Do any of you just replace plane iron blades rather than sharpen them?

[Max Neu]

I was wondering if it would be more convenient at times to have extra blades that were pre-sharpened on hand for some of the most used planes, like s smoother. Sometimes I think it would nice to just swap out the blade while you're in the moment, rather than stopping to go through the sharpening process.Then go back and sharpen them all at a more convenient time.I am just curious if this is common practice?

[Jim Koepke]

At one time this seemed like a good idea. After awhile there are a lot of dull blades to sharpen.

It now seems more practical to sharpen on the fly. This of course depends on how one is set up. My stones have their own area and are usually ready to go. If one has to unpack then pack their stones for every sharpening, then the changing of blades may be more convenient.

jtk

[george wilson]

Old time woodworkers would often sharpen up 3 or 4 plane irons at the beginning of the day. They'd swap them out as needed. This is why so many old wooden planes have mis matched irons.

They thought it more handy to do this while at the stones.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I have 3 or more irons for every plane and that's what I do. It keeps the focus on the project. If I constantly break away to sharpen, inevitably I also grab a snack, sit and chill out, etc. I also find it easier to sharpen all at once. Soak the stones once, set them up, and make one mess.

[george wilson]

I knew old Mr. Sims,of the Mr. Sim's old tool box that Roy had on his show. That's what he did.

When I knew him,his chisels were about 8" long,for the most part. I was not happy to see Roy showing 2" or 3" chisels. But,Mr. Sim's son was a horrible hack. Ground them to death.

[ken hatch]

At one time this seemed like a good idea. After awhile there are a lot of dull blades to sharpen.

It now seems more practical to sharpen on the fly. This of course depends on how one is set up. My stones have their own area and are usually ready to go. If one has to unpack then pack their stones for every sharpening, then the changing of blades may be more convenient.

jtk

I'm with Jim, A sharpening bench or area makes sharpening just part of the work flow, one I enjoy and at times find the break beneficial. Then again my shop is not a production shop and I do not rely on woodwork for income, if I did a set of extra irons and chisels might make sense.

My sharpening bench is just a couple of steps from the working end of my main bench, one end for water stones, the other oil, diamond, and Spyderco with strops in the middle. Everything needed is out and ready to use. If the iron doesn't need grinding going from dull to sharp is at most a couple or three minutes.

BTW, I also have a most of the time observed hard rule that no iron is returned to the rack unless it has been checked and if needed sharpened.

ken

[glenn bradley]

For my cutters that get used more than others I have spares. This is not limited to planes or even hand tools. For power tools I keep spares for when certain cutters go out for sharpening. For hand tools the spare cutters are stored right in the plane till. The spares generally get acquired during sales, clearance or seconds-sales at reduced prices but, that is not a requirement ;-)

For hand tools, even though stopping to put a fresh face on an iron doesn't take much more time than swapping it, I do not have a sharpening area dedicated in my shop. I do have to walk a whole 15 feet to a drawer and then back to the sink . It is not so much about the effort as it is about losing momentum for me. As Jim K points out, if you're setup and ready to sharpen hand tools at almost any time, the benefit of spares diminishes.

[Brian Holcombe]

Max,

I presented an issue I was having with A2 plane irons to David Weaver and on his suggestion went from a cutting angle of 32 degrees to 34 degrees. It changed things completely from needing to resharpen at mid-day to touching up after a full day with a finishing stone and a makeshift strop.

As much as I love sharpening, I dont like to stop mid-day to run through a full procedure of sharpening. I like to work at night on my projects when I do not have full days, and so this means that I can work for a number of days between sharpenings and turn out high quality finished surfaces.

I don't do this for a living, but I like to use my workshop time efficiently.

[Reinis Kanders]

Check out David Weavers sharpening video on YouTube. I have dabbled with his approach and it works well and is fast. Once you get used to it then sharpening is really not a chore especially for chisels.

[harry strasil]

I used to demo mid 1800's woodworking, but Icannot stand for very long anymore, so my youngest daughters husband now has the shop andis going to do the demoing. people always wanted to know how I kept my planes and chisels so sharp and I showed them a piece of smooth scrap with some of that diamond impregnated sticky back film on it. A couple of swipes on the 12 micron and same on the 5 micron film and its honed till next time, but be careful because it cuts quick.

[Jim Matthews]

Check out David Weavers sharpening video on YouTube.

+1 on this method.
I'm a reluctant convert.

I'm down to about five minutes from "it's dull" to "it's ready" now.
Two stones and cast steel get me back to making furniture, fast.

[Warren Mickley]

I kept three or four smoothing plane irons in rotation for maybe a year or more in the 1980's and then went back to using just one iron. I can't remember all the considerations at the time, but here are some current thoughts.

I really like having intimacy with the iron. It is nice to know just how the iron was performing when it was decided to sharpen, whether the camber needed gentle adjustment, and such. Too many irons or two many planes (I have five bench planes) and one's mind gets clogged with too much information, too much to remember. For high quality work, you need to be sharpening your own irons, getting feedback from the stones and feedback from the performance. You need intimacy.I spend about 90 seconds sharpening a plane iron.

It is highly doubtful that workers used more than one iron per plane in the 18th century. Most irons were tapered and the wedge had to be fitted to this taper. Switching irons involves adjusting the wedge and a .001 removal from a small part of the wedge can make a difference in how easily the plane can be adjusted for depth et cetera.

[Stewie Simpson]

Warren has raised some very valid points.

[george wilson]

Mr. Sims used 3 or 4 irons ,pre sharpened,but he was an early to mid 20th. C. cabinet maker. He was in his 70's in 1970. I learned a lot of old lore from him. I was new to the museum and its culture at that time.

The 18th. C. style planes we made for the museum did have hand forged irons. They had to be fitted to each plane to get them to not chatter,as 18th. C. blades were also pretty thin. Steel and iron were hand processed,and valuable.They "stretched" the metals as far as they could. That included making irons VERY thin. So were other metals stretched. When we made a reproduction of the 18th. C.fire engine,I made the copper air tank much thicker than the original. Firemen who had tried old engines said they wrapped chicken wire around the tanks as they were so thin,they'd blow up. Ours has never blown up. We couldn't risk the liability anyway,of some tourist being hurt when the tank blew up.

As Larry Williams mentioned,they (OUR planes) really were not ready for use as issued.(We did not have the luxury of using precision ground 01 steel in the irons) But,that WAS the nature of planes and their thin irons in the 18th. C.. The Housewrights might have used the planes as issued,but the Cabinet Makers,demanding a finer,chatter free finish,spent time seating the blacksmith's AUTHENTIC roughly forged blades to the planes. Jay Gayner had the,(I must say UNUSUAL),opinion that ALL planes chattered in the 18th. C.. I never agreed with him on that issue. Peter Ross,the master Blacksmith at that time,tended to err on the conservative side of issues,and he was very stubborn. I had to argue with him for 2 hours just to get him to make the irons .010" thicker. I did not have control over their making of the irons. I must say,had I forseen the problems that occurred, Jon and I would have made the irons ourselves.

You have to understand the culture and conditions of the 18th. C.. They were VERY frugal with metal. Most things were VERY expensive compared to today,because everything was HAND MADE. That costs money. Tools were bitted with steel,because steel was Hand processed,and even more costly than iron. In the 19th. C., chisels,etc. of solid "cast steel" began to be sold because they were making it with less effort.

I must say,it was the nature of saws,chisels,and carving tools at that time also to require being "set up". Workmen were expected to sharpen their own cutting tools. Saws were sold with teeth punched,but not sharpened. Carving tools did not even have handles as sold. We did supply our saws sharpened,as 99% of the craftsmen in the museum could not sharpen a saw. If they tried,they screwed up the teeth. Had I been director,I'd have seen that they learned these basic processes that they should have known. The only ones I knew who sharpened saws were a few in the cabinet shop,including Marcus Hansen,who I trained when I was Musical Instrument Maker.

[Eric Schubert]

I'm with Jim, A sharpening bench or area makes sharpening just part of the work flow, one I enjoy and at times find the break beneficial...

ken

I could definitely see that, if you had a dedicated sharpening station, you could easily sharpen on the fly. However, if you have to break out the stones every time you need to sharpen, then put them away, that could be time-consuming and might warrant sharpening multiple blades at one time.