flattening LN blades

[Anonymous]

The bevel produced with the "ruler trick" is insignificant and is NOT a substitute for flattening the back of the blade.

I think that it is worth repeating that the back of the blade must be flat and the back of the bevel must be flat and as smooth as the bevel. The Ruler trick is not a substitute for the flat but rather contributes to the smooth.

Regards from Perth

Derek

I don't think anyone in this thread suggested that the ruler trick replaces flattening the back of a blade.

However, I did say that I think a LN blade should not require flattening because of their high quality. I have 8 LN planes and a LN #5.5 blade in my Stanley #6.
I have never had to flatten any of these nine blades as they all came ground perfectly flat. Ruler trick was all I used when sharpening to get a great result

 

[David C]

Greetings, why are you not all at work on this intolerably hot Friday afternoon? or perhaps you are.....

Love the pizza box, shows how ideas are never as original as one wishes!

Delighted to see so many accurate descriptions of ruler trick! No, not that slow cumbersome one used for dovetail layout......

I still like to flatten all plane blades on an 800grit stone. There is inevitably variation of production and overall flatness across the width is important to ensure good chipbreaker contact, or good seating for bevel up planes.

The ruler trick, which I do on polishing stone only, (and never on chisels). imposes a minute back bevel, which comes out at two thirds of a degree, when using an 8000grit King stone. I am not sure that enough metal is removed to reliably polish through deeper manufacturers surface grinding scratches. I like to wipe these out with 800 grit scratches.

I no longer bother with 1200 grit on plane blade backs backs, because I can see that the polished band, from the ruler trick, does cut through and obliterate the 800grit scratches, at the cutting edge. (50x pocket microscope).
This narrow band of polish never seems to get wider than one mm or so, as the blade is being shortened with each sharpening.

The ruler trick saves hours of work when preparing a new blade. but the best thing about it is that it increases the probability of polishing away the wire edge. I find that sharpening becomes almost one hundred per cent reliable. When we tried to produce flat polished backs, the results were more hit and miss. What is the probability that your back, and polishing stone are perfectly flat? Then there was the stiction of Japanes polishing stones, to deal with as well......

I'm sure we have all found that the chipbreaker does not produce nice shavings! Usually due to not tightening the C/B screw, hard enough.

L-N PLANES DO NOT HAVE FAULTS, because if they do, as occasionally must happen, Thomas replaces them immediately. The same applies to all other reputable manufacturers.

David Charlesworth

excited to be viewing final proof of next DVD, which has some cunning chisel prep. strategies. Plays quite nicely at 1 1/2 X speed......

 

[MarcW]

... What honing angles do you guys put on your standard bench planes - i go with a 25' bevel, followed by honing at 30' with 800-grit, and finish with a couple more degrees of a microbevel on an 8000-grit- all the time using the ruler-trick - the irons look good and sharp - is there some special technique required for the LN?

Sean,

I forgot your second question. So here my late coming answer: I put a 30° bevel on my irons with a slight microbevel. Ruler trick for jacks and general purpose and a back bevel of more or less 5° for smoothers. My smoothers (#4.5 and #7) have a 50° frog. Except for the #8 all irons are cambered or rounded or have relieved edges. Mainly I use the 800 King and a 8000 grit japanese waterstone but often too the Norton stones from 220, up to 8000.

Marc

 

[Midnight]

Sean.. I won;t rehash the sharpening advise you've had to date.. but the prob could be caused by a couple of other causes..

Firstly.. chip breaker needs tuneing... technique should be very similar to the ruler trick, but without the ruler.. idea is to polish all the way to the outer tip of the leading edge to ensure a good close and even fit on the back of the blade..

Secondly... chip breaker set too close to the edge of the blade causing a blockage in the throat of the plane.. ideallly the chip breaker should be somewhere between 1 - 1.5mm from the edge of the blade..

Thirdly.. frog is set too close to the leading edge if the throat.. remedy by slacking off the 2 retention screws (a half turn is more than enough) then retract the frog adjustment screw to give the desired clearence.. you won;t need to remove the blade to do this (takes all the guesswork out of setting your desired clearence)...

Last point.. blade's set for too aggressive a cut.. shavings are too thick to pass through the throat causing a blockage...

 

[deirdre]

excited to be viewing final proof of next DVD, which has some cunning chisel prep. strategies. Plays quite nicely at 1 1/2 X speed......

I for one can hardly wait. I should have my DVD cabinet finished by then, too.

 

[MarcW]

L-N PLANES DO NOT HAVE FAULTS, because if they do, as occasionally must happen, Thomas replaces them immediately. The same applies to all other reputable manufacturers.

David,

Because I am the guy who talked about faults first... :?

I am a loyal customer of LN since now more than 2 years. That's not long but long enough to have made good experience and bought 31 tools of which mainly planes (Yes I got to the shop before 8 a.m. and counted .)

I acquired all these tools first because guys like you recommended them (furniture techniques vol. I) I stick to those because they are some rare fine tools and bring me pleasure every time I have to work with.

Faults occurred and I experienced a very rare fine and easy return policy. All my LN planes came in good shape - with some rare exceptions - ready to make shavings out of the box. In addition to this I caused trouble to some of my planes like throwing a block plane from the balcony when fitting a mitre joint four meters down on a big enough stone ... and LN replaced the spinwheel for free i.e. they repaired MY handling faults.

Coming to the point... LN is IMHO an outstanding company, but they are not God, so s... happens and I wonder why you don't accept talking about faults. Often it is very hard to find the fault and we should help one the other. Every new WW customer who has a problem with a new plane won't understand the world, because virtually everything's to be perfect. But if he knows that he can rely on a superb return policy this will make him even more confident. I aren't the guy who wants to point out faults in order to damage the company's image or to feel proud having found a fault. (I find enough faults in my pupils writings, believe me :wink: ) I think this is bad customer and bad ww, but I wanted to help someone who had a problem finding the hook.

Marc

 

[Shady]

now that cuts well after a bundle of time setting the blade up. but how much easier is it with a bailey or LV/LN adjuster????? Confused

still not sure how you set one for a really thin shaving when you get the wedge down hard.

Paul: without coming over all galootish, some would claim that it's faster and easier than using an adjuster. I wouldn't - I think it's just a different 'feel'. But, FWIW, my technique has evolved to: Sit woody on blade setting block (HNT Gordon actually supplies one in his planes, but any flat lump of hardwood offcut will do), with blade inserted. Push fit wedge, tap it home - not too hard. Take a test cut. With experience, that'll do. However, if not enough projection, I tend to seat the wedge with another tap first, and take another test. If still nothing, a light tap on top of the iron, repeat test cut until it's what you need.

To be fair, the more difficult one is when you go too far, and the blade projects too much - 2 strategies work for me here: a) try light hammer taps on the back end of the plane. The geometry seems to mean that this makes the blade retract fractionally (do it hard enough, and you can sometimes actually hear/feel the blade sing like a tuning fork as it moves).

b) It may well be quicker to simply take it out and start again.

On balance - once you know your plane - I think it probably is quicker than all the twiddling inherent in adjusters etc...

 

[David C]

Dear Marc,

Well said.

My comments were not aimed at you, but were expressed from a certain amount of frustration with the title of another thread on this forum. So I am guilty of expressing my feelings in the wrong place!

I have spent a huge amount of time and effort over the years, trying to help people understand the multitude of issues which prevent the blissful planing experience of working with a well set up and tuned plane.

David Charlesworth

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

My comments were not aimed at you, but were expressed from a certain amount of frustration with the title of another thread on this forum.

David, I suspect that was one of mine ("Advice needed on LN #4-1/2 fault finding"). I agree, an unfortunate choice of words. Should have been simply "Advice needed with tuning" or something like that. My only defense was that I was in a rush and did not give enough thought to it (I probably should have taken more medication as well).

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Ian Dalziel]

Sean,
I would recommend you check every plane blade for flatness be it LN...LV...Holtey etc.

In the manufacturing process of blades they are all surface ground and are held in position by magnectic chucks. These chucks have incredible holding power and if a blank has a very slight hollow when its fitted to the chuck....the strength of the actual magnet can pull the hollow out....once its been ground and the chuck releases the hollow can jump back.
I have seen this happen with some of the best blades. its something that is very difficult to detect and overcome. Hence professionals say flatten the backs

You will start to see blade technology moving forward soon with the introduction of lapping machines (this came from the electronics industry) ...Bridge city are already doing it ....LV are about to and i would imagine LN will soon.

My personal views are no matter whose blade it is it doesnt take long to check for flatness.....but it does take longer to cure any discrepencies and the better manufacturers like LN, LV their quality control measures are as good as you can get in todays market. You already saw TLN actions in another post.

David C has spent many an hour preaching about the areas that are important on a plane....he has produced excellant dvd's and sharpening series....for anyone just getting into hand tools or even experianced users ....if you have gone to the expense of buying LN then spending an extra few pounds on his techniques DVD's will be well worth the expense.

Sean as you will see from answers here....most people have at some time gleamed something from David.

regards

Ian

 

[hockeydad]

"Love the pizza box, shows how ideas are never as original as one wishes"!

"When we tried to produce flat polished backs, the results were more hit and miss. What is the probability that your back, and polishing stone are perfectly flat? Then there was the stiction of Japanes polishing stones, to deal with as well......"

Thank you. I was trying to solve the exact problem that you describe in the second quote. It also describes what I meant by, "I only back bevel blades that I'm having trouble flattening". My experience, all self taught , 40 years ww with occasional hand tool use and the last 20 with primary hand tool use has led me to believe that perfectly flattening and honing (polishing) with stones or ss is near impossible. I started sharpening on oil stones, (got some good ones in the '50s from a barber friend) but I couldn't get them to work. I then switched to waterstones in the 80s(Kings), 800 for flattening 1200 for whatever, 4000 and 6000 for honing/polishing. I believe (memory going) that I switched to ss in the late 80s. Dishing, dubbing and all the other vagaries of the media, underlying surfaces, etc., made it a difficult proposition to get an acceptably flat back. I overcame most of those vagaries with the pizza box and what I call a slight back bevel and most of you seem to call polishing. I think we're in, "a rose by any other name....". The point is, I do attempt to flatten and polish from 80 or 220 through 2000 grits. Most of the time I feel I need to BB to have that sharp apex with the wire edge gone. I would rather not have to, so I'd never had to touch the back again. Keep in mind, like most of us who have been around awhile, most of my experience has been on old planes, Stanleys, Sargeants, Miller Falls, Keen Kutters, etc.. I have 42 old bench planes by count (most of which I've turned into acceptable or excellent users) and 1 LV Jack and 1 LN 4 1/2. My experience with the LN is not great but the LV simply outstanding. I will own more. The blades from both though were as flat from the factory as anything I've seen.

David, I went into my shop and tried the 6" "ruler trick" and I think I like it better than my old method because I can better control the width and the angle of my back bevel by contoling the distance from the ruler. In order to make use of this "feature" though, I need to hone/polish across the width of the blade. Can you see any longer term problems with this approach? :!:

 

[MarcW]

Dear Marc,

Well said.

My comments were not aimed at you, but were expressed from a certain amount of frustration with the title of another thread on this forum. So I am guilty of expressing my feelings in the wrong place!

I have spent a huge amount of time and effort over the years, trying to help people understand the multitude of issues which prevent the blissful planing experience of working with a well set up and tuned plane.

David Charlesworth

Well David,

Thanks for clarification. I am teacher too, not in ww. So I know how you came to this "certain amount of frustration". I hear those exclamations every business day and don't like them either.

Friendly regards, Marc

 

[deirdre]

Sean,
I would recommend you check every plane blade for flatness be it LN...LV...Holtey etc.

In the manufacturing process of blades they are all surface ground and are held in position by magnectic chucks. These chucks have incredible holding power and if a blank has a very slight hollow when its fitted to the chuck....the strength of the actual magnet can pull the hollow out....once its been ground and the chuck releases the hollow can jump back.
I have seen this happen with some of the best blades. its something that is very difficult to detect and overcome. Hence professionals say flatten the backs

Wow, Ian, that's fascinating. That must be SOME magnet, too.

 

[Paul Kierstead]

Delighted to see so many accurate descriptions of ruler trick! No, not that slow cumbersome one used for dovetail layout......

Thank you David for putting a very big smile on my face. That is the one of the funniest off-hand ones I have read in a bit. Humour is sometimes lacking in these discussions

 

[Alf]

Humour is sometimes lacking in these discussions

<Alf idly wonders what forum Paul's been reading... :-k :lol: >

Erm, while I agree that it's nice to use the right words in the right place, let's not get hung up on it, eh? I'd hate to think peeps didn't post simply because they feared giving offence by choosing one word over another. Best to go on general tone in the body of a post, rather than a title, on t'net, to avoid taking unnecessary offence. Anyway, bet I'm not the only one who faced with an empty subject box goes as blank as a blank thing.

Cheers, Alf

Who figures if you're going to mildly pull someone up you might as well make it an internationally famous woodworking teacher, author and DVD star... 8-[ Sorry, David.

 

[Shady]

Careful now Alf: Strong disciplinarian women have been known to generate 'unusual' reactions in some quarters... :wink:

 

[David C]

George,

I move the blade, to & fro across the stone with a very short stroke. The edge of blade goes off the edge of the stone, and comes only about 1/2 inch onto the stone.

Harrellson Stanley takes his wire edges off with a lengthways stroke but I prefer not to.

Ian is spot on re magnetic surface plate chucks. Paul Williams in OZ, flattens his blade stock with a pecking hammer, before surface grinding, to solve this problem

Paul, glad you enjoyed my little dig. The tone on forum has stayed much calmer than a couple of others, WC & Knotts, which I think is a good thing. Alf has correctly deduced that I have no wish to enter the places where many Trolls lurk, nor do I have the time or the inclination, to enter into these interminable partisan flame wars.

I think people who have bought reasonably expensive tools are upset if it is implied that they have faults and do not perform. I think they are especially upset if the reviewer, consistently raves about products from a particular manufacturer, who is clearly manipulating the internet to get advance publicity for new tools before the magazines get around to their reviews.

In my experience from running short and long courses, most user problems are inadvertantly self inflicted due to a lack of experience, poor teaching or poor technique. though there will always be a small percentage of tools which have escaped the quality control systems.

I think it is a pity that Paul Marcou's beautiful looking work has been possibly sidelined by the recent avoidable furore? The price seems far too reasonable to me, after my experience building the Shepherd kit.

David Charlesworth

 

[MikeW]

...I think they are especially upset if the reviewer, consistently raves about products from a particular manufacturer, who is clearly manipulating the internet to get advance publicity for new tools before the magazines get around to their reviews.

Me thinks that people often get around to showing their own biases and loayalties if they write often enough on a given topic.

I have respect for you as a professional person, David. But to a certain degree, this is like the proverbial pot calling the kettle black.

There have been several posts wherein you refer someone to purchase your book and or DVD rather than give a full answer. Isn't that manipulating the internet for personal gain?

Please do not get me wrong. I am not accusing you of ethical or moral wrong--I personally do not think it is. It is, however, a similar activity.

I think your rather inflammatory statement reveals a loyalty to a particular eastern US company. There is nothing wrong with loyalties. We all have them in one or more areas. What is dubious is castigating the "other" company in the process.

And before anyone jumps on the Larry-wagon [if you don't know what I am refering to, it doesn't matter], I am beholding to no company but my own. As far as handplane ownership, there are more eastern-US branded planes in my shop than the "other" ones. Neither plane any better than the other.

I respect both companies, especially their respective owners. Too much to dis either one or make cutting remarks about them publically [well, even privately].

Take care, Mike

 

[David C]

Mike,

Touche, (can't find french acute sign).

I have been giving a lot of thought to these issues over the last week or so, and held back from writing about the "irritating thread title" for as long as possible. Finally cracked and knew it was almost certainly a mistake......

I am unreservedly guilty of announcing my upcoming book and dvd's, in a not very subtle way.........I feel I should apologise for that.....

However, I do try my best not to denigrate products on the internet, and do not publish reviews on the web. Most of my posts cover technique, which I'm sure you know, I am passionate about.

The quote you have highlighted was considered, and although unwise, is still relevant to the ongoing discussion. It was partially an attempt to explain the response Derek got from some of the angrier posters. the other part is a serious question about internet "reviews".

I have a relationship with L-N, as Thomas is a good friend and publishes my DVDs. I have passed on a couple of ideas to him about tools I would like to use as do many other professional and amateur woodworkers. I am not an employee.

I also have great respect for Rob Lee, who I met at the APTC show, and note with interest the enthusiasm of his customers. One day I hope to write about the bevel up jack.

Derek's recent experience, will remain burned into my mind, when and if any future reviewing is attempted.

David Charlesworth

 

[Scott]

Touche, (can't find french acute sign).

Hold down "Alt Gr" when you hit the "e".

....and that, folks, will be the only thing I ever teach DC!


Hardly makes up for the teaching I've had from your books and articles David but there you go! :wink:

Cheers