plane blade upgrade

[D_W]

mine is about 20 years old now and its still a lovely iron. I wouldn't swap it for any replacement iron.( apart from t10)
they are in fact made from single side knife blank steel. the o1 blades ive used(Clifton and hock) are no where near as nice in fact I suspect the Clifton was so bad it was faulty!
maybe its the variability of these items that causes issues. also the fact they are thin and easy to sharpen helps.

I think it's something in the alloy. I'll dig up a picture. The fact that the japanese blades with the fault will last as long as a good O1 blade covers it up, but it's lost potential.

When I tested irons, I found that the alloy was about 80% of potential edge life. As in, if you had a high speed steel alloy and it was a bit soft, it would still outlast the best of the o1 irons, but the behavior of the steel also follows the alloy a lot, so things can get in the way of getting the most out of anything more complicated than water hardening steel (that being the least picky about ideal planing conditions).

water hardening steel (ward) lasted about 75% of 01 (blue steel is a lot like o1, but the laminated irons at higher hardness should have slightly better edge life than a decent western hardness O1 iron - maybe close to A2), O1 was about 80% of A2 (but far better at producing a finished surface in less than ideal conditions - close to water hardening) and then M2 was about 40% longer lasting than O1 and V11 (which is a carpenter stainless alloy) was about 25% longer lasting than M2 - or double that of the japanese and O1 irons and surprisingly left a much brighter surface.

The non-powder metal alloyed blades generally failed the least uniformly, but it didn't seem to affect their edge life vs. older charts I've seen that a controlled japanese test produced.

The japanese iron with its odd pock marks:

O1

chinese HSS:

A2:

notice the dark spots on the A2 - for some reason, A2 goes along fine for a while and then seemingly starts to shed its polish. This is the second time I've tested A2 irons a decade apart and several brands - they all do this. poor quality irons chip earlier.

V11 was the clear winner in my test, but it was an ideal test in clean wood and I don't think the gap is nearly as large in rough wood or wood with any dirt in it - plus, it hones half as fast, and will probably result in the same issue that A2 has - A2 has a reputation for being chippy, but most of the chipping is due to the fact that it hones about half as fast (as does v11) as A2 and the average person will think they've honed all of the defects out of it honing 25 or 50% longer than they would with O1, but they'll have left defects.

The blue and O1 irons hone faster and part of their reputation as being easier to get a finished surface off of is probably just because they hone fast enough for the average person to remove the damage they can see as well as the damage they can't see.

 

[D_W]

the hock blades + cap iron are incredible, I got one earlier this year and it definitely out performs most old blades, I got the 01 because it's my favourite steel and dead easy to sharpen, they are expensive though! I'd like to try their A2 blade as well but I suspect it won't leave quite as nice of a finish, I don't mind sharpening every 20-30 minutes.

If you're planing wood that's come out of a machine and manage to hone off all of the damage, A2 works fine, but the proportion of its honing vs. the O1 and its wear just isn't a good bargain. (it'll potentially last 20-25% longer than the O1 iron, but it'll take more than 20-25% longer to hone.

when I tested irons, I found that even I (who tend to hone more and probably more heavily than most) thought I had a defect free iron only to get a look at the edge under a scope and see tiny defects left. Defects lead to failure around the defect and sometimes lines right away on work. Once I went to the trouble of checking to make sure absolutely every defect was out of every alloy, all held up fine in clean planing and the minor defects on the edge didn't translate to anything big enough to see on the surface of wood. It was an eye opener for me (i'd always attributed early lines to nicking and poor performance, but I was the poor performer. To actually hone something like A2 twice as long as O1 is kind of agonizing, and it's slower grinding on the power grinder, which is also annoying).

The hock O1 iron is a good iron, and would probably be a touch better if it was a point or two softer on the C scale (it would wear as long but be a little tougher).

 

[johnnyb]

that is some fascinating stuff. I love that the edge photography is so detailed. I'm 100% with you on a2 being a devil to get just so when honing. so much so that I only really get a reliable good edge after grinding. ie honing on stones as often as not doesnt perfect the edge. how did a2 become the goto Steel for boutique makers? sharpenability is the key not just a desirable thing. take carving chisels the best are easy to sharpen and take a good edge. even slightly softer than ideal is OK as long as they are easy to hone.

 

[johnnyb]

D_W did you test more than one of any iron? were the results the same or similar?

 

[johnnyb]

another thing occur to me that may make my smoothcut "experience" better is the feel of the planing. maybe the hardness makes them stiffer or flexible in a different way.

 

[D_W]

D_W did you test more than one of any iron? were the results the same or similar?

I tested one of each for this test because each planed several thousand feet. I've had at least three of the laminated irons, though, and have experienced similar performance from each (about matching O1 despite higher hardness, but the lamination makes them relatively easy to sharpen).

The little pocks that came out in the test for (these were tsunesaburo brand) probably slightly reduced edge life, but they aren't big enough to show up as lines on work, and my comments above about surface brightness is counter to what I expected. It was only easy to see the difference when using one iron after another and rotating them.

Keep in mind that other than testing a hock O1 iron against my own make of O1 iron, my O1 is around 62/63 hardness, so it doesn't suffer the slightly lower keenness that a softer iron would per given finish level.

A reader while I was putting the test together asked for me to test a hock O1 iron against mine since you can't buy my irons - but the O1 iron wasn't really the purpose of the test - the real purpose was to put a bunch of irons up against the V11, which hadn't been compared in any significant tests (the other irons were LN A2 - the best of the A2 irons, the japanese blue steel iron, high hardness high speed steel chinese iron (that was XRFed to find composition and it was just short of M2), CPM 3V and then in a second test, someone offered a CPM M4 iron - that just barely beat the V11 iron, but had much more cut friction.

The bits and pieces coming out of the japanese iron aren't likely a defect, it's likely an issue of the alloy/rolled steel used. The chinese iron had the same thing, but was less refined and the pocks were bigger. The A2 iron is cryo treated, so the way it "flaked" off looked different, and the powder metal irons had more of a gritty and more uniform look.

For reference in terms of edge life, though, even though I was disappointed that the japanese iron shed those bits both in maple and beech, it still went 800 feet (in both) before not staying in the cut.

 

[D_W]

another thing occur to me that may make my smoothcut "experience" better is the feel of the planing. maybe the hardness makes them stiffer or flexible in a different way.

Separate and aside, if you compare an iron that's 62-66 hardness against one that's high 50s like some vintage irons may be, the higher hardness iron will seem more keen and will perform better in harder woods if the shaving is thin.

I don't know if I've done an outright comparison of 62 vs. 66, just noted the feel of a soft iron vs. any of the harder irons.

(FWIW based on what I mentioned above, in an A/B test, my iron vs. hock, i believe mine planed 50 feet longer than the hock iron, which is very likely in the error range - I suspected the hock irons are a bit too hard and thought I could make an iron that would go longer just by making it a click softer, but not soft, and the reality in the test was that they just both felt similar - whatever the hock iron may give up on the edge very early because of the high hardness, that wears off pretty quickly and it settles in and mine wasn't really overall any better).

 

[D_W]

that is some fascinating stuff. I love that the edge photography is so detailed. I'm 100% with you on a2 being a devil to get just so when honing. so much so that I only really get a reliable good edge after grinding. ie honing on stones as often as not doesnt perfect the edge. how did a2 become the goto Steel for boutique makers? sharpenability is the key not just a desirable thing. take carving chisels the best are easy to sharpen and take a good edge. even slightly softer than ideal is OK as long as they are easy to hone.

having made a bunch of irons and now getting into chisels, and talking to someone who I won't mention having a discussion with LN, I believe that at the time LN switched to A2, they couldn't harden their water hardening steel up to the slot, so they were hardening only the first inch of a plane iron assuming that few would get past it.

Some professional users went through the first inch and asked them about it and they confirmed that they had warpage issues.

George Wilson at the time had been using A2, so did a lot of knife makers, and so did karl holtey, so its stability was known. Rather than get into an optimized O1 iron (which would be easier than water hardening steel), LN switched to A2 and touted its abrasion resistance. It will plane more feet than any water hardening steel that I have, but it's less predictable in use and I'd rather use water or oil hardening steel (white is water hardening and blue is probably also water hardening but closer to O1 in composition and it feels like oil hardening steel on natural stones).

So, long story short, I believe that it solved a manufacturing problem.

George was toolmaker at Colonial williamsburg and a maker of a zillion things on the side - perhaps as good as any maker alive in the last 75 years. He experimented with A2 and had shuffled through sharpening stones at williamsburg (it was his responsibility to choose their supplies) and stocked stones that would sharpen it. I believe he said early/mid 90s was around that time for him, and holtey was probably close to that or not long after.

At any rate, George mentioned the same to LN - that they should consider A2 - they didn't respond to his advice, but later went to it. They'd mentioned stability issues to him, too, and that was his suggestion.

I probably have more than 100 sharpening stones in my drawers right now - it's kind of a fascination. It's not like I don't have things on hand that would sharpen A2, but looking under the scope, I found that after I could no longer see defects, I left lots of tiny ones in the iron edge and when i started counting strokes to see what it actually took to get them out vs. O1, no thanks. It wears on stones almost as slow as V11 but is not nearly as nice to use otherwise, and V11 takes about twice as many strokes on a diamond hone to remove the same amount of material.

(Kees heiden also confirmed that by measuring metal abraded with a machine - i believe he made the machine assuming that abrasion resistance would yield proportional planing - and that's mostly true against O1 - but some steels are slow abrading and don't get a proportional gain - like A2).

 

[SteL]

After reading this thread I thought I'd give my plane an upgrade with a replacement Hock iron and chip breaker. I was quite happy with the originals but I thought it was worth an experiment!

When they arrived I was a bit disappointed that the edge on the iron had a tiny chip and the edge on the chip breaker was a bit messy. I understand they don't come ready to go, but not having a grinder meant I was in for a bout of RSI. After a workout session on my stones, I was very happy with the results. Even with my lack of skill I was able to take shavings thinner than I've been able to do before. Usually, if I try to get very thin shavings they become inconsistent. The shavings were that thin I could see through them...

This was my best effort with my old iron and chip breaker...

I've got no doubt that someone with more knowledge and skill could get those fine shavings with my old blades. Give it a month of my cack-handed sharpening and I'll have these new blades cranking out uneven thick shavings like the one above! I'm going to put a camber on the old blade and keep the new ones for fine shavings and only sharpen them using the honing guide.

Also, there's a great video on YouTube by David Charlesworth on prepping the chip breaker - that was a big help. I didn't try the ruler trick on the iron, though. I'll save that for another day of experimenting!

 

[D_W]

The missing link to getting shavings like that with older blades is generally using finer abrasives. The higher hardness irons (hock, etc) will take a shallower groove off of a similar abrasive, which results in a slightly sharper edge off of the same stones (and the higher hardness also means less foil, wire edge left behind).

Stanley's irons have a temper that you'd pick if you were doing site work or maybe some heavier work (as in, if you were going to do jack plane work or plane through knots, I'd rather have the original iron - if you're going to do all smoothing and you have a sharpening routine you don't want to change, it'll probably be easier to get fine shavings out of a hock iron and the iron will wear a little bit longer due to the higher hardness).

I used to make irons optimized to the washita so that it would barely cut them and the edge would be really fine. After this recent go around with the buffer, I found the buffer to cut so finely that it kind of eliminates the difference you're seeing (but it doesn't eliminate the fact that softer irons won't hold a really fine edge for long).

 

[SteL]

Thanks for that, D_W. I have been thinking of adding a finer stone (or 2). I only go up to 1000 grit (I think - whatever the fine Norton oil stone is!) at the moment before stropping. I am trying to keep it simple while I'm getting used to sharpening, though. I'm avoiding any fancy steels as that would require changing my sharpening setup and routine. When I do expand It'll be interesting to give the old blade a go on the finer abrasive.

 

[D_W]

There's no great reason (for purposes of productivity making things) to ever go up the ladder in steel. Most of the steels that wear a lot longer also sharpen and grind slower and are not as damage resistant in less than ideal conditions.

If you had the good favor of doing nothing but smoothing long clean bits of wood, then the more exotic steels can keep the process going longer between sharpenings, but I still like the plain steels in most cases. I was wowed by V11 in testing in an ideal scenario (double the planed distance of O1, and in an abrasion test, abraded at half the speed - the two go together), but most of my planing is getting to the point of ideal use, and then the ideal planing is done in a couple of blinks, and V11 is probably the best alternative to old or O1. It's benefit is lost once the planing is less than ideal - I'd call it a toss up vs. O1 for anything other than ideal final smoothing.

As far as going finer in stones, autosol on medium hardwoods is an ideal follow up to a 1k stone. There's probably not a synthetic stone that's more practical than that.

 

[D_W]

I'm sure I posted this somewhere on here, but I can't find it in this thread:

* Shapton cream (12k)

* Dursol (autosol looks the same, just don't have a picture on imgur).

* Lest there's some question about dursol's speed - here's 10 seconds after a mid stone (a little finer before this than a 1k stone).

That is, the fantastic surface finish on the back of the iron is available after a mid stone with 10 seconds of rubbing. No more than that on the bevel side. Dursol and autosol on wood both leave almost no wire edge (by that, I mean even microscopically) - there's no need to follow this with anything at all.

* 1 micron diamonds:

You would have to buy a sigma power 13k to get close to the look of the dursol or 1 micron diamond, but the SP 13k is much slower and it's a soft stone that's easily damaged, or the 30k shapton which is barely finer than the sigma power 13k at a much higher price (not a big deal if you want to spend the money on something like that, but a total waste of money if you don't - guru recommendations notwithstanding).

25 carats of 1 micron diamonds (years worth of diamond on a hard substrate like cast iron, maybe a decade) is about $10.

 

[weekend_woodworker]

I'm sure I posted this somewhere on here, but I can't find it in this thread:

* Shapton cream (12k)

* Dursol (autosol looks the same, just don't have a picture on imgur).

* Lest there's some question about dursol's speed - here's 10 seconds after a mid stone (a little finer before this than a 1k stone).

That is, the fantastic surface finish on the back of the iron is available after a mid stone with 10 seconds of rubbing. No more than that on the bevel side. Dursol and autosol on wood both leave almost no wire edge (by that, I mean even microscopically) - there's no need to follow this with anything at all.

* 1 micron diamonds:

You would have to buy a sigma power 13k to get close to the look of the dursol or 1 micron diamond, but the SP 13k is much slower and it's a soft stone that's easily damaged, or the 30k shapton which is barely finer than the sigma power 13k at a much higher price (not a big deal if you want to spend the money on something like that, but a total waste of money if you don't - guru recommendations notwithstanding).

25 carats of 1 micron diamonds (years worth of diamond on a hard substrate like cast iron, maybe a decade) is about $10.

Hi D_W, can I ask a daft question about the Autosol? How do you apply it? Do you just rub it on with a cloth or do you put it on a flat surface and then polish the blade on the surface?
Thanks,
Mark

 

[D_W]

Just put it on clean wood and then pull the iron bevel across the wood (obviously can't push it) or pull it diagonally oriented. Then work the back of the iron like you would on anything else with a little pressure bias toward the tip.

The wood needs to be reasonably flat, but the reality is that your finest step isn't really that big of an issue with flatness - no stone follows it, so there's no harm to do. It either works (flat enough) or it doesn't (needs to be a little flatter).

The wood gives the autosol a little bit of cushion (if the stuff isn't cutting fast enough, pick wood that's a bit harder - medium hardwoods and southern yellow pine here in the states work great - white pine and some of the other very soft woods don't have quite enough stiffness to be a backbone for the abrasive).

Not a complicated thing, of course - just handy that it works well.

For chisels, if you were to use autosol on the back and my buffer trick on the tip on the front after knocking the bevel angles down a few degrees, you're unlikely to buy anything at any price that will give a better edge (certainly a shapton 30k edge brought to a sharp point won't be nearly as durable if it matches keenness).

Hard truth of expensive stuff - it's not necessarily better, and autosol on medium hardwood is faster than a shapton 30k. Given a money-even choice to use both, I'd rather use autosol or dursol - it's faster and I don't have to baby the wood or flatten it.

 

[Andy Kev.]

DW,

your data on the various steels is exhaustive and remarkable, especially the microscope images. However, I can imagine that the subject in general could be a bit daunting to a beginner who has perhaps never given much thought to the different types of steel - maybe he/she just thought there was steel and that's it.

So if somebody said to you, "I'm just starting and I've bought an LA jack, a No. 4, a No 7, a blockplane and I'm going to get some bench chisels and a paring chisel, which steels would you recommend for each?", what would your answer be? (Let us assume that this person is going to work with the usual softwoods like pine and conventional hardwoods like cherry, walnut and American poplar.)

Andy.

 

[D_W]

paring chisel - vintage English in good shape. There's nothing else the same now unless you can find someone to make a thin profile chisel like that.

bench chisels - some bevel edge chisels of relatively plain steel that show in tests (wood by wright has a long list) to be 60-63 hardness or so. I'm not a fan of the basic narex chisels and anything softer (they need the unicorn trick to really hold a decent edge).

No wondersteels in chisels (like V11 or A2, etc), they are abrasion resistant but carbon and hardness are all that's needed for good edge holding - abrasion resistance just makes chisels take longer to sharpen and they increase the chance that someone will burn an edge on a grinder as they don't abrade/spark off that easily and tons of heat builds up.

(O1, Chrome Vanadium, Chrome Manganese, etc, they're all about the same - all fine. They're plain steel with some additives to make them more forgiving to harden. The names make them sound like they have a whole lot of something in them other than iron and carbon, but they don't).

 

[weekend_woodworker]

Just put it on clean wood and then pull the iron bevel across the wood (obviously can't push it) or pull it diagonally oriented. Then work the back of the iron like you would on anything else with a little pressure bias toward the tip.

The wood needs to be reasonably flat, but the reality is that your finest step isn't really that big of an issue with flatness - no stone follows it, so there's no harm to do. It either works (flat enough) or it doesn't (needs to be a little flatter).

The wood gives the autosol a little bit of cushion (if the stuff isn't cutting fast enough, pick wood that's a bit harder - medium hardwoods and southern yellow pine here in the states work great - white pine and some of the other very soft woods don't have quite enough stiffness to be a backbone for the abrasive).

Not a complicated thing, of course - just handy that it works well.

For chisels, if you were to use autosol on the back and my buffer trick on the tip on the front after knocking the bevel angles down a few degrees, you're unlikely to buy anything at any price that will give a better edge (certainly a shapton 30k edge brought to a sharp point won't be nearly as durable if it matches keenness).

Hard truth of expensive stuff - it's not necessarily better, and autosol on medium hardwood is faster than a shapton 30k. Given a money-even choice to use both, I'd rather use autosol or dursol - it's faster and I don't have to baby the wood or flatten it.

Thanks D_W that sounds really straight forward. I’ll have to give it a go.