What did I buy myself into!

[Josh Bowman]

If you flatten more than a quarter inch or so, sometimes if the area that's farther away is farther "out" that the area that's "closer" you might not be able to get the blade to "register" to the stone. I also think it's important to keep very equal pressure, emphasize very, equal pressure across the contact surface. I've had to redo the plane blades, especially the HCS. (or are you using a piece of wood).

D

Dan,
Thanks for the response. I got a little lost in your post. I lay my stones so they are long ways, away from me. I then put the as little of the blade back on the stone that I can keep balanced. I even some times use double sided tape to adhere a small wooden block to the bevel side just to keep even pressue on the blade, no so today, since I thought the blades would only need a stroke of so to flatten them....but I was wrong. I do try to keep consistant pressure on the blade, but after about 1/2 hour and your fingers are cramping, I have even tried to get a gloved palm on the thing just to get some relieve. The glove thing is hard earned experiance! If a stone with take off steel.....it will for sure remove flesh!

[David Gendron]

Like others said, you only need to get less than one inche frome cutting edge to be flattened... In other words, hold the plane blade in one hand and put your other hand fingers on top of that one inche or less on the bevel side and pushe down on the stone going back and forth side to side. It should take you just a few minuts if so on each stone to bring them to a nice polishe!
Also, i read some where that using a DMT to flaten the water stone with is only good if the DMT is only use for that and not also use for sharpening, it could get your H2O stone out of flat?!

[Richard Magbanua]

Josh, it seems you're working way too hard to get these blades ready. I've only honed four new blades but when I did I used my King water stone, 800 on one side and 4000 on the other, and then strop with metal polish on MDF. I don't have a 6 or 8000 stone yet. I suggested flattening about an inch or so just to keep it flat on the stone and prevent the edge from being rolled. I've tried using the ruler trick and I like it. It's quicker and makes it a lot easier. I also hollow grind the bevel on my grinder freehand just to get rid of the metal between the edge and top of the bevel. Again, this makes sharpening easier to accomplish. Speaking of bevels, 25 degrees is the standard main bevel but I hone to 30-35 degrees. Again, its easier to just remove what you need to. No reason to sharpen the entire original bevel, just the edge. I'd say for a new blade I probably spend less than an hour on it including the camber. For the camber I follow the Lie-Nielsen directions with good results.
One last suggestion would be to check to see if there's a 'Creeker nearby or WW'ing club where you could learn with someone.

[george wilson]

A2 blades do not warp much at all. You might find buying A2 blades to be more satisfactory in the flat aspect. I make punches and dies that have to stay very accurate to size and shape after hardening,or they don't fit well,or won't go back together after hardening. A2 holds to about .0001" tolerance. I also make my plane irons out of A2,and they stay flat.

[Dan Racette]

Dan,
Thanks for the response. I got a little lost in your post. I lay my stones so they are long ways, away from me. I then put the as little of the blade back on the stone that I can keep balanced. I even some times use double sided tape to adhere a small wooden block to the bevel side just to keep even pressue on the blade, no so today, since I thought the blades would only need a stroke of so to flatten them....but I was wrong. I do try to keep consistant pressure on the blade, but after about 1/2 hour and your fingers are cramping, I have even tried to get a gloved palm on the thing just to get some relieve. The glove thing is hard earned experiance! If a stone with take off steel.....it will for sure remove flesh!

They do remove flesh. I'd say that you are probably tired/fatigued right now. You need to build up "muscle memory" of holding your fingers/hands/wrists firmly in the right positions for extended periods of time.

I know it's probably hard to get less than an inch on the stone registered, but think about it, you'll have to register less than an inch when you are working on the bevel, right??

I'd just like to say encouraging things to you, to say, stick with it and take a break and try again at another time after you've had a rest. Don't get caught up during this period of frustration and start a phase of buying everything under the sun to fix something that is really a learned skill.

Personally, I am right hand strong, so I hold the blade in my right hand. I use my thumb in the front and my ring finger in the back and my pinky/ring as a "rest" again the side of the plate. My index and middle put pressure in the middle of the blade just beyond the bevel. The other hand is spread equally across the bevel. In no place to I put "white knuckle" pressure. I go to that and dial just back.

I listen to the stone cut. You can get the stone to cut faster with white knuckle pressure, but you can also get it to cut unevenly. (What! I'm strong enough to bend steel! not really, just abrade it unevenly). I try to get the blade to slide through the slurry, and keep the stone well lubricated.

I also take the stone back to a second surface plate and flatten it often. That's what I learned from my teacher. There are also a lot of tricks in books, videos, and from people you meet.

I check out every title I can get my hands on at the local library, since it's free! A service that's hard to find these days. (plug, plug)

Seriously. Take a break. If you aren't enjoying yourself, that's not good. I find (and some will disagree) sharpening very meditative. Although back flattening, a little bit more cumbersome.

I also don't care for A2 steel. I don't like the cut as much as High Carbon Steels which is what I'm assuming you got from Hock, as that's what they're famous for. A2 takes it's first few cuts, and then it's not quite as "laser" sharp as HCS, but you don't have to hit it again for quite sometime. HCS really gets sharper, I've found, but you have to go back to the strop and the finer stones alot more.

D

[James Taglienti]

Wow. I just bought a hock iron for a 10 1/2 bench rabbet. It looked like crap when it showed up. It was ground about 1/16 out of square, with a big nasty grinding burr on it. Also the rabbet sides were out of square and i had to grind and lap them so it fit the plane. To top it all off, the machine marks were brutal and took a good 30 minutes of lapping to get them out. Also the blade had an ugly double strike on the logo. The iron was $58 after shipping, i would expect a little more from Hock. The good news is, after the hour long tune up, it works like a charm. I was certainly not all smiles when i got the blade, like i thought i would be.

[James Taglienti]

I often wonder how our predecessors made such beautiful work without all the so called new improved LOL blades. Where they just better craftsmen or better sharpeners?

Well, they had tapered irons.

[Keith Christopher]

......

And no cumbersome time consuming fancy jigs to hold them to hone with, is the new generation just possessed with owning every so called easier to use jig they can lay there hands on, so they can waste numerous hours trying to emulate what the old timers did with their hands and little time as they needed to put product out the door to make a living......

I have to agree with this. sharp and honed, too many today are worried about it being 'perfect' and when you see hand made furniture you always hear people talking about the nuances of hand tooled work.

[Sam Takeuchi]

You should've gone with ruler trick if you are having that much difficulty. Yes it does add slight back bevel, but it's slight enough that it doesn't really matter if it's there or not. It is a shortcut, but it's a shortcut that works. Just because you decided to use ruler trick doesn't make you any less of a woodworker nor does your blade perform any less. Unless you are hell bent on achieving perfectly flat back, I think you should take a step back and consider if it's your objective is to fiddle with tools or to make something with that tool.

If your stone is 3" wide, that's plenty wide for ruler trick.

As far as your problem goes, I suspect you have a hump in the middle and you have been trying to grind the hump away from one side. If you keep at it, eventually hump will go away, but end up with one side thinner. Ideally what you could've done is to assess the blade and figure out where the problem is, and then try to grind that hump away by controlling pressure. You could've even used ruler trick to condition the hump in the beginning to grind it away or create enough flat area before grinding/lapping evenly across. It prevents rocking while flattening.

If you want to continue, it might be easier and faster if you use a coarse abrasive paper on glass/granite. If you use something like #80 or #100, they'll remove metal very quick. As long as you follow up with finer grit on paper or stone, you should be good. Maybe your diamond stone is worn and not cutting as much. While diamond is hard, it does wear and certainly not forever like De Beers says when it is used for grinding and lapping.

[Joel Goodman]

I'm with the OP -- why do all this work when other choices are available like LN or LV that sell better prepped blades? I have no doubt the Hock blades are excellent but in my limited experience a lot of work unless you favor the ruler trick.

[James Carmichael]

+1 on Harry and Dan's comments. All you need is a little flat near the edge.

In defense of our generation (I'm a baby-boomer, the rest of you are on your own:-), I hone free-hand. After learning how to hold a consistent bevel sharpening knives as a kid, doing the same with the comparatively huge bevel of a plane iron or chisel is a piece of cake. I'm also too impatient to futz with jigs very much.

In defense of Hock irons, I've bought two of the Krenov-style from him and had no problems with either, though one is still waiting for a woodie to call home.

[Josh Bowman]

Thanks for all the help! I did edge up to the ruler trick. I didn't go all the way yet....I used a thin piece of flashing....the results are very remarkable. The blades flattened out fairly quickly and did not create such a small back bevel as I thought it would. At least using the thin flashing material it made about a 1/2" flat area. I even took the old 112 blade to use as a control group, and even though it's pitted badly, it did fairly well. It's still hard to get a consistant polish across the blades, but it's better than I was doing by hand and the results were very good. After I completed the sharpening. Richard thanks, I was working to hard....I kept it to the DMT, King 800/4000 and the cherry block. I included pictures of my setup and am open to coaching. The first 2 pictures are of the DMT, King 800 with the flashing ruler, the third picture is of the 3 blades after the flattening, the next 2 pictures show a close up of the ......somewhat inconsistant polish. The last 2 are the results. I DO feel the planes cut more stable, they seem to shear the wood better, I have noticed some ridges on the cherry board and am trying to get a smoother surface.
Couple of questions, how do I get a consistant thin shaveing, mine tend to be either stringing from 1 side or the other and not always full width.
Which way does the bevel go on the 112 and which way is the burr rolled?

[Richard Magbanua]

Wow, you've been busy today! Great job. I'm glad we could help. It seems you've got the idea. Inconsistent shavings may not be a sign of needed improvement. If you're getting .001" shavings you may not get consistent shavings unless the board is perfectly flat to begin with. At the smoothing stage your goal should be to get a finished surface. It's normal and desirable for many to be able to see irregularities in a planed surface, as it is a sign of a hand worked surface. If you're still getting too thin of a shaving just hone a bit more in the middle. Remember, it's just sharpening. Don't worry about perfection, you'll have to do it all again soon anyway.

Congrats!