Looking fer iron

[steven c newman]

i bought a profile plane today. Spent a whopping $1.21 for it. The catch? No Iron, no wedge to hold iron in place, either. The wedge part isn't a big deal, I have one or two on hand. The iron part may be the rough one. This plane produces Astragals (sp). I'll post a picture in a minute, or so. I do have an old plane iron (from a Great neck #4) That I COULD re-shape. IF I need to, that is. Just looking for a place that sell irons/ blanks I can grind to shape.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

You need to heat-treat yourself, but Lie Nielsen sells iron blanks. A bit pricey if you're doing a lot of these kinds of things, but it's nice having them already taper-ground and the tang cut out.

I've seen plenty of molding plane irons on the auction site - start with something oversized and going from there might be an option, too.

[Ryan Baker]

Lie-Nielsen sells tapered blanks that would work for that. You have to fit and profile it, then harden and temper it before you can use it. Select a blank based on the tang size, not the bit size.

Edit -- Joshua types faster than me, I guess...

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Ryan brings up a good point about sizing there, though. . .

[David Weaver]

i bought a profile plane today. Spent a whopping $1.21 for it. The catch? No Iron, no wedge to hold iron in place, either. The wedge part isn't a big deal, I have one or two on hand. The iron part may be the rough one. This plane produces Astragals (sp). I'll post a picture in a minute, or so. I do have an old plane iron (from a Great neck #4) That I COULD re-shape. IF I need to, that is. Just looking for a place that sell irons/ blanks I can grind to shape.

If you think you're going to be doing this kind of thing often, I would buy some 1/8th O1 steel and learn to put a very mild taper on it.

A bench plane iron is no good. You need something unhardened.

You're going to need a metal scribe to scribe the profile onto it, too. That's something you can also make out of raw O1 if you have a way to accurately file and hone a point onto it.

[Terry Beadle]

Re bench plane iron...you can anneal the old blade. The re-shape to your needs. Then re-harden. It's more work but if you buy a blade that you will have to harden any way, it's a close race.

IMO it's better to buy a pre-shaped un-hardened blade. Finish shape it to your die and then harden. Water or Oil hardening steels are not very hard ( pun at no charge..hoot!) to harden.

Enjoy the process.

[Ryan Baker]

Starting from O1 stock is pretty close to starting with something like the Lie-Nielsen blanks, except for a little cutting and some taper. It's less expensive and more versatile to work that way if you are up to learning a few metalworking tricks. Reworking a bench plane iron is actually more work, and won't produce as good results because the blade is usually much thinner and has no taper. If you are working it while still hardened, you are reduced to slow progress with grinding and cutting wheels, and you run a string risk of overheating the blade, requiring you to anneal, harden, and temper it again anyway.

[steven c newman]

I'm not really set up to do a lot of metal working, let alone heat treats. Paid a whole two bucks for this little no-name plane. If someone is interested, let me know.

[steven c newman]

I do have a plane iron of sorts. last year, i made a 1/2' cove type profile plane. the 'iron' was an old file, with the 'teeth almost gone. The wedge also is available, just a little 'fat". Easy enough to change that. File's width is correct for this little $2 profile plane. A little grinding here and there to get both a profile, and a tang.. Taper? not really needed with that file's teeth (what is left of them) in the picture.

[steven c newman]

Man. that was a LOT of grinding!!!! Got the file ground into a close profile of an Astragal for that plane. Old file, blued the "H" out of it. Still need a die grinder to finish the profile off. Wedge was 'fat", but a few swipes on both sides took care of that. Once the grind is done, will try to harden the iron back up.

Forearms were BLACK from all the "old arn" flying around. I was out killing a wee bit of time. two saw handles were also in the shop. A D8, needing some handle work. got the add on piece cut and glued on the Thumbhole's bottom edge. Make-up piece came from a broken backsaw. The new handle for the backsaw was also out in the shop, getting shaped and sanded. The D8 with a skew back and a thumbhole handle cost me a whopping $2, plus I had to walk downtown to get it.