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+-- Thread: How sharp is your plane? (/showthread.php?tid=7331745)
RE: How sharp is your plane? - knockknock - 08-04-2017
Of course there could be another person who got a dud of a used plane. But saw all those youtube videos of how they should work. So after he paid the last payment on his car. He took that same money that was going to car payments, and bought a new tool each month. And lived happily ever after ...
RE: How sharp is your plane? - robert146 - 08-04-2017
Interesting thread. I don't think there is a formula for making a hand plane work properly. The best I have come up with is to keep tinkering. When things aren't going well, my solution is to strip the whole thing and remove every screw and part, clean them all up (polishing where necessary), then re-assemble and tinker and adjust. It is surprising what a complete disassembly and clean-up will reveal, and you learn a lot about various brands in the process.
I do not buy new. I go to household and estate auctions and seldom pay more than a few dollars. Old hand planes don't draw much attention. I have bought a premium blade for a plane I really liked, and it made a great difference.
And I almost forgot:........Patience is a very valuable trait when tuning-up a hand plane.
RE: How sharp is your plane? - Arch_E - 08-04-2017
(08-04-2017, 08:41 AM)robert146 Wrote: Interesting thread. I don't think there is a formula for making a hand plane work properly. The best I have come up with is to keep tinkering. When things aren't going well, my solution is to strip the whole thing and remove every screw and part, clean them all up (polishing where necessary), then re-assemble and tinker and adjust. It is surprising what a complete disassembly and clean-up will reveal, and you learn a lot about various brands in the process.
I do not buy new. I go to household and estate auctions and seldom pay more than a few dollars. Old hand planes don't draw much attention. I have bought a premium blade for a plane I really liked, and it made a great difference.
And I almost forgot:........Patience is a very valuable trait when tuning-up a hand plane.
Well said!
But, add to the patience....a number of additional tools for fettling the tools.
RE: How sharp is your plane? - Downwindtracker2 - 08-04-2017
I've told this story before, I'm a retired millwright so making things work is what I did for a living. So when I found Stanley #4 for $12.50, I thought I'll rehab it. It was even a 1949, a good year that. I flattened the sole and refinished the wood. Flattening the sole by hand was a lot of work. I even put in a LV blade and chipbreaker. When I was finished ,I thought LV planes weren't such a bad deal .
RE: How sharp is your plane? - hbmcc - 08-04-2017
If "prissy" beer is the same thing as yuppie beer, or micro-brew, include me!
I am well past demonstrating ingesting techniques for keggers, and suffering from cheap National Brands beer. I graduated into the big league when a small micro was a tasty art form, not the present nasty crap that chases and beats Schmidt or Lucky to the bottom of the barrel. Schmidt was the piggy-bank, end-of-the-month alternative to Top Ramen.
Planes. The folks who believe Sellers and capture a rusty princess from the Bay deserve the nasty monster built on WWI surplus where every day was Monday, and put the lost Sunday drunk on the mill doing what Quality Control forgot to inspect. Or, QC deemed a hidden element and removed from the inspection list.
Yes, I am speaking of the crappy frog to sole bed, the Stanley Bobble Head, the mechanical trick no amount of lapping compound can correct. The problem with those diseased rejects is that Grandpa's and Dad's cardboard box of failures has found a new market in the Bay.
So rather than be that sober inspector who throws expensive crap into the recycle bin, I buy new, on line unfortunately, and send back anything that does not perform acceptably after 30 minutes of tinkering. It's cheaper than drawing a junk hand.
RE: How sharp is your plane? - hbmcc - 08-04-2017
(08-03-2017, 05:51 PM)bandit571 Wrote: Calling BS on the post above...
SNIP
the time to tell a way to sharpen the irons in a way they will understand.....pay it forward..or...just pay for the latest new toy?
Then again.....all I have are these....might know a wee bit on how to make them work....maybe
Hey Bandit, nothing about your rant, or the one above--or, mine--but are you working in the coal bin? I worked on a house remodel where we converted the electrical transformer room into a wine cellar. I built a kayak in mine. Made sure the think could exit the house, without a remodel.
BTW, direct image postings will not copy to a quote post. Just paying forward.
RE: How sharp is your plane? - bandit571 - 08-04-2017
I work IN the basement of the house...the Coal Bin is in a different section, and filled with junk. NOW you understand why I call it the Dungeon Shop?
I'll take my Guinness Draught all the time, thank you.
Your money, waste it how the flock-ever you wish......Maybe on the latest Halo game?
Too lazy too put any work into a decent plane, eh?
Do you expect them the be hand delivered to you, set up by their Staff to what ever you think it should do...and have staff on call to sharpen the iron whenever you it take down off the display shelf in the Drawing Room to show off? 
Heaven forbid you would actually USE it. ....think of all those nasty finger smudges you would cause on the shiny surfaces of that plane.. 
.....While the above was done with tongue firmly in cheek....( anyone resemble that?
) I do not go out and buy things to rehab for sale, I do however try to find items I can put to use in my shop. Takes maybe an afternoon to bring some old rusty & Krusty tool back to like new, and working like new. Took many YEARS to get set up in the tools I can USE....learning the entire way what works, and what does not. One of the things I never learned was how to open a fancy box.... 
because there was nothing to learn doing so. Any dummy can open a box, right. 
Sharpening: I actually made a jig for my grinder, it can hold a tool at any angle I wish...usually around 25 for plane irons.
On some items, that are too short for the grinder, I will set up the veritas MK1 honing guide, and a beltsander becomes the "grinder" Fingertips to control how hot things get, before a dunk in a cup of water. Works on bevels and backs.
Stones: I have a 600 medium India stone, and a few 1000 grit oil stones. After that..
Wet-or-Dry sandpaper: 1000 grit up to 2500 grit...usually rest right on top of the last oil stone used. then..
Old leather work belt: Rub it down with some Green Polishing compound and strop the edge, and backs,
Then put the tool back to work. YMMV
RE: How sharp is your plane? - UpstateNYdude - 08-04-2017
(08-03-2017, 05:51 PM)bandit571 Wrote: Calling BS on the post above...
So, in that Dream World, you expect a newbie to use his next car payment, or rent/house payment, on a new plane? The only thing that will teach that person is to open a fancy box.
I guess some of us just enjoy higher quality tools and like to "waste" are money, but again that's akin to the guy who buys a sports car and doesn't know how to fix or do a god darn thing to it.
Just because someone wants to start out with a higher end tool and doesn't want to spend 5 hours rehabbing a rusty Stanley (or insert another maker) doesn't mean they haven't read and practiced or plan to practice with the plane. I started with a Stanley No. 5 and a LN no. 4 bronze with Cocobolo handles that I made myself. I still have those exact planes and a LN no. 7 today and use them frequently (whenever my kids are sleeping) some of us don't want to spend the time rehabbing old iron so we can "learn to use it" I want to polish, hone and get back to work and opening that fancy (cardboard) box allows me to do that a lot sooner than picking up a wrecked out garage sale find I may end up spending 3 hours rehabbing only to find it has a cracked cheek under that rust or some other awesome defect (ask me how I know).
I frequently visit the aforementioned estate and garage sales scouring for tools which I then resell and purchase new fancy boxed tools. I have zero desire to have a collection of Stanley no. 1-8 in every type or 57 braces in all different sizes. That $2 plane I can turn around and make a $40-50 profit on and then find and sell a few more and look I spent a grand total of $15-20 to get to that fancy LN plane price.
Your diatribes on people "wasting" their money are old and tired, just let it go, if someone wants to spend their money on a higher end plane who gives a s#$!, if they want to put the elbow grease into rehabbing old iron awesome. The way I see it both of those people will end up trying woodworking and if either one sticks with it they keep the hobby going and if they don't that's more tools for the rest of us.
Personally if you're going to learn one important thing in any part of hand tool woodworking it's sharpening, I am by no means a master, but I am definitely a whole hell of a lot better than when I started. My advice would be what Chris Schwarz will say and that's get one media type whether it's water stones, diamond stones, oil stones or whatever and just use that, definitely don't bounce around or mix and match a bunch of things it makes it far more complicated. Also hollow grinding saves SOOOOOOOOO much time invest in some form of a bench grinder (hand crank or powered).
RE: How sharp is your plane? - Admiral - 08-04-2017
(08-04-2017, 08:41 AM)robert146 Wrote: Interesting thread. I don't think there is a formula for making a hand plane work properly. The best I have come up with is to keep tinkering. When things aren't going well, my solution is to strip the whole thing and remove every screw and part, clean them all up (polishing where necessary), then re-assemble and tinker and adjust. It is surprising what a complete disassembly and clean-up will reveal, and you learn a lot about various brands in the process.
And I almost forgot:........Patience is a very valuable trait when tuning-up a hand plane.
There is no formula, and you are spot on, disassemble and clean, reassemble, sharpen the iron, mate the chipbreaker and then see how it works before you start messing with the sole. All of the planes I work on are done this way, and if the plane performs, then I leave it alone. Sometimes less is more, heck, most of the time less is more, and patience is necessary, for sure. But once you have gotten the plane working satisfactorily, it will continue to perform for you.
RE: How sharp is your plane? - FloridaRetiree - 08-04-2017
Over the last several decades have bought and tried all the useful and gimmick sharpening methods.
Still have as a cherished keepsake my hard black Arkansas stone -- rarely ever used.
In the end as a professional woodworker usually relied on the high speed felt buffing wheel with the three rouges.
Bottom line is that it ain't sharp unless you can shave with it.
Except that is for kitchen knives which don't need sharpening unless you drop or stupidly
ding them. Just a simple swipe or two across the steel before each use to correct the micro bevel.