Chems":8nkxbwxs said:
Well there is a lot to this that I didnt know about.
I did buy a very cheap stanley recently and to be honest its about as much use as rubbing butter on the wood.
Do you have any links to guides for "honing" up old planes?
Thanks for all the info so far!
Honing is what you do to keep the cutting iron sharp, fettling is what you do to tune the plane into good performance. What plane did you get?
First thing you should do is decide what you want your plane to do; hand tools are specialists. Most of the online guides I've read assume you want to go for smoother like performance and push the boat out, but it's not always a good idea. If you've got and an 8th to lose on a bit of stuff it's going to take you a long long time to get anywhere if your plane is taking 0.001" shavings. There are subtle differences to how you shape the cutting iron, how you set the plane up and the tolerances you work to that will determine whether the plane is good for fine shavings or fast work.
The bevel up planes mentioned above are the exceptions to the rule; you can alter their characteristics on the fly so they're adept at a range of planing jobs.
Anyhoo, next thing to do is to get it sharp. Hopefully someone will have a linky with pictures, but I'll do my best without. Sharp is what happens when the bevel on the cutting iron meets the back of the cutting iron as keenly as possible.
To this end you are going to need a range of flat sharpening stones progressing from coarse to as fine as possible or some other abrasive/flat thing going on - you can ues wet and dry paper on a backing of thick float glass (google scary sharp) or suspend abrasive particles on a lapping plate.
The first and most ghastly step is flattening the back of the cutting iron - you can't get the bevel to meet the back keenly if it's not as true as possible. I like to use the coarse side of a cheap old fine/coarse oil stone (it's relatively quick and there's no worries about wearing it out) - but I make sure it's flat first. I bought an expensive over size diamond stone which is great for this, but some coarse wet and dry stuck on thick plate glass or some other reference surface (cast iron table of a piece of shop machinary could work at a push) will get the job done.
Mark the surface of the stone all over with pencil. Then, using even pressure, work the face of the stone against the wet & dry until all the pencil marks have abraded away. Use oil (wd-40/3in1/parafin/whatever) to lubricate. You may need to re-pencil mark the stone if the marks are washed, rather than abraded off. At the end of the process you should have a stone which is evenly abraded all over and very flat. Do the other side and soak it all in oil.
What usually happens is that we flatten the area on the back of the cutting iron between where the channel for the cap iron screw ends and the tip of the bevel - that tends to give us no more than a couple of inches of flat. If you aim to flatten too narrow and area you'll have a hard time keeping even pressure when you work it on the stone and the whole thing will go horrible wrong. Too large an area and you'll be there forever - literally.
Place the appropriate chunk of the back of the iron to the coarse side of the stone (with the stone and iron at 90 degrees to each other) then work the iron up and down the stone trying to keep even pressure all over the top of the iron with your fingers - which probably means getting them very close to the sharp bit - be careful.
Check the back periodically - you'll see high spots emerge and get abraded. You're done when you have an evenly abraded patch that meets the entire width of the cutting edge. Scratches or pitting near the cutting edge will result in a weak edge, which is bad; you want to work them away. Progress can be very slow - stick with it.
It's fairly easy to go wrong and dub the corners of the cutting iron a bit. This isn't a good thing - it means you'll never get truly sharp right to the corners. This comes from uneven work - you'll get better with practice. You'll file rounded corners on the iron before you're finished and some of the dub will be lost when the edge is shaped to a camber, also the far corners of the iron are less critical unless you're after a top performance smoothing plane - so don't lose sleep over it.
Flip the stone over and do the whole thing again with the fine side of the stone. There are two faces to an edge (the bevel and the back) - you'll only get as sharp as the least refined face. If you've got the back properly flat with the coarse side this will go much faster. Again, check periodically and watch the shiny grow until it meets the entire width of the cutting edge.
Go get a beer - you'll have earned it!
(somebody else want to do the next be please - I am pooped)
