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Been raising Panels in Curly Maple the past few days.....
Main plane was a Made in England Stanley #4c......was able to take see-through shavings with ease.
Iron was honed to 2500 grit, Wet-n-Dry paper, then stropped with green compound on an old leather belt....
Raising panels ala Paul Sellers, mean I am going across the grain, as well as with the grain....zero tear-out.
Show me a picture, I'll build a project from that
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I have a #7 jointer which cuts like a dream and a #3 Stanley which cuts well. Yet my Stanley #4 doesn't do well at all and a #8 jointer is mediocre. What really bugs me is how I can spend an hour sharpening a plane blade and it just doesn't cut well at all. I've got a plane till full of #3 through #8 planes and only two are a joy to work with. Why is this??? Poor sharpening, bad lapping of the sole, pee poor technique??? It befuddles me how I can spend the exact same time rehabbing two planes and one is a keeper and the other one I want to throw thru my shop window. Grrrrr.
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(08-01-2017, 06:54 PM)Dayle1960 Wrote: I have a #7 jointer which cuts like a dream and a #3 Stanley which cuts well. Yet my Stanley #4 doesn't do well at all and a #8 jointer is mediocre. What really bugs me is how I can spend an hour sharpening a plane blade and it just doesn't cut well at all. I've got a plane till full of #3 through #8 planes and only two are a joy to work with. Why is this??? Poor sharpening, bad lapping of the sole, pee poor technique??? It befuddles me how I can spend the exact same time rehabbing two planes and one is a keeper and the other one I want to throw thru my shop window. Grrrrr.
It does seem random, sometimes. I have rehabbed a Sargent jointer (no 7 size) that came out well, a No. 3 Stanley that is ok, and a Sargent jack that is spectacular. I haven't been tempted to throw any of them, though, lol. Now my LN spokesahaves...one of those actually did get thrown.
If you're gonna be one, be a Big Red One.
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(08-01-2017, 06:54 PM)Dayle1960 Wrote: Why is this??? Poor sharpening, bad lapping of the sole, pee poor technique??? It befuddles me how I can spend the exact same time rehabbing two planes and one is a keeper and the other one I want to throw thru my shop window. Grrrrr.
Just curious if you have checked the flatness of the sole of the bad ones. Not saying that's your problem though. Although my newer Stanley #4 with the sole that is anything but flat will not cut at all.
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(08-01-2017, 06:54 PM)Dayle1960 Wrote: I have a #7 jointer which cuts like a dream and a #3 Stanley which cuts well. Yet my Stanley #4 doesn't do well at all and a #8 jointer is mediocre. What really bugs me is how I can spend an hour sharpening a plane blade and it just doesn't cut well at all. I've got a plane till full of #3 through #8 planes and only two are a joy to work with. Why is this??? Poor sharpening, bad lapping of the sole, pee poor technique??? It befuddles me how I can spend the exact same time rehabbing two planes and one is a keeper and the other one I want to throw thru my shop window. Grrrrr.
I've run across a few vintage irons that won't hold an edge. Maybe the temper was drawn at some point, or maybe it was never tempered correctly at all. Once I replaced them with good irons, those planes performed much better. If you have a sharpening routine that you know works (raise a burr on a coarse abrasive, then work through grits until the burr is gone and the edge is polished), and it consistently doesn't produce a sharp edge, you can usually conclude that it's the tool. Try getting an aftermarket iron from one of the many reputable sources (Hock Tools, Lee Valley, etc.) for that #4 and see what happens.
Oh, and once you have your sharpening routine established, you shouldn't need an hour to sharpen. If that's the case, you're waiting until the edge is far too dull. 5 minutes per edge is a good target, just to start. I've gotten mine down to 2-3 minutes per edge, if I don't muck something up. If you're taking more than 10 minutes to get a blade sharp, then either you're doing major restoration (regrinding, reshaping, etc.) or you need to economize somewhere.
Steve S.
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Tradition cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour.
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(08-01-2017, 06:54 PM)Dayle1960 Wrote: What really bugs me is how I can spend an hour sharpening a plane blade and it just doesn't cut well at all. I've got a plane till full of #3 through #8 planes and only two are a joy to work with. Why is this??? ......... Grrrrr.
I agree with Steve, rare, but in the hundreds of planes I've worked on over 20 years I've found about 4 or 5 vintage irons that don't keep an edge. If you don't want to go the premium iron route, which can get pretty pricey, you can get "standard" 2 inch #4 replacement irons for about $12-13, which are pretty good, standard irons. Online Amazon, Grizzly, Home Depot, etc. Better than buying a premium iron to find out its really the plane.......
Not that I'm saying a Hock or LV replacement wouldn't be a good upgrade, they are, but at about $40-50 each -minimum- they can get expensive. I "treat" myself to one every so many years and have several .... but the other half of my vintage users have vintage irons. If you get it working again, then get a premium iron, and radius grind the regular replacement for use as a scrub in your #5 (i've got one of those too!).
https://www.amazon.com/Stanley-12-313-Be...B00002X1ZE
http://www.homedepot.com/p/2-in-Iron-Ben...wQodjcUJGQ
http://www.grizzly.com/products/Plane-Re...rizzly.com
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Dayle, I think, hey what do I know, it's in the adjustment. I have a couple of #6c planes a English Record and Swedish Anchor. They are both made in 1952, the Record is a copy of the late'20 Stanley and Anchor, think of it as a E.A.Berg plane, is a copy of the '30s Stanley. Both are well made with great steel. The Record is dream to use, the Anchor merely works.
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The responses make me think about the newbie just getting into hand tools and grabs the first hand plane which catches his eye. He takes it home and buffs out all of the rust and cleans it pretty well. Then comes the moment of truth and he runs it along the edge of a hunk of four quarter maple and just comes up with a mediocre cut. He ponders the adjustments and his sharpening skills and tries the plane again. Once more the plane is just ho-hum.
Thus ends his first and only use of a hand plane because he has read all the reviews of a Bailey or Bedrock and went over to Ebay and spent a gob of cash for a beater. With all of the hype over various planes and he gets one that won't cut a finger if he tried, he gives up and goes back to his barka lounger and sips his prissy beer because he couldn't force the plane to work for him properly.
Yea, that is the long way around the barn just to say that if a wanna be woodworker gets his first plane and it turns out to be a dud, then probably he won't want to stay in woodworking. Knowing how to rehab old tools is one of the things that most newbies cannot figure out, unless they have the desire to spend hours tinkering with the tool, their desire drains quickly. And if they get a stinker of a tool, that puts the proverbial knife in the desire to work wood.
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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. Still has no clue that they need to take the iron out of the new plane, and hone it. Nor is anything in that fancy box that tell them HOW to set the new plane up. All they have learned is how to open that fancy box.....
Half the people they then ask will tell to save their money and by the next newest plane. The other half will actually take the time to TEACH that newbie HOW to either USE that plane, or..how to rehab a plane that costs a TENTH of the new plane. And, some will even take 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
Show me a picture, I'll build a project from that
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Bandit, no, I'm not thinking the guy would buy a high end plane. Just simply watch a TV show and get the bug to enter woodworking. Then he'd probably go down to the nearest antique store and buy a rusty old hand plane for thirty bucks and begin the process of rehabbing it. When he finishes the rehab, either the plane would be a keeper or a junker. If it turns out to be a keeper then the novice woodworker might expand his abilities with rehabbing other tools. If it turned out to be a junker, then he might just forget about wood working all together.
It just frustrates me to no end to get a plane, put a few hours into it with rust removal, sole lapping, and blade sharpening and have the thing cut like a dull meat cleaver. If there are 100 planes lined up for rehabbing, I bet a certain percent would be great, a large percent would be good, and a few would be duds. Seems that my luck ranges from the good to the duds. Yet I keep plugging away to make the duds keepers.
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