Flattening a Hard Silicon Carbide Honing Stone

[Tom M King]

I forgot to say that I put the window pane on top of a cinder block's flat side.

[Patrick Chase]

I forgot to say that I put the window pane on top of a cinder block's flat side.

And here I thought you were supposed to just put a cinder block under each end and have at it as hard as you can. Who knew? :-)

[Stewie Simpson]

Trialled 150 grit sic powder to flatten the reverse side of the Norton Crystolon Honing Stone. (1/16" hollow down full length of stone). 15 min work.

Stewie;

[Tom M King]

I keep the carborundum grit in a salt shaker to use. It used to come in little metal cans, with a "salt shaker" type top, with a screw off metal lid. I wish it still did.

[Stewie Simpson]

All of my oil stones have now been flattened using 150 grit sic, this was followed by a good rinse and wipe down using a mix of household detergent and warm water to remove any contaminants. The stones were then treated to a good soaking of Dan's Honing Oil.



I also worked the sole of my Stanley #4 for 15 min using the 150 grit. The critical areas are totally flat. I will be ordering some 60 grit sic to flatten the remaining soles on my Stanley bench planes. (No LV or LN bench planes in my workshop.)




Before I started working the sole of the No.4 , the hollow stretched from the front toe - to just shy of the heel. Not ideal.


Stewie;

[Stewie Simpson]

This afternoon I flattened the sole on my Stanley #5C, a fairly quick process with a corrugated sole. A quick resharpen of the blade, and set the cap iron clearance by eye to around 0.8 mm. Very nice shavings.

Stewie;

[Howard Pollack]

What is a "plastic laminating sheet" and where do you get them? Thanks.
-Howard

[Patrick Chase]

What is a "plastic laminating sheet" and where do you get them? Thanks.
-Howard

LV sells super thick ones that work well with basically all grits: http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/pag...17&cat=1,43072

For finer grits (say, #150 and above) standard laminating sheets from office supply outlets work fine, for example these. The cheap ones get shredded pretty quickly with coarse grits though.

[Stewie Simpson]

A quick resharpen of the blade, and set the cap iron clearance by eye to around 0.8 mm.

Unless your dealing with reverse grain; the act of backing off the cap iron should eliminate most of the wear characteristics inherent within a closely set cap iron.

http://planetuning.infillplane.com/h...ron_study.html

This hollowing of the face is a result of the shavings flowing from the tip and being curled against the blade face by the cap iron. The pressure of these shavings is sufficient to wear away the metal in the region of high shaving pressure between the cap iron edge and the blade tip. Closer placement of the cap iron to the cutting edge and/or increasing the angle of the leading edge of the cap iron increases the shaving deflection (which Kato calls the “cap iron effect”) thereby increasing the pressure of the shaving and, correspondingly, increases the amount of wear on the blade face.