Why does it take me so much time?

[Steve Voigt]

Lots of good tips in this thread. Two things that have helped me:

1) As others have mentioned, grind a hollow. Warren mentioned a sandstone wheel. Others use a Dremel. I use an angle grinder. This guy even uses a bench grinder.

2) I used to have a lot of difficulty moving from sandpaper (or sanding belt) to my oilstones. As others have mentioned, the sandpaper tends to dub, so when you move to the stones, they tend to work the center of the iron, and it takes a long time to get to the corners. I solved this by abrading my stones first. I abrade my medium India, soft ark, and hard ark, using loose silicon carbide grit on glass. After the sandpaper (I usually stop at 100 or 150 grit), I move to the medium India. If the back of the iron is not uniformly abraded within 3-4 minutes, I abrade the medium India stone again. With this approach, I never have to spend more than 5-6 minutes on that initial transition. Once I'm done with the medium stone, it is no more than a minute or two on the other stones.

For people who object to abrading their oilstones, a solution might be to reserve one side for flattening and the other for sharpening.

…

Ron Brese, I think I'm not understanding your point about stones. We obviously agree that there is an issue moving from PSA (or similar) to stones, but no matter what your sharpening method, you need to finish the back flattening on your normal sharpening media (whether it's oilstones, waterstones, diamonds, whatever), right?

[Jim Koepke]

The laws of physics dictate that you will always remove more material from the leading edge of anythings you're lapping. You need to swap edges and lap a different direction to get accurate results.

This used to cause me a bit of grief until it was better understood.

Replacement blades is a good idea for the real dogs. Turn the really bad blades into glue scrapers or marking knives.

Some of my blades have hours invested in getting them to work well. It was well worth it since it will not have to be done again.

Those people in the videos pick a blade that will go quickly. They can do that in movies and it makes the rest of us feel a bit inadequate.

jtk

[Ron Brese]

Warren the OP stated this was an iron from a #3 which I am assuming is from a Stanley plane. Many of those irons have been used, abused and generally not worth the time it takes to get them back to user shape if possible at all. I think time has a value and I'd rather be woodworking in lieu of spending hours on an iron that can be replaced for forty bucks.

I did not state that an iron could not be flattened on stones. But I did state one would have to be vigil to keep that stone flat during the process in order to attain consistent results. My comments was to suggest the use of a more consistent substrate and medium. There are many different ways to achieve the same end. Even when I use stones on the bevel side of the iron I typically wipe the burr off the back using the 3m film on a surface plate. It's the same every time I use it. The most common complaint I hear from people learning to sharpen is about inconsistency in contact when wiping the burr off the back of the iron. Most likely due to waterstones that have changed shape since last used for this purpose.

Many knowledgable people tend not to post here because you have a habit of twisting everything they state and then question the viability of those statements. I apologize for forgetting that you are the most superior woodworking being on earth. (tongue in cheek)

Ron

[David Ragan]

I have to chime in here, after done grinning @ the finish of Ron's last post--a point well made, and probably not often enough....

What's the deal with me reading (somewhere) that you periodically have to re-flatten the back of a blade? Once it's flat, that's it, right. We are talking the immutable laws of physics here, right?

[Brian Holcombe]

I've had one iron come out of flat after a year or so of use. It was an A2 iron for a number 7 plane. Not wildly out of flat, but it was enough.

So far so good since re-flattening

[david charlesworth]

Please note I have never advocated doing the ruler trick on anything other than an 8,000 grit waterstone or equivalent.

Flattening badly out of shape irons is serious work. I remember spending a day and a half flattening a new Stanley, 2 3/8" blade in about 1970. It should have been sent back!

I run courses in plane tuning and insist that the students have a Hock blade or equivalent, available. This way we don't lose two days on back flattening.

I particularly like the hardness of modern blades, when working difficult timbers.

Best wishes,
David

[ian maybury]

'The most common complaint I hear from people learning to sharpen is about inconsistency in contact when wiping the burr off the back of the iron.' That's another reason I suspect why (unless care is taken to the sort of level Ron describes to ensure a perfectly flat stone) the ruler technique is often a very good bet.

'Once it's flat, that's it, right. We are talking the immutable laws of physics here, right?' Yes and no David. The issue is that the back will probably stay flat, but that using the plane creates a tiny wear bevel on the front/primary bevel (and in this case especially significantly) on the back sides. This has to be removed when you re-sharpen to create the classic sharp edge formed of two polished surfaces intersecting at the required angle. This can be done by cutting back the front bevel enough (so that you get back into the flat part of the back), the new edge is then honed/polished to the required finish via a (normally) quick rub on the flat/back of the to eliminate any tiny wire edge remaining.

The problem that many seem to run into is as Ron summarised is that if the back and stone are not perfectly flat (or the honing has dubbed the leading edge a shade as a result of wrong movements), or the wear bevel has not been fully cut away then the cutting edge/line of the wire edge doesn't quite get to touch the face of the stone. Not only that - any out of flatness in the stone may also slightly dub the edge of the iron and worsen the situation. Additional working on a by now re-flattened stone won't easily solve the problem because there's such a large area of metal to be worked - which is why practical remedies include cutting the primary bevel back some more, or very lightly using the ruler trick to tip tip the iron up a little to get the edge back in contact with the stone.

Finish stropping (on a semi rigid/slightly flexible surface like leather) seems to be another technique that may reduce the dependency on very flat iron surfaces and stones to deliver a sharp edge - one reason why some may get better results using it...

PS to David: I guess once our children get out we lose control of them - but pardon my freehand borrowing/quoting your thinking. In terms of (careful) use of a coarser diamond plate to ruler trick a significantly less than flat iron into submission i was thinking of Rob Cosman's YouTube video where he preps a new WR iron. It's a horses for courses/what works works sort of deal (and as you know i've so far out of a purist sort of mentality been doing my best to keep everything flat enough to run without using the ruler trick) - but it's adoption and adaptation by so many and the results obtained are testament to its usefulness and practicality….

[Kees Heiden]

This is a great thread. Many thanks for all the ideas.

I certainly have an issue with the flatness of my sharpening media for this job. For normal sharpening this is not such an issue I find (within reason of course). But when I move from one medium to the next, flatness becomes paramount. It's a pitty my lead on granite surface plates dried up. Sometimes getting stuff like this overhere is difficult. Likewise with sanding paper. Only the most mundane stuff can be bought easilly.

And I still want to restore these irons. They have the patina matching the rest of the plane. They have the right patent logos. And I am very happy with the iron in my type 11 #7, so I hope to find similar steel in these ones.

[Ron Brese]

Steve my normal flattening media is the 3m abrasive film and I use that media all the way thru to a polished back. After working the bevel to create a new edge I just wipe the burr off using the finest grade of the 3m abrasive film.

Ron

[Alan Schwabacher]

For what it's worth, I've found loose grit to be much more effective than sandpaper for initial flattening, but it makes a difference what surface it's used on. Spent sandpaper glued to a flat surface, sprinkled with loose 80 grit SiC cuts much faster than 80 grit on a smooth surface, and the paper avoids damage to the underlying surface.

[ian maybury]

Another for what it's worth. I found myself doing so much flattening of waterstones to keep them microscopically flat that the otherwise excellent 400 grit Atoma diamond plate became a pain to use - and i'm guessing that maybe similar issues put some off from flattening frequently enough.

It's not pretty, but the ply handle below has worked very well for me. The first lasted for the life of the plate with no problems.

It's attached using a 1.5mm/ 1/16th in thick polyurethane foam permanent bonding tape. Choosing the right one matters. This is what i used - it may or may not be available in the US but there's likely something equivalent: http://www.amazon.co.uk/UniBond-More.../dp/B001DYS76Q

The key is that (a) it bonds really strongly (permanently after a time), (b) the foam tape while tough/strong and fairly firm is still flexible enough so that there's no risk of pulling a warp into the diamond plate (it's nothing like a stock double sided tape, or the typical gap filling open celled double sided self adhesive foam strip) and ( c) seems to be fully waterproof. Best to wash both surfaces with some lacquer thinner and let them dry before making the joint, push the joint together firmly on assembly with the plate supported on a truly flat surface, and (maybe) let the bond build overnight before use.

handle tape atoma diamond plate.jpg

[Alan Schwabacher]

One other thing I've seen on Paul Sellers's blog and not tried, is to deal with a convex surface on a plane iron by hammering rather than grinding.
http://paulsellers.com/2014/05/does-...ave-you-hours/

[Ray Selinger]

After getting a 1949 Stanley #4 flat and square and changing out the iron and cap iron, I concluded a Veritas plane is quite inexpensive.And I still want to put cocobolo tote and knob on it. I know it's the process not the product.

[Aaron Rappaport]

Regarding hogging out a back hollow with a bench grinder and Steve's link above to Tim Manney's blog post about it. I've used this method before and while it's very fast, there's always the danger that you will hog off too much. So I created a spreadsheet of the depth of the groove you make if you pull the back of your blade directly across the perimeter of your grinding wheel, as a function of the width of the groove. Unlike the depth, the width is something you can actually see and control while you're grinding.

In actual practice, Manney pulls the back of his blade across the edge between the wheel's perimeter and its face, as have I when I've used this method. Nevertheless, the table is still useful because it gives you an upper limit on depth of the groove you're making, so it's a good way to ensure you don't remove too much metal.

The table's values are calculated using good ol' trigonometry.

I heartily recommend practicing this method on a beater blade or two before using it on something whose use and/or appearance is important to you.

	Wheel diameter
Max depth	5	6	7	8
0.001	0.14	0.15	0.17	0.18
0.002	0.20	0.22	0.24	0.25
0.003	0.24	0.27	0.29	0.31
0.004	0.28	0.31	0.33	0.36
0.005	0.32	0.35	0.37	0.40
0.006	0.35	0.38	0.41	0.44

Aaron

[Kees Heiden]

It looks like I am getting somewhere. polished (at least along the edge) and FLAT. The trick was flattening the stones very often. i spend the most time on the 1000 stone, to correct the vagarities of the 400. Polishing after the 1000 was a minute job.

blade.JPG

And after all the work, even flattening the sole a bit, this was the result. At least it can plane pine.

plane.JPG

On to the next one.