Lie Nielsen A2 issue?

[Patrick Carpenter]

Has anyone else been a little underwhelmed by A2 plane blades from LN? I have a 60 1/2 block plane that is just awesome in almost every aspect but one. It gets pretty sharp, but does not seem to hold up well at all. Mostly when paring end grain it seems like it never takes more than 5-10 cuts before the edge starts giving up. Nothing super serious, but there's visible deformation on the cutting edge and it'll start leaving little micro-lines behind.
I think Hock (and maybe Pinnacle) make replacements that will fit this plane. Any opinions on either of these two, or any other makers? Am I crazy or do I remember seeing laminated replacement block plane blades by a Japanese maker. Maybe Tsunesaburo...?

[Jim R Edwards]

I have had problems with Lee Valley blade edges crumbling but never Lie Nielsen. The A2 blades are my favorite.

[David Dalzell]

I don't know much about A2 v O1, but sometimes irons need to be sharpened several times to grind away the over brittle edges on new steel. The thin leading edge may cause problems on a new blade. How often have yoy sharpened it since you acquired it?

[Stanley Covington]

I have 15 or so LN planes and other edged tools, all A2 steel. I think it is a good steel, as far as it goes. It is intended to provide ease of manufacturing and consistent quality for high-end mass-produced tools. It is not intended to give the best cutting edge possible.

David Weaver will disagree with me, but it dulls quickly, in my experience. A2 will not get as sharp, or hold a sharp edge as long as a well-made vintage blade, or a good quality Japanese plane blade, or even a Hock blade. But sharpness is not everything.

The saving grace with A2 steel is that, after it dulls to a certain point, it will keep on cutting for a long time, not clean glossy cuts, but good enough to waste material. And, if the blade strikes grit, the edge does not chip as deeply as plain high-carbon steel blades do.

Satisfaction comes from holding easily-obtained expectations.

So I guess my conclusion is that it is an OK, but not great, tool steel.

Tsunesaburo makes a Stanley plane replacement blade that is laminated steel. It is thin. It is made from rikizai (pre-laminated steel originally developed for making kitchen knives) and not hand-forged, but it is nonetheless good steel (reasonable expectations, again), and reasonably priced. Mine cuts better than the stock LN blade. I suppose it might work in an LN plane, but I have never tried it.

Stan

[ian maybury]

There's fairly consistent reports about on the web that A2 needs a slightly higher bevel angle than carbon steel/O1 to avoid edge chipping in some situations. e.g. this description of the issue and comparison of the relative strengths and weaknesses of both by Ron Hock came up in a search i made recently: http://www.hocktools.com/A2.htm It's no doubt not by accident that e.g. Lee Valley offer their blades in both A2 and O1 (and now their new steel too) - if one or other steel covered all the bases in everybody's view they likely wouldn't feel the need to do so..

[george wilson]

All tool steels (save the PM metals,possibly. They are LEFT OUT of my comments,as I haven't enough experience with them yet.),are a balancing act between durability and keen ness. NOTHING,NOTHING,NOTHING,will get as sharp as plain carbon steel,like W1. 1095 is in this W1 class of steel. Start adding a little alloy,and you have 01,oil hardening steel. It is a bit more durable on the cutting edge than W1,but it just WILL NOT get quite as sharp. It is a more forgiving steel when hardening. It warps and cracks a lot less than W1,which has to be shocked severely by quenching in water.

Add some chrome,and you have A2,which is great stuff. It hardly changes dimension at all when AIR cooling. I make all of our punch and die sets out of it(I'd use HSS,but don't have an inert gas furnace). A2 will not get as sharp as 01. It is further down the line. If hardened and tempered correctly,it will hold an edge longer than 01. It needs a steeper cutting angle on the edge. Add more chrome,12%,and a few other alloying metals,and you have D2,a metal designed for shearing other metals. It,once again,will not hold an edge as sharp as A2. I have a pocket knife made from it,which has proved a disappointment. It will very quickly lose a shaving sharp edge,BUT,seems to stay just below the completely sharp level forever. D2 would make great punches and dies,except it is a bit too brittle to suit me. I don't want corners breaking off a die when my wife doesn't get the die and punch set in perfect alignment. Some dies are a lot of work to make,and the holes they mate to have to be perfectly fitted,so they'll shear paper clean as a whistle.

These are the 4 steels I have used the most. They have to be used for their appropriate uses. APPROPRIATE USES are the key words here. I can't stress that enough. And,their cutting geometry has to be adjusted to suit their properties.

When I have to plane the most un planeable material(like skiving the fuzzy suede off of chrome tanned ray skin(a nearly impossible task with a plane!!),ONLY a W1 blade will do. When planing an obnoxious wood that is hard on blades,A2 is a better choice.

I took pity on the coopers in the museum,always planing hard white oak out in the freezing or burning hot weather. I secretly made them a few hand forged A2 blades for their jointers. They were very grateful. And,the tourists would never be able to tell!!

Their blades had to plane huge numbers of linear feet of white oak,making curved staves out of straight white oak blanks.

[lowell holmes]

I keep a diamond hone and strop on the bench for touch up when needed.

It keeps me from fretting about such things.

I learned that from Homestead Heritage back in '02.

[Chris Griggs]

Raise the angle a few degrees. If you still have issues grind 1/16" of the tip of the blade.

Also, when the edge fails quickly like its been doing check to see if its rolling or chipping. If its just chipping a bit its probably just a matter of using a higher angle or grinding a bit off to get past the bit of steel at the tip that might be a little weak. If the edge is rolling (e.g. if there is a burr on the back of the blade after a few strokes) the blade may be too soft.

Even from companies like LN and LV sometimes the steel at the tip of the blade is bit decarbonized and need to behoned/ground past. And every once in a while something gets past the goalie. I don't have a lot LN tools, but in general I have found their A2 top quality.

[David Weaver]

quite some time ago now, I sharpened a couple of A2 irons using charlesworth's method with a shapton 15k as the finish stone, and lie nielsen's iron lasted the longest on a hard maple board. Hard maple is a nice planing wood and planes smoothly. I took 2 thousandth shavings the entire time and adjusted the plane every 25 or 50 strokes if the shavings weren't proper thickness, and waxed the sole so I could get a good feel for how much resistance was due to sharpness and how much was due to the sole of the plane.

Side comment, if you think your smoother is getting dull and the finish is still decent, wax the sole. Often, the planes not dull, just the user.

Anyway, I got 1700 feet out of the lie nielsen iron at the time.

Everything depends on circumstances, but when you use charlesworth's sharpening method, you are setting up an ideal bevel for an A2 iron such that it wears and doesn't chip.

In terms of initial sharpness, if you have a medium that will cut the carbides on A2 and you spend enough time on it, it will get as sharp as anything else. Same for any of the other steels. Submicron diamonds come to mind.

[Shawn Pixley]

I don't think I have experienced that issue. I find that it stays as sharp longer as anything else out there save the PM V11.

I flat bevel at 25 degrees (I don't have anything hollow ground) with a 2 degree secondary bevel for the block plane. I get a lot more that 5-10 cuts before it has lost the first edge on my adjustable mouth low angle block plane. I'll strop or get out the 12,000 grit waterstone to touch-up the edge again. The LN irons are equivelent or better than most of my stock (Stanley) or replacement irons (Hock or IBC). I've experienced some chipping in any of the above when working with very hard woods (Ebony, Zirricote, Cocobolo, etc..). I have also chipped the PM V11 blades from my chisels on these. No big deal, that's what the stones are for.

[george wilson]

David,have you tried shaving with an A2 blade? Probably not,since they don"t make razors out of A2. And for a good reason. Am I wrong? I'm not a straight razor shaver myself. Maybe I'm wrong?

[David Barnett]

...and forgive this diversion from the OP.

When I have to plane the most un planeable material(like skiving the fuzzy suede off of chrome tanned ray skin(a nearly impossible task with a plane!!),ONLY a W1 blade will do. When planing an obnoxious wood that is hard on blades,A2 is a better choice.

I have a 1095 English parer I've used for skiving shagreen/galuchat since my days as a bookbinder (nearly four decades ago). Where I used to find thinner and less challenging baby hides of good quality, nowadays most chrome-tanned hides are larger and as thick, tough and as hard on cutting edges as anything I've ever worked.

I've used just about everything to thin and pare the body of ray leather; spokeshaves, rasps, bench planes, razor and Rali planes, flexshafts and so on, but for turned edges, I'll stick with my extremely sharp low-beveled English parer off a well-worn hard-calendered horse butt strop.

The top-quality John Fong hides sold for cordwaining took some real work to thin for furniture, boxes, lamps, clocks, cabinet pulls and small leather items such as jewelry and watchbands, but the effort was worth it. I used to sand the more fine-grained skins but for larger skins with bolder placoid scales I now prefer files.

Interesting subject; galuchat and woodworking.

[Phil Gaudio]

As others have stated, bevel/micro bevel angles are important with the A2 iron. Using 3M microfinishing film to sharpen, I've been very happy with the performance of LN A2 irons: picture shows a 1 thou shaving on top (cherry, using LN 4.5 with HAF) and a 3 thou shaving on bottom (maple end grain, using LN 103). Can't remember the last time I sharpened either one of them. IMG_3266.jpg

[David Weaver]

David,have you tried shaving with an A2 blade? Probably not,since they don"t make razors out of A2. And for a good reason. Am I wrong? I'm not a straight razor shaver myself. Maybe I'm wrong?

You could shave with anything the right hardness these days. All you'd have to do is sharpen with chrome oxide or submicron diamonds as the last step (submicron diamonds, I guess, if there's a lot of vanadium carbides).

Henckels friodur mad razors out of what I believe is a variant 440c, and there are specialty makes out of oddball stuff. I think dovo may use something similar to the CV tool steel that knife makers like case uses and harden it just a tick or two harder (i believe their hardness spec is about 58 or something), but their video shows them quenching in what looks like oil.

Whatever they use, like everyone else, I'd assume that it's the least expensive thing that they can get away with that also doesn't warp much in heat treat. I found it fine to use, but had a heavier grind of razor from them and don't know what they do in general (i.e., if they're capable of grinding as finely as they did 75 years ago in germany when you could name the cutlers in some cases and know they hardly ever made a bad razor).

Anyway, dovo still makes stainless versions, and on the other end of the spectrum are individuals like iwasaki who have made carbon steel western style razors spec to 67 or 68 hardness.

I think A2 would do fine, but it probably costs more than what the makers are using and their process is oil hardening.

One last aside, I had a razor that I think was very similar to the tungsten HSS. It boasted about being the best high tungsten steel on the box, and it was japanese (probably shortly after WWII). Very nicely made, but shaved terribly off of natural stones. I worked it up on synthetics with chromium oxide powder as the last step and it shaved great.

Back in the day when people sharpened razors with coticules and slates, though, they wouldn't have been very happy with you if you used A2.

My personal favorite is still carbon steel, but I had a three friodur razors and they were all OK. One of them had a tiny dot of corrosion on it, which was surprising. The japanese razor was the hardest of the bunch to sharpen, though. No clue why because little is specified in the world of razors, and people don't ask many technical questions. There is more trial and error, and razor uses are very weird about cosmetics - cosmetically perfect brings good money. Light removed rust in a non critical area can halve the value of a razor.

[george wilson]

David B. Years ago I was asked by the bookbinder's shop in Wmsbg. to teach them how to sharpen their tools. They were using those little pot metal hobby planes that took old fashioned double edged razor blades for skiving their leather. I tried one of those as a kid,but the blade stuck out too much to do a decent job on balsa wood. It just grabbed and took way too coarse a cut.

They still didn't know what to use,so I made them some at least more decent looking brass planes that still used the razor blades to skive their leather. Some time,and a different supervisor later,we had another round of how to sharpen tools. I did some research,and it seemed like the 18th. C. book binders(or,I should say LEATHER SKIVERS)(probably supplied the book binders with tissue thin leathers),laid the skin over an inclined,rounded wooden "horse",and skived it with draw knife like tools that were razor sharp. I made up a quick setup,and we tried skiving leather very thin. It took considerable skill though(and surely YEARS of practice(),so they never adopted the method. You might know more about skiving leather than I do. It wasn't my trade,or my main concern!!

Eventually,they gave up on the crappy hobby like use of razor blade planes. Instead,I taught a new bunch of them to sharpen razor sharp again. They settled upon using very sharp spokeshaves to skive. I think they still do. They also use English made skiving knives made of 1/16" thick spring steel,with a 45 degree angled blade. A very simple,taper chopped off skiving blade. They thin out around the edges with them.

Chrome tanned leather,as you know,is the worst stuff in the World to try to skive (They used vegetable tanned). But,I could only find chrome tanned ray skin to use. It needed to be as thin as toilet paper. It was murder to plane the FLUFF off. As said,only my LN block plane with the early W1 blade could plane it. I did not have my PM VII blade for my NX60 LV plane yet. Must try that.