The chip breaker is as important as the blade

[ydb1md]

I've got some older Stanleys that had been tuned up but were still chattering on difficult woods. Having exhausted all the usual fettling tricks, I ordered a Hock blade for each plane. The hock blades helped a lot but I was still getting chatter.

I had done all of the other important stuff like checking the frog's bedding area and tuning the chip breaker to seat properly on the blade etc but it didn't help. So, I ordered a Hock chip breaker to see how it improved things. Ai Carumba! Night and day difference!

If I were getting chatter and on a budget and had to choose either a blade or a chip breaker, I'd choose the chip breaker hands down. While the blade offered a noticeable difference, the chip breaker's improvement was like night and day. I need to try the chip breaker on the factory blade to get a baseline but I'm too busy right now -- I need to get some more chip breakers for the rest of my Stanleys!

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Hi Dave

You are absolutely right. About three years ago I reviewed the LN chipbreaker. I don't think it had been out long. I was interested to see what it added to the performance of a plane. In a nutshell, the differences were significantly large enough to be seen. I wrote an article on this, which is still on Roger Nixon's website, but the pictures appear to be missing. http://www.traditionaltools.us/lnchipbreaker.htm

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Evergreen]

Hi Dave

I'm not familiar with these upmarket chipbreakers although I've seen the LN model on the LN website. Are you able to analyse why they're so good. please? Does their virtue lie in their thickness or the angle of their curve? And I guess the crucial question is - what do they cost?

Regards.

 

[George_N]

And I guess the crucial question is - what do they cost?

Axminster sell the 2 part Clifton one for £12.61.
http://www.axminster.co.uk/recno/7/product-Clifton-2-Piece-Cap-Iron-21769.htm

cheers

George

 

[Paul Chapman]

I'm no engineer and can only speak with experience of the Clifton two-piece cap iron, but here are my views for what they are worth.

Knowing what we know today about the importance of rigidity and the avoidance of chatter in plane design, it is doubtful that many plane makers would opt for the conventional bent metal design of chipbreaker when designing a new plane (Veritas still use this design in some of their planes, I believe, and I am surprised about that given that in other respects they have gone for unconventional designs).

The Stanley and Record type blades are very thin. The bent metal type chipbreaker is, in my experience, crudely made. It usually doesn't fit very well at the cutting end of the blade without re-shaping by the user. The design means that it touches the blade at the point where the screw attaches it and again at the cutting end of the blade. There is potential for this design to put the blade under tension and possibly to bend it. The lever cap then tends to bend it straight again (on to a frog assembly that might not be machined very well) All in all a very poor design. It does little to add to the rigidity of the blade assembly and, if anything, probably detracts from it.

By comparison, the Clifton design, because the fixed part of the chipbreaker is thick, flat and screwed to the blade, has the effect of making the blade far more rigid. The lower, lift-off part of the chipbreaker does not put the blade under tension and fits well.

Overall, a good design and well engineered.

I have no experience of the LN and other modern designs but, like the Clifton (originally designed by Record) I suspect that they are well made and designed with a view to reducing chatter as well as doing their primary job of chipbreaking.

Paul

 

[ydb1md]

Hi Dave

I'm not familiar with these upmarket chipbreakers although I've seen the LN model on the LN website. Are you able to analyse why they're so good. please? Does their virtue lie in their thickness or the angle of their curve? And I guess the crucial question is - what do they cost?

Regards.

I haven't tried the LN's but I love my Hocks -- they are easy to find online.

To answer your questions, I'd have to say: Yes, both, I just paid $20 each for a #3,#5 and #6.

They have a higher mass than the original chip breaker, they don't have as aggressive a profile as the original chip breaker (which causes less bending of the blade and they contact the blade over a larger area) and they are more finely machined which means better contact w/ the blade.

They cost less than a new blade which means more value for your $.

 

[Evergreen]

Thanks for the info, guys. I find it encouraging that even relatively simple components can be constantly improved.

Regards.

 

[ivan]

The mariage of standard Stanley type blade and chipbreaker bends the blade away from the frog so it's floating whilst planing, The cutting load on the tip causes the blade to bend, pivoting about the heel of the bevel. This lets the blade dig in round difficult grain or a knot, for eg. You can measure this with a dial gauge. The vibration of the iron causes the plane to cut with more noise than a Clifton or LN. This vibration, which puts the cutting tip microscopically in and out of the wood as it cuts, could well promote tearout. An upmarket capiron can change all this by better control of the blade. (if the frog is flat)

 

[quickthorn]

I found that one of ray Iles' 50% thicker irons made a lot of difference on some very variable sycamore..with the original iron, it was very difficult to get the plane from one end of the work to the other, on any combination of settings. The thicker iron cured that..I wonder if replacing the original chip breaker would improve things even more?

 

[lurker]

I'm possiblily missing something here but........

Is there any reason why I can't ( just) replace a thin stanley chip breaker with a thicker lump of flat steel suitably threaded & "holed".

 

[DaveL]

I'm possiblily missing something here but........

Is there any reason why I can't ( just) replace a thin stanley chip breaker with a thicker lump of flat steel suitably threaded & "holed".

Only that a Stanley chip breaker (cap or back iron) is not completely flat, there is usually a curve and they have a bevel on the end that beds on the iron.

 

[Racers]

Hi,

Jim set me off asking about a lump of flat steel, its some thing I have planed to do for a long time so tonight I went in to the garage and made one, it took about 3/4 of an hour to cut it from some 3mm plate file, drill the holes tap (5/16 whitworth) etc. I clamped it the vice with about 20mm below the jaws and bent it so I had about a 1mm gap. I had to do some filling to get it to fit flat to the blade, then I chucked it in my favorite Record 5 1/5 (yes it has been welded up) and tried on some pine with a knot in and it just sailed through hardly any tear-out either side of the knot just a little roughness, it feels different to push more in contact with the wood somehow. Then I got some oak and tried planing it the wrong way and it worked, it did feel smother plained the right way but it didn't tear done the wrong way, I need to do some more testing but it looks very good.
The oak and plane

The cap iron

Pete

 

[DaveL]

Pete,

Come on now show us the side profile of the cap iron you made, how does it meet with the iron?

I can see that having a much thicker cap iron will improve the blade stability which should improve the cutting action.

 

[Racers]

Hi, DaveL

Here you go the only way I could get a good pic was by backlighting it, it looks more of a gap bit it measures only 0.5mm at the 255mm point of the ruler.

Pete

 

[Anonymous]

Chipbreaker only matters with a thin blade.

 

[Racers]

Hi, Tony

Define thin for me.

I will try my cap iron on one of my 3mm O1 steel blades over the week end and let you know if it changes anything.

Pete

 

[tnimble]

Hi, Tony

Define thin for me.

I will try my cap iron on one of my 3mm O1 steel blades over the week end and let you know if it changes anything.

Pete

Would be very interesting. Especially on very hard woods with changing grain or extremely hard spots / knots present.

 

[PeterBassett]

Did anything come of this? How did the plane perform?

 

[ivan]

Re my earlier post regarding the flexing of standard blades, thicker blades are stiffer, double the thickness=8x stiffer, but the bevel is now twice as long, so mounted in a plane, 8/2=4 times stiffer. For a really stiff blade, think Japan!
The 2 piece cap iron was designed specifically to prevent the blade lifting from the frog as I described, but personally I have come to prefer a 'flat lump of iron'. Chipbreakers can have an effect on cutting action, provided the breaker is set very close (a few thou): see
http://planetuning.infillplane.com/html ... aking.html
you cannot easily reshape a 2 piece cap iron to match a crowned blade whilst avoiding a shaving trap between the blade/cap iron. The answer is a completely flat cap iron (gauge plate) 'sharpened' to a bit below the correct angle, and a tiny burr raised (as for a scraper plane) to keep shavings out. If you like you can match a 4mm cap iron with a 4.8mm LN blade and emulate the cutting parts of a heavy infill plane. Other threads here tell how to make the adjuster work with thick blades.

 

[bugbear]

Hi,

Jim set me off asking about a lump of flat steel, its some thing I have planed to do for a long time so tonight I went in to the garage and made one, it took about 3/4 of an hour to cut it from some 3mm plate

IIRC Someone a long time back (Badger Pond forum) made a 1/4" (!!!!) chipbreaker.

I think (functionally speaking) all that matters is that the cap-iron/blade assembly has sufficient mass, makes accurately contact with the frog below, and the lever cap above. If these condition are met, the edge is well supported, and stable under cutting loads.

it doesn't appear to matter wether the mass comes from the blade or the cap iron (or, for overkill), both. If the mass comes from the iron, it makes the cap iron/blade contact less critical.

BugBear

BugBear