Chipped edges on new planes and do new planes need sharpening before use?

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......Now pondering if I should regrind my tools to 30° intead of 25°. ....

Don't do it all at once. Work up a degree or so at a time, each time you re-grind your blades. So much good tool steel is wasted in the search for the "perfect" angle.
 
Don't do it all at once. Work up a degree or so at a time, each time you re-grind your blades. So much good tool steel is wasted in the search for the "perfect" angle.

A very good point.
Thanks. (y)
I might bite the bullet with one chisel though, only to see what immediate
difference it may make.
Cheers Mike
 
A very good point.
Thanks. (y)
I might bite the bullet with one chisel though, only to see what immediate
difference it may make.
Cheers Mike

Ooooh, hang on. Chisels you should go the other way........from 25 down to 20 degrees. That advice (30 degrees) was for planes only.
 
Be aware that you need clearance for a plane iron, or the heel of the iron will cause issues coming into contact with the work.
 
Ooooh, hang on. Chisels you should go the other way........from 25 down to 20 degrees. That advice (30 degrees) was for planes only.

Phew .... Lucky I decided to have another cup of tea, before getting stuck in, and
saw your post.

:LOL: :LOL: Red flag on the field !!! 🚩🚩🚩

All this time, I've just been sharpening everything to 25°.
Okay, with a flat refusal to go off and let someone else teach me, I've been
slogging my life away on the home school, self teach approach.
An approach that can work, if you're immortal.

This piece of information (another nugget BTW), had escaped me before now.
Perhaps I had somehow gleaned, or decided, along the way, that 25° was some
sort of happy medium..
My gast has been truly flabbered, and see this as a potential doorway to
better sharpening.
After a long time, I feel as if I manage to get my tools to a sufficient standard
of sharp. Certainly enough to enjoy using them, finally. But, I still have the
nagging feeling that something is missing. Perhaps this is it.
A truly serendipitous thread.
 
Just as a sort of 'clarifier', the time-honoured advice is to grind at 25 degrees, and hone at 30.

All sorts of people have tried all sorts of different approaches, some of which work for them (and if they do, then great - carry on), and some of which work in some sets of conditions but not others. But the basic starting point for pretty well every woodworking edge tool is as above - grind at 25, hone at 30.

(Stand by for a long list of exceptions, now!)

Edit to add - Actually, just to be strictly accurate, I probably should have said grind at 25-ish degrees, and hone at 30-ish. A degree or so either way won't usually make too much difference.
 
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Yep, let me clarify. 25 degrees is standard for chisels and planes for a primary bevel. However, if you vary from that, then with chisels you should go towards a slimmer primary (DW posted an in depth study of this a few weeks ago, and it coincided with what I had always done before I joined a forum and got told that there was a "proper" angle for chisels). And if you vary with a plane, as I do, then go the opposite way to the chisel.....head towards 30 degrees. Anything up to 44.999 will work. The thing is, I don't use a secondary bevel on a plane, so I simply take my one and only bevel to the same angle that most people hone their little secondary bevel to.
 
I'm glad I wrote, "...pretty well every woodworking edge tool" now!

Is a scraper plane strictly an edge tool, though?
 
I have a scraper plane ground to 45 degrees.


That is the first time I have ever heard of anybody grinding a scraper plane to a set angle. I always thought that they were burnished.
Forget the candles and try the rag in a can you may be happy you did.
 
Great. Thank's everyone for the input.
I'll certainly start experimenting, and hopefully hone ( :D :rolleyes:), my skills a bit.

ATB,
Daniel
 
Agreed, but only for grade PMV5644AXYZ steel quenched in dragon's blood, honed on a Washita stoned mined in 1892, and stropped on the inner thighs of a Cuban virgin.

No, no, no, it must be cosmic steel made from moon rocks, forged in a submarine volcano then quenched using glacial ice from the peak of Gangkhar Puensum, carefully honed on a piece of Painite using scorpion venon as a honing fluid, then stropped on alligator skin.
 
No, no, no, it must be cosmic steel made from moon rocks, forged in a submarine volcano then quenched using glacial ice from the peak of Gangkhar Puensum, carefully honed on a piece of Painite using scorpion venon as a honing fluid, then stropped on alligator skin.

I'm not sure you're taking this seriously.
 

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