Veritas PMV-II Plane Blades

[ali27]

I deleted ''dishonest'' because that is just too heavy a word and perhaps even wrong, so apologies
for that.

I still think this person likes to stir things up just for his own fun now and then. He isn't abusive and
remains neat. Perhaps his style is ''trolling the gentleman way'' now and then.

Or I haven't been able to get my plane iron really sharp the last few days and I am venting in the wrong
way.

 

[G S Haydon]

Nothing wrong with a bit of venting ali27

 

[MIGNAL]

I deleted ''dishonest'' because that is just too heavy a word and perhaps even wrong, so apologies
for that.

I still think this person likes to stir things up just for his own fun now and then. He isn't abusive and
remains neat. Perhaps his style is ''trolling the gentleman way'' now and then.

Or I haven't been able to get my plane iron really sharp the last few days and I am venting in the wrong
way.

Try a thin Stanley carbon steel blade, sharpened freehand on an Oil stone. Summat like 400 Grit, tops.

 

[Doug B]

Or I haven't been able to get my plane iron really sharp the last few days and I am venting in the wrong
way.

Perhaps try

-Don't worry about flattening your stones, just work the whole stone

:evil:

 

[Jacob]

I deleted ''dishonest'' because that is just too heavy a word and perhaps even wrong, so apologies
for that.

I still think this person likes to stir things up just for his own fun now and then. He isn't abusive and
remains neat. Perhaps his style is ''trolling the gentleman way'' now and then.

Or I haven't been able to get my plane iron really sharp the last few days and I am venting in the wrong
way.

Try a thin Stanley carbon steel blade, sharpened freehand on an Oil stone. Summat like 400 Grit, tops.

:lol:
I wouldn't progress to 400 grit until you know you can do a fair job with 250 grit. One step at a time!
Seriously though - you need to know what 250 grit sharpening feels like (in use on a bit of wood :roll: ) before you can appreciate the benefit (if any) of going further.

 

[Trafalgar]

Whether this new steel is anything special or not, I truly have no idea. I would like to
find out of course. So having people report their experiences here is only a good thing.

Furthermore I would expect from the woodworking gentleman here to behave more accordingly.
It's woodworking, we are not going to war. At times it seems that any potential progress makes certain
woodworkers on this forum feel threatened and they will immediately object to it. As if this progress will
dimish the status of their tools and therefore them as a woodworker. I find it weird to be honest. If you
are fine using the stuff you do, then what is the problem?

Of course I respect people here who are protecting new woodworkers from buying unnecessary stuff.
=================================================================

It seems to me that a certain person(we all know who) on this forum is always objecting
to any ''progress''. Everything from the past is good and anything new is not needed.

-Don't use a ruler for the ruler trick, just slightly lift the back of the blade
-Don't use a jig, not needed
-Don't worry about flattening your stones, just work the whole stone
-Don't bother with thicker irons, the thin ones are good enough
-Don't buy a thick cap iron, the bailey standard one is good enough.
.....................

I have to say, that while I respect every opinion, my personal opinion is that this person
is *deleted, top harsh and perhaps incorrect* and just trolling. I hope the forum owner will take some action because it is
at times really annoying.

Ali

Ali, the plain simple truth is that you can add thick cap irons and thicker irons to a Bailey pattern plane and it really doesn't do much. I have a Record 4 1/2 that came to me with a Hock O1 iron and Clifton two piece, heavy cap iron. The plane works fine. But, I can take the guts out of a Record 6 (iron and chipbreaker) and put it in the 4 1/2 and it planes just as well with all stock Record parts. The only thing you notice is that the 4 1/2 is heavier with the aftermarket parts. It's this additional heaviness that make people think something good is going on. The only problem with this theory is that the wood's surface looks the same regardless. Honest.

You can tweak and fiddle to your heart's delight, but if Hock O1 and a Clifton Stay-Set don't make any difference then you're wasting your time. The Bailey design, when reasonably well executed, really is that good. Enjoy it! Don't let it irritate you.

Recall, also, that there is a challenge in this thread to anybody who can describe in actual and real terms what a longer lasting edge does for their woodworking. If honing an iron takes you more than two minutes (and this is a stretch) then something is wrong. The answer isn't an aftermarket plane iron.

 

[woodbrains]

Ok, I'll bite. Today I was planing some beech edge lippings on some veneered boards. There were many to make up several carcasses. I had a veritas LA jack A2 iron for levelling the end grain, a Record # 6 fitted with a Clifton iron and cap iron set, for levelling the lipping down to the veneer and planing the edges, and a Stanley #4 -1/2 with standard iron to do a bit of final smoothing. The Record was doing most of the work, the Veritas was doing the most demanding and the Stanley had an easy life doing nothing more than making a few lacy finish shavings. I did not hone the Veritas from the numerous jobs it had already done, the iron looked fine. The Stanley and Record were both sharpened to the same degree on waterstones. Before the end of the job, the Stanley required another honing, neither the Record, nor the Veritas needed touching; the Veritas especially was still producing continuous end grain shavings. The standard Stanley was barely able to cut at all, before I had to re-hone, about halfway through the job. The Record did not falter. This was only using very ordinary Beech, not an ornery wood. Whilst re honing is not a problem for me, the exercise did bring home to me that standard Stanley iron are next to useless, compared to almost anything else I use.

Mike.

 

[matthewwh]

On white wood you won't notice much if any difference between thin irons and thick, both work fine. Step up to tough natives like pippy oak or mild exotics like bubinga and the difference is like night and day.

You don't need them both to be thicker, even Clifton admit that putting their 2 piece cap iron on a 3mm thick iron is overkill, but you wouldn't spend more money making a worse product when you already make a good one. Fitting either a thicker cap iron or a thicker cutting iron (depending on whether your current iron is deficient or not) is the single biggest difference you can make to performance.

I was talking with a student at a woodworking school who had an old Stanley and a new Quangsheng. The Stanley was suffering from flutter so I suggested that he swap the cap irons around. The look on his face when he tried them was a picture!

If you want to get into even more interesting woods the other stability benefits of high end planes become increasingly apparent, but for squeezing a bit more out of an old one, beefing up one of the irons gives a significant return on investment.

 

[Trafalgar]

You mentioned that the Stanley 4.5 took lacy finish shavings. Isn't that what it is supposed to do? And you had to re-hone it once, halfway through 'many veneered boards to make up several carcasses?' I'm frankly not seeing a major problem. I'm more apt to re-hone a smoother faster than a plane I'm using to work end grain. I've never been convinced that planing end grain is the be-all and end-all test or that in an instance such as yours that it's more taxing than smoothing longer lengths. It sounds like the other two planes were working narrow sections and the Stanley its full width. I'd say the Stanley was working plenty hard. One re-honing for a smoother working several boards is not an issue or a failure of any sort. It hardly renders it 'worthless.' And if in your judgment it is that, why would you use a worthless plane on such a mission critical application in the first place?

 

[Trafalgar]

On white wood you won't notice much if any difference between thin irons and thick, both work fine. Step up to tough natives like pippy oak or mild exotics like bubinga and the difference is like night and day.

You don't need them both to be thicker, even Clifton admit that putting their 2 piece cap iron on a 3mm thick iron is overkill, but you wouldn't spend more money making a worse product when you already make a good one. Fitting either a thicker cap iron or a thicker cutting iron (depending on whether your current iron is deficient or not) is the single biggest difference you can make to performance.

I was talking with a student at a woodworking school who had an old Stanley and a new Quangsheng. The Stanley was suffering from flutter so I suggested that he swap the cap irons around. The look on his face when he tried them was a picture!

If you want to get into even more interesting woods the other stability benefits of high end planes become increasingly apparent, but for squeezing a bit more out of an old one, beefing up one of the irons gives a significant return on investment.

Paul Sellers on plane chatter, worth a read:

http://paulsellers.com/2012/06/plane-ch ... -by-facts/

 

[Corneel]

It depends a bit on the plane too, I guess. My Stanley #4, made in the UK in a more recent decade, has the bad habbit of chattering a little bit on the start of a plane stroke on hard kinds of wood (Oak, jaoba, merbau, that kind of stuff). And it is with the frog all the way back so the iron has full support and the capiron close to the edge. You have to skew the plane and press on the front quite abit to prevent it from happening. With a thick Ray Iles iron installed, that bad habbit is gone. But my Record #5 jack with cambered iron and the very old Stanley #7 with straight iron don't have that issue at all with the standard blades.

Chatter somewhere in the middle of the cut is indeed very rare, like Sellers sais too.

Regarding the PMV-11 blades, I'll buy one of these as soon as my old ones are worn out. That may take a little while.

 

[Jacob]

..... the exercise did bring home to me that standard Stanley iron are next to useless, compared to almost anything else I use.

Mike.

They are not standard though. You can find all sorts under the Stanley brand, including laminated.
For me the fact that one plane needs sharpening more often than another isn't an issue - it usually means they are easier to sharpen and it's an excuse for a mini break.

re grit sizes - Paul Sellers suggests 250 grit is good enough for most things. I agree, in fact if you can't get a good edge with 250 grit it's not likely to improve if you go on ever finer.
Beginners and others struggling might be well advised to just stick to a medium fine stone until they can routinely get good results, before moving on to higher numbers.

 

[woodbrains]

You mentioned that the Stanley 4.5 took lacy finish shavings. Isn't that what it is supposed to do? And you had to re-hone it once, halfway through 'many veneered boards to make up several carcasses?' I'm frankly not seeing a major problem. I'm more apt to re-hone a smoother faster than a plane I'm using to work end grain. I've never been convinced that planing end grain is the be-all and end-all test or that in an instance such as yours that it's more taxing than smoothing longer lengths. It sounds like the other two planes were working narrow sections and the Stanley its full width. I'd say the Stanley was working plenty hard. One re-honing for a smoother working several boards is not an issue or a failure of any sort. It hardly renders it 'worthless.' And if in your judgment it is that, why would you use a worthless plane on such a mission critical application in the first place?

Hello,

I can still get the Stanley iron sharp as my fine Japanese set ones will allow, that is a function of my sharpening, not plane iron performance. The Stanley was working full width, to take of one or two fine finishing shavings. The Record was working full width taking many more, thicker, dimensioning shavings and narrow edge shavings. It did very much more work and if I reduced the depth of cut, would have been able to take the lacy shavings to finish as well. The reason I was using multiple planes was to work a bit of a production line, so I did not have to adjust and re adjust planes, so the Stanley let that down a bit by having to resharpen. Not a biggie, sharpening is not a problem, but it is a real world example of different steels having different edge holding properties, which is the debate we are having. The Veritas, like I said, hadn't been honed before I started that process, so already had work done under its belt. It did not drop off in performance after I worked it here, either. Incidentally, the end grain it was planing butted up to man made boards, with all the nasty hard glue associated with that and enevitable shaved some of that too.

If all three planes were as the Stanley, I would have had to do a lot more sharpening during that job.

All my Bailey planes were bought second hand and had irons in dubious condition, either worn to the slot, rust pitted to beyond reasonable salvage, or user abusers. This Stanley was an exception and still retains the iron it came with. When all the others required their irons replaced, wouldn't I have to be crazy to buy new, stock irons for them? Even QS T10 steel ones are nice steel, better finished and thicker, for a very low price. Aside from the blades that come in Kunz products (possibly their premium line excepted, I haven't tried those) Oh and Anant, I can't think of blades that perform worse. I wish that Stanley had a junker iron too, so I have an excuse to buy a better replacement.

Mike.

 

[Jacob]

Ok, I'll bite. Today I was planing some beech edge lippings on some veneered boards. There were many to make up several carcasses. I had a veritas LA jack A2 iron for levelling the end grain, a Record # 6 fitted with a Clifton iron and cap iron set, for levelling the lipping down to the veneer and planing the edges, and a Stanley #4 -1/2 with standard iron to do a bit of final smoothing. The Record was doing most of the work, the Veritas was doing the most demanding and the Stanley had an easy life doing nothing more than making a few lacy finish shavings. I did not hone the Veritas from the numerous jobs it had already done, the iron looked fine. The Stanley and Record were both sharpened to the same degree on waterstones. Before the end of the job, the Stanley required another honing, neither the Record, nor the Veritas needed touching; the Veritas especially was still producing continuous end grain shavings. The standard Stanley was barely able to cut at all, before I had to re-hone, about halfway through the job. The Record did not falter. This was only using very ordinary Beech, not an ornery wood. Whilst re honing is not a problem for me, the exercise did bring home to me that standard Stanley iron are next to useless, compared to almost anything else I use.

Mike.

Funny mixture of planes. Especially the 6 on veneered boards - a big brute for heavy work.
I'd be inclined to use a 5 or a 4 for the whole job, with a certain amount of sharpening and adjusting between processes. Using, sharpening, setting, adjusting are all part of the same process of planing. I wouldn't expect to do the last 3 first and then expect to plane without interruption. More of a continuous on-going fiddle.

 

[woodbrains]

Ok, I'll bite. Today I was planing some beech edge lippings on some veneered boards. There were many to make up several carcasses. I had a veritas LA jack A2 iron for levelling the end grain, a Record # 6 fitted with a Clifton iron and cap iron set, for levelling the lipping down to the veneer and planing the edges, and a Stanley #4 -1/2 with standard iron to do a bit of final smoothing. The Record was doing most of the work, the Veritas was doing the most demanding and the Stanley had an easy life doing nothing more than making a few lacy finish shavings. I did not hone the Veritas from the numerous jobs it had already done, the iron looked fine. The Stanley and Record were both sharpened to the same degree on waterstones. Before the end of the job, the Stanley required another honing, neither the Record, nor the Veritas needed touching; the Veritas especially was still producing continuous end grain shavings. The standard Stanley was barely able to cut at all, before I had to re-hone, about halfway through the job. The Record did not falter. This was only using very ordinary Beech, not an ornery wood. Whilst re honing is not a problem for me, the exercise did bring home to me that standard Stanley iron are next to useless, compared to almost anything else I use.

Mike.

Funny mixture of planes. Especially the 6 on veneered boards - a big brute for heavy work.
I'd be inclined to use a 5 or a 4 for the whole job, with a certain amount of sharpening and adjusting between processes. Using, sharpening, setting, adjusting are all part of the same process of planing. I wouldn't expect to do the last 3 first and then expect to plane without interruption. More of a continuous on-going fiddle.

Hello,

They were the planes I had to hand, I wasn't in my usual workshop.

You fiddle away Jacob, one day you'll develop a no-nonesense method of work like I have! :lol:

Mike.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Someone had a modus operandi slightly different to yours, Jacob. Put the man in the stocks for the day!
Seriously, are you honour bound to find fault with every other person? We all know you're perfect, but it gets tedious.

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

Actually, the edge lipping was quite wide, ( 1 3/4 in ) as the carcasses were wider than half the width of the sheet material, so I had to make up extra width with the lips. A #6 was no disadvantage, veneered boards are practically engineering flat, so a long wide plane (with a flat sole) was no disadvantage whatsoever. I've done such tasks with a #7 before now.

Mike.

 

[MIGNAL]

The type of chatter that Sellers writes about is really associated with 'difficult' wood, changing grain direction where the plane meets varying degrees of resistance to the cutting edge. The easiest way of dealing with that is to use a well set up Plane and a very sharp blade set to take wispy shavings. Even my '70's Stanley 5.5 with standard chipbreaker and thin blade works perfectly well on some Bubinga with switching grain. It works perfectly fine on Ebony too, although Ebony really does blunt blades in double quick time. My wooden Jack plane is fantastic at removing material on Ebony but at the expense of some tear out. It can't compete on that score, so I switch to ANY one of my metal Planes that are set up to deal with tear out - pretty much all of them! So it doesn't matter if that happens to be my new Stanley SW, my Record with a SS, my Stanley with Iles and 2 piece Clifton or my Stanley with standard chipbreaker and standard blade. Every single one of them will deal with some pretty nasty timbers. I don't view the 70's Stanley as being inferior to any other of the other Planes. It is well set up and happens to work extremely well. I've never done anything to it, although I suppose it may have been worked on before I acquired it.

 

[Jacob]

Someone had a modus operandi slightly different to yours, Jacob. Put the man in the stocks for the day!
Seriously, are you honour bound to find fault with every other person? We all know you're perfect, but it gets tedious.

It's called "talking about woodwork" Phil. Are you in the wrong forum or something?

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

A very sharp blade is the first course of action to avoid tearout, as Mignal tells us, which is totally at odds with Sellers telling us that 240 grit is as far as we need to go. I really have never met anyone who hasn't noticed that sharper is better. As I say though, Sellers seems to say one thing and do another, he has Veritas planes Sorby chisels and expensive diamond stones to much finer grit than 240 . He is obviously a good craftsman, but I just wish he would relay to the world want he actually does rather than what he would have us believe he does.

Mike.