Paul Sellers tuning f0rk for hand planes

[Tynyyn]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9_qlaP1y_Y

Another great tip from Paul.  He is the man!!!!

[Tony Z]

About time someone came up with that device!

[Arlin Eastman]

Good sense of humor and I like it

[Bill_Houghton]

A pitch perfect presentation.  Definitely an "A," although we trombone players would argue that it's a "Bb."

[Paul-in-Plymouth]

I’ve had one of those in my shop ever since I retired.  Keeps my planes always sharp and ready to go.   

This may be a little OT, but not entirely.  It relates to consummate machining skill and attention to minute detail, like clocking screws.  And a joke on me.  The story is this:

Many years ago the group of physical scientists I led came to be supported by a top-notch tool-and-die maker who had spent his long career making superb production tooling for our corporation.  He was a little uncomfortable with the run-and-gun approach to tooling of a bunch of scientists.  He thought, probably correctly, that his talents were being wasted, but we all adapt to change, right?

As his last project before his retirement, I needed something to mount some big, heavy panes of leaded glass for radiation shields.  I asked him to design and make some brackets to do this.  Soon I had a set of nice forked aluminum brackets for the glass plus one extra, just in case.   

I happened to tap on one of the brackets, and it rang.  Then I tapped all seven.  They all rang the same pitch and it sounded familiar.

Next day I brought in an 440 Hz tuning fudge , and sure enough, all the brackets rang within 1 Hz of Concert “A.”  I was’t surprised all the brackets rang the same pitch given this man’s over-the-top skills as machinist, but tuning them all to A440 was his parting little joke on me.  

 That was more than 30 years ago, and it still tickles me.  I appreciated his subtle joke, and from his perspective, the joke was on me whether I got it or not.  But he liked that I got it.

When I retired, I brought the extra bracket home.  I’ve used it to tune my hand planes ever since.  Here it is, helping tune my scrub plane for scrubbing some large-radius cove.   The green end of the hammer has just the right hardness for the best sound.