something?

Rod :?

Hi -

We don't recommend sharpening A2 at angles lower than 25 degrees - so this is really the lowest angle we'll supply - and have made it standard, on the basis that it's far easier to increase a bevel angle, than it is to reduce it.

We didn't intend to sell 38 degree, or 50 degree blades... we just gave in to repeated requests for them. While the intent of the bevel up planes is to use multiple blades - we had assumed that offering multiple blades was overkill.....we were wrong... :roll:

So why 38 degrees? 38 plus the bed angle of twelve yielded a york pitch (50 degrees). For some reason - people wanted exactly 50 degree effective cut angle .... believe me - I'd rather be making a 40 degree blade, which is eaiser to set up for... not to mention making it compatible with a standard setting on our own honing guide...

The 50 degree blade (effective cut angle of 62 degrees) was just 10 degrees more than 38 (give or take a few).

It actually costs us more to manufacture and stock three different blades. As far as I'm concerned - it wasn't necessary to do from day one.... but it's what customers want....

Making tools is like that sometimes...

Cheers -

Rob