What am I doing wrong?

[Josh Bowman]

IMHO, 3 methods I use to check sharpness. This one I've used the longest and it works fine, take a piece of pine and put it your vise and see if you can shave the end grain of the scrap. It should go with little effort and most important, it should slice the end grain not tearing it. Oddly the second method I had discounted for a long time, until I found it seems to be a degree more accruate. Simply place the bevel gently and with it's own weight against you thumb nail and try to drag the face of the bevel lightly. It it's stuck in place you're sharp, if you can drag the bevel, it's starting to get dull. Another method that I use is to look at the edge under a light and magnifier if I see the end of the bevel, it's not sharp.
Knowing you're sharp is only part of the battle, getting sharp involves consistant angle, and doing it free hand takes practice, not to "roll" the edge, but stay close enough to make the edge (Initiateing the cone of silence don't tell anyone here, but I also use a jig****cone now off***). Some here have mentioned the wire edge. If you don't get that edge, you have not "zeroed" the angle on the bevel or you've rolled the bevel and taken the wire edge with it and thus the sharpness. You can make a mirror all day long, but if you don't take that metal completely off the end of the bevel, your not sharp. I havn't read all the posts and answers closely, are you glueing the sand paper down? I have had wetted down paper create a kind of wave in front of an edge and it dulls the results. Others may have luck with not glueing, I don't. For that reason I find it easier to use stones.

[Chen-Tin Tsai]

Well, after trying out some other sandpaper, I broke down and got a Veritas MkII jig. I just could not get the angle right, plus I had an eBay special plane that had a chip in the edge of the iron that was nearly 1/8"! I marked off the area I needed to grind off and went at it with a power drill and sanding disk with 80 grit (no bench grinder ). After that, I chucked it into the Veritas, set it for 25 degrees, and went at it 120 grit. Unfortunately, due to some freehand errors with the sanding disk, the bevel was a tad out of square. But, with an hour of working with it, it squared up and started to get a burr!

After that, I progressed through my usual regimen of 220, 400, 800, 1000, 1500, and 2000, polishing the back as well. Both the bevel and the back (about an inch or so from the edge) shine like a mirror. After cleaning up the #4 that the blade came out of and reassembling it, I got some slightly better results. I got a shaving, full width (of the chunk of 2x4 that I was using...it was marked "Hem/Fir" at the BORG), and 0.004" thick. Now I'm getting somewhere.

Sadly, I now discovered that my flimsy plywood bench is not going to cut it so I have to look into building a proper woodworking bench.

Oh, yeah, anyone have any ideas about what sort of finish to use on my bubinga plane tote? Is it a hard wood to finish?

[Mark Roderick]

Just a thought about your flimsy plywood bench. If you can, screw the bench to a wall. You'll be amazed how stable your flimsy bench becomes.

[Matt Radtke]

Oh, yeah, anyone have any ideas about what sort of finish to use on my bubinga plane tote? Is it a hard wood to finish?

Totally a preference thing. I shellac and then beeswax mine. You could just as easily rub some BLO on it.

[Eddie Darby]

A picture is worth a thousand words, and a YouTube video is worth a thousand pictures!

http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...rch_type=&aq=f

[Josh Bowman]

After that, I chucked it into the Veritas, set it for 25 degrees, and went at it 120 grit. Unfortunately, due to some freehand errors with the sanding disk, the bevel was a tad out of square. But, with an hour of working with it, it squared up and started to get a burr!

Couple more things I leaned concerning sharpening and planes. Try using a good wood to test the plane with. Some reason the pine in our area does not give a good indication of how my planes work. Cherry and other types seem to give a better indication. Not saying you can't plane pine, you can, it's just not as consistant.
Lastly and for no reason I understand, if you will pick a direction to sharpen the blade in, either forward only or backward only as compared going forward AND backward, the bevel seems to get even sharper. I guess it again has to do with consistant angle and trying to sharpen both ways, the angle can change a bit.
If your getting that wire edge, your there. Great!