Dumb question regarding chipbreaker.

[paul cottingham]

A quick question that I should know the answer to. If you grind and sharpen a plane blade so that the edge isn't perfectly perpendicular to the sides, should you set the chipbreaker with the sides even with the sides of the blade, or the end of the chipbreaker even with the end of the blade?
Does that even make sense?

[Jim Koepke]

It kind of depends.

How off square?

If not too much my tendency would be to set the chip breaker to the edge.

The other dependency is what will the plane be used to do? Not as much worry with a joiner or jack as there is with a smoother.

Another solution might be to make the edge off the same amount on both sides and call it a camber.

jtk

[Kees Heiden]

The chipbreaker works together with the edge, not with the side. So you'd better set it even with the edge. If the chipbreaker is so skewed that it can't be set like that, I would regrind the edge of the chopbreaker.

[Warren Mickley]

The cap iron should be placed parallel to the edge. This means that the sides of the cap iron might not line up exactly with the sides of the plane iron. On a Bailey style plane it can be off quite a bit and still work fine. On a traditional beech plane the cap iron can also be placed a little askew so the edges are nicely parallel, but if it is too much it will hit the side of the opening and limit lateral adjustment.

I have never used a grinding wheel on my plane irons. For many years I had a habit of sharpening more on the right side than the left. I can remember explaining to a student in 1983 why the cap iron had to be a little crooked on my irons. After decades of deliberately giving the left side more attention, some of my irons have evened out.

[Tom Vanzant]

I would re-grind the edge square to the edges and leave the chip-breaker square.

[paul cottingham]

Yes, not too off square, but enough so that it is noticeable when you are trying to set the chipbreaker close to the edge. I now try to get it within a 1/64 or so, as per some discussions earlier here.