HSS Plane blades

[Racers]

Problems with the hardness test, its not giving clear indentations some plastic deformation around the indentation which makes getting a reading difficult.
It was coming out between 600-700 Vickers which is 49-52 Rockwell C.

Looks like I will have to do some lapping and get it retested.

Pete

Put it on an oilstone. If it refuses to be abraded but is definitely HSS, that gives you a hurdle of 61-62 or so. Could be anything above that, but some judgement will tell you how far (anything approaching 65 will refuse to do anything other than be burnished on an oilstone unless it is the plainest of plain steels - and that won't be).

It is the laminated tool steel blade that I had tested, the HSS one had a line of brazing between the HSS and the rest of the blade.

Pete

 

[D_W]

Right, so you should be able to tell pretty easily then whether or not it's above or below the hurdle. What I was suggesting is that the oilstone test, which is how I determine how hard something is without having to test, is generally at a different Rc# depending on whether or not the steel is very plain. High speed steels that are soft will still raise a wire edge on an oilstone, and my guess is they will stop being cut by oilstones effectively about 2-3 points lower than plain carbon steels.

Not sure if that makes sense. If a finish stone refuses to cut it, I'd say you can probably be sure it's 60+. If it's important to determine if it's 62 or 65, that's harder to figure out, but a japanese natural stone that cuts pretty well is probably up to that. (they rubbish out closer to 65 - even plain carbon steel around 65 doesn't sharpen well on them, which makes me think that some of the older tool users were into self torture).

 

[ED65]

Am I being a bit dense, surely with access to modern abrasives prepping the back and routine sharpening of super-hard irons (HSS or not) is no longer that big a deal?

...even plain carbon steel around 65 doesn't sharpen well on them, which makes me think that some of the older tool users were into self torture).

Once we get to their era a Carborundum, or one of their direct competitors, would presumably do the necessary. What they heck were they using before that?

 

[essexalan]

Doubt that tools were made higher than 60 RC , the tool makers would know the capabilities of their abrasives and forge/temper accordingly. Waste of time making tools that nobody could sharpen, I would guess anything too hard would have been sold off in the reject bin. Even when SiC and AlOx turned up they would have stuck to their proven practices as in making tools that were proven to work. Try prepping the back of a Muji plane iron that is not a lot of fun modern abrasives or not.

 

[D_W]

Am I being a bit dense, surely with access to modern abrasives prepping the back and routine sharpening of super-hard irons (HSS or not) is no longer that big a deal?

...even plain carbon steel around 65 doesn't sharpen well on them, which makes me think that some of the older tool users were into self torture).

Once we get to their era a Carborundum, or one of their direct competitors, would presumably do the necessary. What they heck were they using before that?

You could get corundum as a powder. But as essexelan said, there was likely little that was that hard. Holtzapffel's book suggests turkish oilstone for hard irons, but I would assume that the very hard irons probably went into disuse.

You're right, you can use a multitude of modern stuff to flatten or sharpen HSS. M4 stands no chance against any diamonds, but is like rubber on a lot of other things.

However, I like to use the natural stones when I can (they're faster to use because they don't mind neglect ,and the bulk of my work is done with the power grinder, anyway), and I also like to use them to gauge hardness just as a matter of curiosity.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

I have had a Smoothcut blade for at least a decade. It is used in a Stanley #51 shooting plane. I included it in the comparison I did when testing the Veritas and LN shooting planes on the Stanley #52 chute board.

The full review is here: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolReview ... Plane.html

Scroll down to "Returning to the Fray".

The Smoothcut is an excellent blade. It was at least 3x better than the Clifton O1 (original hammered version) it was compared against.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[custard]

Am I being a bit dense, surely with access to modern abrasives prepping the back and routine sharpening of super-hard irons (HSS or not) is no longer that big a deal?

There are a few tools that are too hard to be practical, possible yes, practical no. Karl Holtey tried a super hard steel for plane irons but then discontinued it, I've got a couple and they're just too arduous to maintain and require a different sharpening regime that's overkill for the rest of my tools. Super hard card scrapers are now available that are just too hard for furniture work, fine for scraping off paint or yacht varnish, but too hard for delicate cabinetry. Think back to a more practically minded era that was less susceptible to silly marketing claims, hand saws and drill bits were deliberately left less hard than technology permitted in order to allow regular user sharpening with a hand file.

There's a sweet spot for most tools that balances performance with maintenance. And as the furniture making world steadily relinquishes hard and abrasive tropical timbers in favour of temperate zone timbers and softwoods, then there's an argument that the sweet spot might usefully be nudged further towards ease of maintenance.

 

[D_W]

I have only seen one thorough review of the S53 blades when comparing to something else (and doing the same task). In that case, the S53 blade being reviewed released large particles or something from the blade resulting in nicks. that kind of thing is counterproductive - only diamonds are really practical to sharpen something like that, but when it releases bits of the edge in use, the "deal" that is made doesn't hold (that deal being that you'll go to the trouble of finding specific media to sharpen something that will last a lot longer).

Poor quality A2 does the same - grind slower, and depending on the media, hone slower and then when it drops part of its edge early in the sharpening cycle, it's nothing but frustration.

I've not seen an iron that really holds its edge longer than the japanese blades and doesn't end up releasing carbides or large particles. HSS might do absolute planing longer, but the tsunesaburo laminated blades and their variants don't leave you with nicks to hone out. They are superb.

 

[Racers]

Laminated blade update.

The first thing I noticed was the slot and hole are the other way round so you can’t fit the blade, but it’s soft enough to file, so with the help of a course rat tail file I fixed that.
Then it wouldn’t sit right as the slot for the lateral leaver was too narrow, out came the turnip file and soon had it sorted.
Now it fitted I set the cap iron close and plained a piece of difficult oak, it cut well no chatter and lasted very well after removing about 6mm it seemed as sharp as it was using the thumb nail test.
I popped the original blade back which is one of my homemade 3mm O1 steel blades which seemed no different to the Chinese one.

Verdict

It’s a good blade poorly ground that needs a lot of work to make it perform I can’t recommend it fully but if you have some metal working skills you can get a nice blade for not a lot of money.

Pete