Got my first PM-V11 blade today

[Shawn Christ]

Due to inspiration from this forum I started acquiring and restoring vintage hand planes several months ago and am now learning how to use them. My most recent find was a sweetheart era Stanley 4 1/2. I bought it on the big auction site and was disappointed to later find that the blade was cupped, the bevel is convex as it touches the workpiece. I worked and worked on it but just couldn't get the back flat. I want to use this as a smoother so I decided to look for a replacement blade and settled on the Veritas PM-V11. It arrived today, I gave it a quick final honing and put it to work on walnut. Here are my first impressions of the PM-V11:

1. It is much shorter than the original blade. In fact, it's shorter than all of the original (and used) Stanley blades in my collection. I understand this won't affect the performance but it was immediately noticeable. Hopefully the added durability of this blade will give me about the same service life as a longer standard blade.
2. The color is quite different than the original steel and iron.
3. It takes very nice shavings.

[Frederick Skelly]

Interesting. I havent tried one yet. Will one day, just to see.
Thanks for the post!
Fred

[Jim Belair]

That's a good reason to buy a replacement blade. I hesitate to buy a new one for a plane that has a perfectly serviceable vintage blade.

[bridger berdel]

One of these days I'll do the same. I don't have any planes missing blades, so I'll have to choose one on it's merits. I have planes from 1 through 8, so no easy way out. I'm thinking that a smoother will be a better test than a Jack or jointer. Besides, the smoothers are the planes I use the most. But which smoother? 1, 2, 3, 4 or 4-1/2?

[Patrick Chase]

1. The color is quite different than the original steel and iron.

That's because PM-V11 is stainless, which implies a Chromium content of 15+ percent. If it's the specific alloy I suspect then the nominal Cr content is 16.0% per its manufacturer. If it weren't powdered-metal it would have huge grain structure and be very chip-prone, slightly worse in both respects than D2. Fortunately it is PM, and IMO it's vastly less "chunky" than D2 and quite a bit better than A2.

The original iron is basically iron, ~0.8% carbon, and some trace alloyants at <0.4% each.

[bridger berdel]

Ok, so no pmv11 blades for the #1. Interestingly, they are all 7" long, so there should be more sharpenable length from the narrower widths. I like the #2 size, but I probably put more time on the #3. Otoh, if I get the #4 size I can use it also on the #5. then again, the #4-1/2 size could also be used on the #5-1/2 (well, not my 5-1/2 as it's the early narrower one), #6, or #7. That would definitely be the most versatile, but mostly out of range for smoothing. Another factor is thickness. The PMv11 blades are a bit thicker, so the plane may need a bit of fettling to get it in there. I don't think that any of my planes have really tight mouths, so that might not come into play at all. Another thing is that they cost $50, kind of a lot for a plane that alreadt has a perfectly good blade....

[Mike Brady]

Did you have to file the mouth of the plane to get the blade to fit?

[Shawn Christ]

Did you have to file the mouth of the plane to get the blade to fit?

No, and I didn't need to move the frog either.