My first post here and I'm pretty sure I'm jumping into the deep end with a "product review". But, I wanted to share my experience with a Veritas PM-V11 blade and chip breaker combo in my old Stanley No. 4 Type 11 smoothing plane.
Some background first. I'm new to the hand tool world, and in keeping with the "deep end" theme, the first thing I built was a new workbench kind of in the Paul Sellers method. I picked up my plane on eBay, had some old crappy chisels, got a set of DMT Dia-Sharps, watched some videos, and went at it. A bunch of weekends, sore muscles, frustration, and learnings later, I ended with a bench that I really enjoy. It's only pine, but solid, didn't cost a fortune, and I don't mind accidentally hitting it with a saw, etc... Perfect for where I'm at skill-wise right now.
During that build, I also learned what sharp was, what dull was, and became very familiar with chatter. I'm going to move into smaller projects this winter and decided it was time for an upgrade in surface smoothing. I'll most likely get a better plane down the road, but for now, I decided to just upgrade the iron and chip breaker and see how that could help.
Here are my first observations as a complete amateur, or "just a guy in the garage".
Out of the box:
- The back on the Veritas blade was nice and flat. Fit and finish was very nice and matched up with the chip breaker perfectly. As much as I had tried, I couldn't get that old Stanley blade as flat as this one. I came close, but nothing like the Veritas.
- I had to open the mouth of my No. 4 about .020", or 0.5mm, to fit the new Veritas blade.
- The Vertias blade wasn't sharp enough to shave hair, but still out-performed the old Stanley blade on long grain even when the Stanley was sharp enough to shave hair.
- The Veritas absolutely blew the doors off the Stanley blade when using the shooting board on end grain. This was a "wow" moment. No more fighting end grain.
I then ran the Veritas blade through the progressions on the DMT's and finished it up on a leather strop with Chromium Oxide. Probably spent 20 minutes. Nothing fancy.
After the sharpening:
What a difference in performance. Back to the shooting board first and it was actually fun to use. A nice shiny finish on end grain and I can make slow passes on the wood. On long grain pine, I was able to get thin shavings, but more importantly, I was able to focus on what I was doing with the wood instead of having to focus on the plane. In other words, I can now focus on flatness and making perpendicular surfaces instead of being concerned with the plane itself. On oak, the performance was equally good ending up with a shiny smooth surface. I attached a picture and attempted to show the light shining off the piece on the right which had been planed. I still get some chatter, but it is much less than before. My guess is that is a result of 100 year-old plane technology combined with less than a year of user experience. Rubbing the sole of the plane with candle wax helped.
I haven't used it enough to comment on longevity of sharpness, but my conclusion is that if you are not ready to pull the trigger on a high-end plane, at least upgrade the iron and chip breaker in your old plane to some modern technology. Hope this helps.
-Bill