Blade for shooting board use

[Michael Handrinos]

Do you put a micro bevel on your plane blade being used with a shooting board?

Thanks
Michael

[Terry Beadle]

Depends on the plane being used for shooting.

If it's a low angle jack, usually it has a micro bevel. If it's a standard jack, like a 5 or 5 1/2 then it too can have a micro bevel.
If it's a Japanese kana, then no micro bevel.
Micro bevels are a convience to shortening sharpening processes but can play a roll in final cutting angles.

The ideal is to have a blade cutting angle towards the lower spectrum...however a standard 45 degree blade, sharpened properly and wood that will cooperate or prepped with mineral oil, will do end grain cutting very well. Stubborn wood like say purple heart or lignum vitae or babinga etc, may require a special cutting set up or in the worst case can only be machine cut.

So depending on the material of the work piece, the plane or planes available, a micro bevel is an workable option but not a requirement. If you ground a blade at 23 degrees instead of a normal 25 degrees and put a 2 degree micro bevel on it, you would have a blade that would cut in a normally bedded 45 frogged plane at a normal angle.

Shoot for a low angle cut like a mitre plane would do by a combination of primary bevel alone, or a lowered primary bevel with micro bevel but end up with a cutting angle that matches a mitre plane.

I hope this helped.

Good luck and enjoy the shavings !

[Jim Koepke]

It all depends on the user. Most of my plane blades do not have micro-bevels or secondary bevels. That is my choice and is not in any way meant to be a statement on the use of a secondary bevel.

Most of the time my sharpening is done by hand and secondary bevels are a pain to do freehand. My power sharpening system, Veritas MkII Power Sharpening System, is by design likely to introduce a secondary bevel. With a little ingenuity this "feature" can be controlled.

IMO, blades will cut well with or without a secondary bevel.

Because of a shoulder injury, my shooting plane has as low of an angle as is practical to reduce the effort needed to do the work. For shooting, it also seems the lower the bevel angle, the nicer the finish on the work piece's end grain.

jtk

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

The blade I use for shooting has a secondary bevel, (not really "micro anymore after repeated honings) simply because the A2 blade of my Lie Nielsen jack plane was chipping at the low angle I had originally honed it at. If I ever get around to putting it on the grind stones, I'll probably try a lower angle (and no secondary bevel) again to see if moving further back on the iron helps it hold up a little more.

No idea what angle it's ground at, and after re-honing at a slightly higher angle freehand, I'm sure it's getting steep, and possibly steeper depending on how well I've been holding an angle. When it feels like too much work to push it I'll hit the grinding wheel and lower it the angle again. (It's easy to make an angle steeper on the stones - not as much to make it lower after an honing or two)