mainly for custard

[sunnybob]

update on my plane blade sharpening saga.

I started with the edward preston blade, as its the widest.
I followed all the instructions on many videos especially about the back iron.
That back iron was twisted. took me quite a while to realise why I couldnt get it seated square across the blade. A bench vice and a 3lb club hammer on the back corner got that sorted.

Did all the correct things on the jet sharpener and stones. Back of blade flat before grinding the concave edge, one slice on the stone to remove the foil. Tried the honing wheel a bit, but by this time I was bored senseless and moved on. i must have spent 5 hours on this blade, theres no money to be made sharpening tools for a liiving.

Put it all back together (now youre getting excited, arent you?) and tried it out on a piece of 6 x 2 soft wood.

I acheived reasonable success!! I wouldnt say it was perfect, but definitely better than any thing else I have tried, by quite a ways. I measured the shaving at 0.15mm thick with the vernier, and uncoiled it must have been about 40 cm long.
I dont think I'm going to do this for all five planes, I have lots of paint to watch dry first, but its an encouragement for me, as I was truly on my last chance.

 

[custard]

I acheived reasonable success!! I wouldnt say it was perfect, but definitely better than any thing else I have tried, by quite a ways.

Well done. And with use both you and the plane will continue to improve!

 

[Droogs]

Well done bob, now that you've started, you'll find that as you use the planes more and more, the sharpening wont be such a burden as you'll want to get the best results. you'll also learn each planes idiosyncrasies and what you need to do to get the best from them. Besides the first fettling is always the worst.

Many happy shavings and true and level faces to come

 

[sunnybob]

Optimism is good. I can do optimism.

 

[Benchwayze]

I was an optimist; until the day I couldn't see any point in it. :roll:

Nice work Bob. Just keep going.
Do the other planes though, eventually. When an iron goes dull on you, it's nice to be able to go to the plane cupboard, to pick up a fresh plane, knowing you can just get straight back to work.

 

[sunnybob]

yeah, I will eventually do the others. But it was a long slow learning curve, and at present, I still dont have a particular piece of wood to plane.
Got a lot of "round tooits" after 6 whole weeks babysitting the grandkids.