I've been on a bit of a bender with wooden planes lately, which means I've been preparing a lot of irons.
Tonight, I had to prepare an otherwise new ward and payne iron out of an unused or near unused griffiths and norwich try/jointer plane (24" long).
It's typical for a woody iron in a plane that size, 2 1/2" wide, beautifully made, and has a very cleanly made cap iron. But what's not typical is how hard it is. It is easily as hard as any modern western iron I've ever tried, it even grinds slowly. I don't know if it's extra on the carbon side (if the selection of cast steel was made and something in the range of 1.2% cast made it into an iron) or what, but it's extremely hard.
I know for sure that i have good quality japanese irons that are no harder, and maybe would say I only have one japanese iron that is.
It will only barely hone on a washita stone, which is about what japanese irons are also like (carbon steel japanese irons can be sharpened on natural oilstones very well, as long as you don't have to remove much material - you wouldn't want to use them to remove a nick).
It'll be interesting to see how this iron holds up. The plane that it came in is fantastic, with typical attention to the mouth, handle and the entire mortise and abutment area that only seems to be on english planes after about 1825 (that's just a guess).
But good God, the iron was a bear to prepare, and I still have the full complement of stuff to prepare an iron.
Here's my subjective thoughts on irons from this plane and other ones, not large sample sizes, of course:
* Ward and Payne - Extremely hard. May need a bit of tempering if it chips, definitely at a level of hardness where removing chips is miserable on the stones the iron was intended for
* Butcher - Very fine grained, slightly soft. Very nice iron, do wish it was just a little harder, though.
* Hancock - nothing of note that I can remember, middle of the road
* Sorby (older sorby) - very soft, bordering on too soft.
* ohio tool (common iron) - three of these, all of them middling in hardness, not good, but not bad that I can recall
* auburn thistle brand - i only have one of these, but it's middling hardness and very chippy - defective. Nothing good about it.
* mathiesen and son -glasgow - fantastic iron, fine grained, medium hardness, very pleasant
* buck brotheres - medium hardness (surprising for buck - their chisels are slightly soft), very easy grinding and pleasant to sharpen. Very nice.
* pugeout freres - not sure if I spelled that right. fairly soft, very easy grinding and easy sharpening. There are zillions of these in continental europe, kees can probably describe whether or not mine is atypical. not totally unpleasant for the softness - would prefer if it was slightly harder, though.
I would assume that all of these irons were designed initially for stones of the coticule, novaculite (arkansas stones for the uninitiated, charnley in the UK), hone slates. when I first started, I thought most of these were softer because they couldn't be made quality and harder. I thought the same thing about the vintage stanleys.
Once I dropped my other stones and went to a couple of oilstones, all of the sudden the hardness level made a lot of sense. You use them and immediately think "i get it, i get it". Same as the stanley irons, which i now prefer to the new replacement irons. The satisfaction of using them with a single washita, and how surprisingly long they last at what is not shaving sharpness to begin with, and how fast they are to sharpen with a washita. I get it.
Anyone else have any experience with any of the old woody irons mentioned above? Especially the ward and payne? I'm shocked by its hardness, my shoulders are screaming about it right now.
I did work the edge of the W&P on a diamond hone when I was squaring it up before grinding. Not surprisingly, working the bevel on diamonds doesn't amount to much of a challenge for diamonds, a diamond hone will raise a fat wire edge in an instant on M4 powder steel, so that's not much of a surprise.