Old after market plane irons

[aesmith]

Hi,

I've always thought of after market plane irons as being a pretty modern thing, but one of my older Record planes has a third party iron that doesn't look modern, nor does the name or brand mean anything to me. The iron is just over 3mm thick so around 1mm thicker than normal. Anyone recognise or know anything about this brand? I'm not sure if it's meant to be just "H R" with twiddles, or whether it's "He Re"

And before anyone asks, it wasn't me hammering the top, honest.

 

[bugbear]

Interesting - can you tell if it's laminated when you sharpen/grind it?

The mark isn't one I recognise.

BugBear

 

[aesmith]

Interesting - can you tell if it's laminated when you sharpen/grind it?

I don't think it is, there's no discontinuity in appearance on the bevel. Having said that most of the bevel is ground, with a honed micro bevel so conceivably the micro bevel could coincide with the lamination. Taking a picture of something silver and shiny doesn't seem to work too well. The side edges are rough unfortunately so can't really tell there either.

 

[bugbear]

Interesting - can you tell if it's laminated when you sharpen/grind it?

I don't think it is, there's no discontinuity in appearance on the bevel. Having said that most of the bevel is ground, with a honed micro bevel so conceivably the micro bevel could coincide with the lamination. Taking a picture of something silver and shiny doesn't seem to work too well. The side edges are rough unfortunately so can't really tell there either.

The easiest way to tell is to work a full single bevel on a fairly coarse grit (e.g. 120 grit SiC). If there are two materials of different
hardness, they weill react quite differently, which will show as a change in texture/appearance.

BugBear

 

[aesmith]

Best I could come up with, but the honed strip kind of spoils the view ..

 

[matthewwh]

Taking a picture of something silver and shiny doesn't seem to work too well.

Welcome to my world... !

It looks like a really lovely iron, how is it to use?

 

[bugbear]

Best I could come up with, but the honed strip kind of spoils the view ..

If you don't mind losing 0.01 mm of blade width, you could hone/grind one side to see if laminations show.

BugBear