Don't throw out your Stanley irons just yet....

[John C Cox]

Hey guys,

With all these modern super steels on the market... All the promises of almost infinite edge life.... Don't throw out those Stanley irons just yet...

You guys will have a chuckle at this...

When HSS irons were all the rage (like polyester pants...) - I decided I must have some fancy HSS irons for my planes. Well - they were very hard to find.... And very expensive...

So what's a fellow to do? Well - obviously, you would just make your own HSS irons... Right? That's what everybody does..

Big 6" slabs of HSS are too hard to find.. So I started with HSS tipped irons by brazing HSS tips to regular irons.. I made the tips out of lathe parting tools.... I had to go through several brands before settling on a high quality USA made HSS - the import steels just wouldn't work right. Oh - and to get them to mount in the plane, I just chopped about 1 1/2" off the end of a regular cheap iron and brazed the HSS tip on...

And they worked out as well as HSS irons do (I did not know that my tipped irons cut and lasted just as well as commercial HSS irons - sometimes better - because I didn't own any). The adage holds true that HSS takes a half dull edge and holds it forever.... And that brought Diamond plates.... And you guys know - Diamond plates solve all your problems.

Finally I got some Proper commercial HSS irons - and with much anticipation.. I found they were about the same as my tipped irons, except sometimes worse....

And slowly I have percolated back to regular, plain old carbon steel irons...
And they work right...
It's almost as if blacksmiths and woodworkers already worked out the problems with carbon steel irons over the last 2 or 3 millennia - and they are more or less right.

I just swapped out the last HSS iron (in my block plane no less.. Bad idea..) with a Stanley replacement... And the plane works right again.

The moral of the story is...

Don't get rid of your Stanley irons quite yet..

[Jim Koepke]

Well John, this was a different post than my expectations. After seeing the title my thought was you had an idea of how to use the old blades for a different purpose.

Two of my marking knives are made from an old, not suitable for planing, Stanley blade:

Shop Made Knives.jpg

The top one is my first shop made knife. The center knife was made from an old saw plate with a handle of rosewood turned on my lathe. The knife at the bottom was made from what was left of the plane blade from the first knife. The handle follows the contour of the blade. It is the most used of the three. The center one is always used when marking pins from tails when dovetailing.

Here is the build post for the ebony handled knife:

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread....hop+made+knife

So you are right in more ways than one John, "don't throw out your Stanley irons just yet."

jtk

[Bill Houghton]

Stanley's laminated bench plane irons, which are surprisingly common, are pretty nifty too.

[Patrick Chase]

Stanley irons are extremely good, and more than thick enough when used as designed/intended.

I do think that you've explored and described two extremes (HCS and HSS) of a vast spectrum of tool steels, and that there's quite a bit of useful stuff in between.

Also, PM changes the rules quite a bit. If you haven't already then you should give something like CPM-M4 or HAP40 a try. Both are PM M4 variants, from Crucible and Toshiba respectively. They're still a bear to sharpen, but the grain structure is much more refined than in conventional M4 HSS and the edge-taking is correspondingly better. I have some Japanese HAP40 chisels that take a very good edge, though they don't see as much use as their conventional counterparts because I try to avoid using diamond sharpening media for routine shop honing (I use diamond compounds and films extensively for setup/flattening and major edge work, but not for routine sharpening).

For me at least the sweet spot right now is a combination of O1 (for low-edge-angle applications) and CTS-XHP/PM-V11 (most others). They both hone well on Al-Oxide media (waterstones, india, Spyderco, etc etc), both take very good edges, etc.

[lowell holmes]

I seldom throw anything away.

[Jeff Heath]

Jim,

I like your use of recycled irons in those knives. Nice job.

[John C Cox]

Here is the proof that the "Good idea fairy" is not always on your side.. These are the ones I didn't throw out....

I warped the heck out of several 2" irons in the process of this whole learning

I actually got decent enough at brazing the tips on.... But the problem was that in the end - I just didn't like HSS irons in use...

3 of these use the new fancy pants CPM HSS tips....
2 were made by Academy before they went under...

[Patrick Chase]

Nice work! That sort of brazing is more difficult than I think many people appreciate. Out of curiosity, what did you use as filler? Silver?

[John C Cox]

Jim,

Beautiful work you did there.

I agree that plane iron steel is generally good stuff. Stanley moreso - and if you like making edge tools of your own - they would be a fine source of good carbon steel.

How did you heat treat them?

I have been thinking lately of a nice little marking knife like that....

Well John, this was a different post than my expectations. After seeing the title my thought was you had an idea of how to use the old blades for a different purpose.

Two of my marking knives are made from an old, not suitable for planing, Stanley blade:

Shop Made Knives.jpg

The top one is my first shop made knife. The center knife was made from an old saw plate with a handle of rosewood turned on my lathe. The knife at the bottom was made from what was left of the plane blade from the first knife. The handle follows the contour of the blade. It is the most used of the three. The center one is always used when marking pins from tails when dovetailing.

Here is the build post for the ebony handled knife:

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread....hop+made+knife

So you are right in more ways than one John, "don't throw out your Stanley irons just yet."

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

Jim,

Beautiful work you did there.

I agree that plane iron steel is generally good stuff. Stanley moreso - and if you like making edge tools of your own - they would be a fine source of good carbon steel.

How did you heat treat them?

I have been thinking lately of a nice little marking knife like that....

Jeff & John, thanks for the kind words.

John,

They didn't need heat treating by me, the original heat treating was fine. The drill was a special high temp bit with copious application of oil. Care was taken to keep the metal cool during cutting with a Dremel wheel.

jtk