Back Bevel for a #3

[Downwindtracker2]

Well that didn't work too good. I had a pitted iron, too pitted to bother grinding out with a belt sander. So I thought why not use this iron for a 10 degree back bevel, and get a York pitch. That would hone out the pitted edge. Without much honing, the bevel soon became too long for a chipbreaker tight placement. I guess that's what the bevel up smoother is for.

[Steve in Nova Scotia]

My experience with a back bevel is I can get away with having the chipbreaker set farther back from the edge. The back bevel curls the shaving up sharper than an iron without a back bevel, sort of accomplishing the same task. I have a Stanley No.4 with a LN iron and chipbreaker, and I am unable to get the chipbreaker set close to the cutting edge (because it is an LN chipbreaker). I found that with the backbevel it doesn't make a difference, and I have far less tearout than I would get with a similar plane in it's original configuration. I would say try it out and see how it performs...

[JimBelair]

Your pitted iron was a special case.  Normally a back bevel only needs to be tiny (a few strokes on the stone) to be effective.  Then the impact on chip breaker placement is minimal.

But if you want to get a BUS, go for it. 

[Bibliophile 13]

You could also try to modify the chipbreaker. You may need to file/hone the underside of it so that it mates flush with the back-bevel. I had a 4 1/2 stock Stanley iron that I needed to put a back-bevel on for similar reasons. The chipbreaker did require some fiddling to get it to mate with the back again, but eventually I got it right.

Eventually I got a replacement chipbreaker and iron from Veritas, which I like a lot better than the old stock iron.

[Downwindtracker2]

The iron was from the Swedish ESteel #3. I ended up sharpening a Stanley iron, I , too, have replaced irons and chipbreakers with Veritas ones.  But for the English Stanley #4 I was rehabbing at the same time, I didn't even bother trying the back bevel trick. Lesson learned.