Sharpening 71 1/2 blade

[Ollie78]

Hi

I have recently picked up an old stanley 71 1/2 router plane, and a spare blade. (£5 for the plane £4 for spare blade)
The issue I have is sharpening the blades. It looks like the previous owner has been sharpening pretty freehand and the blade is far from square at the edge.
Obviously I have flattened the back but I am struggling with sharpening the bevel side.

Is there any tips for this, bearing in mind I have oil stones and water stones but no grinder.

Any tips welcome.

Cheers Ollie.

 

[Alf]

sharpening-stanley-071-router-cutters-t37633.html

Thought either/or both Derek and The Schwarz had covered it with pretty pictures, but a cursory search didn't find exactly what I was looking for. No matter - just remove the metal that isn't a sharp edge, right?

 

[dunbarhamlin]

The Schwarz
http://www.popularwoodworking.com/woodw ... lane-blade
http://www.metachannels.com/episodes/sh ... ane?page=2

Derek's may have dropped off the end of woodnet - perhaps his site or the ubeaut forum?

Other
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPdLf6sNez8

There are others, but there's a noisy wood and flesh mangler of the same name that messes up searches

 

[bosshogg]

Recently did mine with a diamond hone from Lidl's £1.99.

Now I presume your blades are the chisel and diamond points, the latter with removable blade foot?
the sole of the chisel face iron, must have be angled into the cut like so

if there has been any abuse to this, To find this out, I to mount the blade in the router, extending the cutting edge just below sole of the plane and carefully run this over the oilstone in the long direction of the sole, this avoids any chatter and should produce an unbroken line, visible, on the front cutting edge of the blade.

You should only have to do this once in the life of the blade!
This edge must now be removed by file diamond slip/hone across the entire bottom of the blade, insomuch as the cutting edge of the blade when mounted in the plane is level at the very bottom of the cut and the the cutter face has only the one bevel. Now you can hone the top bevel by oil/water stone, diamond hone, needle file or whatever, until you get a burr, which you remove with backward strokes on the stone of your choice.

Pay great attention to the sole of the cutter, so as not to deviate from that level/flat/bevel you created and thereafter you only require the final top bevel hone as described to bring back a perfect edge...bosshogg

Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else.
Judy Garland  (hammer)

 

[Alf]

Ah, 'twas a a video - no wonder I couldn't find it. I'm a text 'n' pictures kinda gal. Quill pen and engravings for preference...

 

[Ollie78]

Great advice thanks everyone.
I will give bosshogg`s method a go at the weekend as it seems a sensible way to do it.

Cheers, Ollie.

 

[Jacob]

Bosshogg's method is a bit labour intensive - you get the same result with Alf's method: just remove the metal that isn't a sharp edge, right? or in other words just hone the bevel until it's sharp. You can straighten it up a bit (if you really need to?) each time you hone by applying a bit of bias one side or the other.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

My method is to add a hollow grind to the bevel face. Use a Dremel or sandpaper around a dowel.

The hollow only needs to be very slight. This will do ...

My first effort looked like this - somewhat overdone - but this still worked perfectly well ..

Once this is done, it is much easier to freehand the blade on the media. I use waterstones. Hone sideways along the edge ...

Don't forget to hone the back of the iron as well.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[dunbarhamlin]

Ah good. Thanks Derek - knew you'd documented it.
The nice thing is it's such a a huge bezel, once flat it's very eay to maintain.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Ah good. Thanks Derek - knew you'd documented it.
The nice thing is it's such a a huge bezel, once flat it's very eay to maintain.

Flat bevels are easy to hone out-of-flat ... then you need to add a slight hollow to hone them back to flat.

Withe the exception of Japanese laminated blades - and even this is debatable - I do not see the point in honing an entire (flat) bevel face. This is more work than needed, and a flat bevel is less stable when freehanded than a hollow grind.

Hollow grinds rule (for everybody except Jacob .. ).

Regards from Perth

Derek