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Thread: Hardness of Vintage Irons - Subjective Thoughts?

  1. #1
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    Hardness of Vintage Irons - Subjective Thoughts?

    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.

  2. #2
    Glad I'm not the only one into 19th c. plane esoterica.
    I have reconditioned a bunch of these vintage irons, but right now there are 3 that are "in the rotation"--an A.C. Bartlett's single iron, a Buck double, and a Hancock double.
    My main thought is that it's hard for me to isolate hardness because of the laminated construction. In general, they sharpen up pretty quickly (on oilstones), but how much of that is due to the hardness of the tool steel, and how much is due to the thinness of the laminated portion? I can't say. Maybe if I had japanese tools, I would have a better frame of reference. Also, I simply don't have your experience with a wide variety of steels--my tools are all either vintage or O1.
    Anyway, the more important thing for me is the overall performance. The most outstanding thing about all 3 of these is that they never, ever chip, and they can go longer between sharpenings than my solid O1 irons. The Bartlett in particular is simply astounding. It's in my fore, and it can go all day even when I'm taking really heavy cuts and slamming into knots.
    I spent the better part of Saturday reconditioning a 2 1/2" Butcher iron, paired with a Sorby cap iron. I wanted to test it out before wasting a bunch of time making a new plane stock for it, so I used it to chisel end grain for about 20 minutes, pushing it hard. It's the same as the other 3. I couldn't hurt it, the edge never rolled over, it just kept cutting.
    Maybe I have just been lucky, because I have always heard the vintage irons can vary a lot. I've run into this with other tools--I have a Toga OBM chisel that's so soft, it might as well be mild steel. But so far, no dogs with the plane irons.

    P.S Peugot, like the car and bike.
    P.P.S. WTF with the avatar? Scary dude, scary.

  3. #3
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    That avatar is Phil ("Philadelphia") Collins from Trailer Park Boys. Chris has Bubbles for his avatar, and I figured it was time for a change.

    In terms of the thickness of the lamination, there are obviously three factors in grinding - the thickness of the lamination, the thickness of the backer, and the hardness of each (especially the backer). One of the finest things in the world to sharpen is a japanese iron that has been stretched thin with extreme skill, and backed with supple soft wrought iron. It'll make you cast aside other irons, even if they hold an edge longer.

    One of my makers, Mosaku, is my probably my most highly regarded plane. It is glass hard, though, and a lesser known maker that I have a plane from (takeo nakano) that has the fabulous thin lamination with very soft backing, and is probably not quite as hard is the plane I will keep when I unload all of my other japanese planes. That's especially valuable with japanese planes because you don't grind them, you generally keep them up with medium stone on unless they get damaged.

    For vintage irons, I think there's a lot of sense in the same thing - there are some irons that you could easily just keep up with two stones, because the backing metal is so supple, and because they aren't over hardened. The butcher iron that came in my long jointer is that way (circa 1820-1840). The ward and payne iron gives the sense that it's some kind of mild steel or non-wrought iron, and it doesn't yield that well to the grinding wheel.

    The only modern iron I still use at this point is the HSS iron that came in the muji. I've pretty much lost interest in anything that wasn't designed for natural stones. I thought it would never happen, but it definitely did. It's like woodworking in color after spending years of looking at high resolution black and white.

    Like you, I don't have a lot of regard for irons that chip in regular use. failure by wear instead of chipping allows much more thrifty sharpening and much faster sharpening because of the thrift. oilstones and nicked irons don't mix.

    (i'm not sure of the peugeot freres iron is related to the car maker.)

  4. #4
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    I've no idea what stones were contemporary to the era, but I was sharpening molding planes with wet dry on dowels, and came across a Meier & Co, that is practically impervious to abrasion. I gave up on it and moved on. It needs a spot of pitting lapped out, but with the tools at my disposal, it's not happening. A couple Mathiesons in the stack, I agree, nice iron.

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    I do not know much about iron metallurgy.

    Is it possible your blade missed an annealing process after the hardening?

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  6. #6
    I have one Peugeot freres iron. And it seems allright, not too hard, not too soft, but I don't use it very much yet. The plane needs further attention. Most of my wooden planes have a Nooitgedagt iron, prewar. These are perfectly allright. They don't chip, they don't bend and are easy enough to sharpen on my waterstones. I have a Mathiesson which is way too soft. It bends over quickly. I don't know if it has ever been overheated though.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Rozmiarek View Post
    I've no idea what stones were contemporary to the era, but I was sharpening molding planes with wet dry on dowels, and came across a Meier & Co, that is practically impervious to abrasion. I gave up on it and moved on. It needs a spot of pitting lapped out, but with the tools at my disposal, it's not happening. A couple Mathiesons in the stack, I agree, nice iron.
    Put it in the oven at 375 or so, and see what color it is when it comes out. It should be manageable when it's done.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Koepke View Post
    I do not know much about iron metallurgy.

    Is it possible your blade missed an annealing process after the hardening?

    jtk
    It's what I'd call hard tempered. It's been tempered but not where vintage irons usually are. I'm wondering if they're all like that (hard tempered on purpose).

  9. #9
    I will have some thoughts on the main topic later in the day. But I want to emphasize that the harness of a tool is largely dependent on the tempering process, not the brand of steel. All tool steels are very hard after quenching and all are tempered to a softer state. The ideal hardness after tempering is a matter of preference and can be influenced by the manner of use and the sharpening technique.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Warren Mickley View Post
    But I want to emphasize that the harness of a tool is largely dependent on the tempering process, not the brand of steel.
    Absolutely, but I'm wondering if W&P may have made a practice of leaving the irons hard tempered on purpose. I'm not sure how the tempering process would've been done 125 years ago, but I'm sure it was much more controlled than backyard blacksmithing in full sunlight, and not as quick and hands off as modern induction hardening assembly line type setups.

    My experience with buck chisels that say "buck brothers cast steel", for example, is that they are very fine grained, but also tempered a little on the soft side compared to some other chisels, like PS&W.

    Since I don't have enough of a sample size to make any kind of thoughts about who may or may not have made their irons hard tempered on purpose (like you say, as a matter of process), I figured I'd throw the idea up here.

    Steve makes a good point that I've seen less of in western tools and more of in japanese, though, that when the lamination is thin and the backer soft, there can be an illusion that the iron is soft because it sharpens easily. I usually judge irons like that by how fast they release metal particles on a natural stone when they are lapped opposite the bevel side.

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    Thanks Jim and Dave, I'll try the annealing one of these days.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Rozmiarek View Post
    Thanks Jim and Dave, I'll try the annealing one of these days.
    Tempering. Annealing is the process of bringing metal back to an unhardened state (and is not something you'll do in a kitchen oven, anyway).

    * Annealing makes material unhardened so it can be worked or to remove stresses from it. Annealing requires critical temperature heating (This is something like 1400F - not sure exactly where because I go by eye to harden tools and wouldn't have any way to measure the temperature, anyway).
    * Proper hardening makes steel hard, somewhere around its maximum hardness (where it's brittle). Heat to critical and quench.
    * tempering is a slight reheating that reduces the hardness some but rids the steel of its brittleness (i.e., exchanges hardness in favor of toughness). On simpler steels with high carbon, tempering temperatures are within range of a kitchen oven. Only the highest carbon steels (like high carbon simple steel japanese toos) are threatened with degradation in oven temperatures of 375 or so degrees. Some of the western irons that are new (like hock high carbon) are probably tempered short of that by some amount, but whether or not you prefer something like that is highly subjective (I don't). I much prefer straw temper or so tools (and O1 has come out of my oven after 375 with a nice light straw color).

  13. #13
    Hello David,

    I would love to see a picture of this Iron and the plane it came with (you know the old "pics or it didn't happen" thing ) I have found a wide variety of hardness in the vintage laminated irons as well. My favorite iron is a 2 1/4 inch wide butcher that came in a Martin Doscher american made jack plane. I have an old Buck Cast Steel iron that is very hard and a bit chippy, so I guess it just depends.

    Best,

    Jonas

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    I'll snap a few tonight. For some reason, this kind of stuff gets me enthused, I guess because there's so much more style in the irons and cap irons, and in the planes themselves, than there is now in mass produced tools (and that even though W&P was more or less a mass producer, and so was griffiths of norwich).

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    Quote Originally Posted by David Weaver View Post
    Tempering. Annealing is the process of bringing metal back to an unhardened state (and is not something you'll do in a kitchen oven, anyway).
    See, proof that I know practically nothing about working iron properly. Thanks!

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