HKS 51 high speed steel in japanese planes? Anyone used it?

[Leigh Betsch]

You guys knock this stuff off! I'm already into Stu for a chisel. If all this talk about HSS plane blades doesn't end I'll be sliding down a Japanese slope along with the rest of you.
By the way, great web site Stu, helps to educate some of us.

[David Weaver]

don't discount the good white steel, too! I finally found a good white steel plane in the last couple of months. It's not like it's as durable as HSS, but it's durable and hard for what it is and man does it leave a nice surface - blindingly sharp for how durable it is.

[Howard Pollack]

Can you tell us the maker and "model"? thanks -Howard

[David Weaver]

Mosaku (kikuo kanda), not sure what model - from what I can find of his stuff, his irons are similar, but often slightly different in appearance on the soft iron - I'll have to look up what stanley told me. He's retired (mosaku). I wouldn't hestitate to buy white steel #1 from any of the better blacksmiths, but it can be relatively expensive compared to a decent quality blue #1 plane, and lower priced white steel planes tend to be sort of uninspiring (either not that hard or not durable or both), just like like lower-priced white steel chisels. That makes it nice to find one used if you can wait.

There are a lot of white #2 planes around. White #1 is apparently harder to get right.

[Chris M Pyle]

Stu, will you be getting any of the Tusnesubaro specialty planes? Rebate? Dovetail? Chamfer plane?

I don't know if the currently make those but I thought that I had seen some somewhere?

[Stuart Tierney]

Yes, absolutely.

The problem is there are dozens of them, and in 3 different steels as well, blue on soft steel, blue on kamaji, HSS on soft steel.

Got a few hundred pictures of them a couple weeks ago as well, it's just time to get it all sorted out and up for perusal.

Plus adding a few new saws as well by some obscure gentleman by the name of Mitsukawa-san...

Stu.