Block Plane Blade Camber?

[Tom Adger]

I recently bought an old Stanley 60 1/2 block plane on ebay. I found the blade with a camber, up to about 1/32 back on each edge. Does anybody out there do this on a block plane? I know it is done on larger bench planes. I have a veritas mkII jig. If I decide to sharpen with the camber, has anyone had experience with the camber roller you can get for the mk II?

[Danny Thompson]

I have cambered a block plane blade when I wanted to use it as a small smoother and used the Veritas MkII camber roller to do it. The roller worked well, however, I have found you can get a small camber--essentially breaking the corner on a blade this narrow--using the standard roller by pressing hard on one corner at a time during the pull stroke.

All this said, many posts suggest a square blade is appropriate on a block plane. I will be interested in what the veteran neanders have to say.

[Sam Takeuchi]

I do. Technically I don't really need to do it since I rarely use my #60 (nice shiny nickel plated lever cap!) to plane full width of the blade. But I use it to level inlay down to the rest of the surface, sharp corner of the blade digs in and leave a deep gouge if I'm not careful. Cambered blade helps me avoid marring the surface that way.

Veritas MKII camber roller is great. It makes cambering quite easy. Actually I have two MKII, one with straight roller and one with camber roller. I thought my old one was getting worn out (I just needed to replace the roller), so I figured I'd buy a new one and a camber roller. I transplanted straight roller from the new one onto the old one, and camber roller onto the new one. Chisels, straight roller. Plane iron, camber roller. Especially useful re-grinding bevel on my 3/8" finger plane cambered blade (convex sole). So all in all, I highly recommend it. You can use it to hone straight blade as well.

[Tom Adger]

Danny and Sam, Thanks for your comments. Both are interesting and informative. What you both have in common is using the veritas camber roller. I was leaning toward buying it, and you two pushed me over the edge! I now have one on order from Lee Valley. Once I try it on the block plane, I suspect I will try it on one of my bench plane blades. I guess this is how knowledge grows.

[Sam Takeuchi]

It takes a little bit of getting used to at first. The key is not to tilt the honing jig itself when you are trying to camber, but simply pressure the corners of the blade. If you intentionally tilt the honing jig, it'll take the corner quite a bit and it'll just look like rounded off corner rather than camber. It's not a problem by itself, however. It's just that it's not cambered blade, but a straight blade with rounded off corners. It took me a couple of weeks to make clean camber with it :D

[Tom Adger]

Sounds like good advice. I'll remember it when I get started.

[Uncle Ben]

It's not a problem by itself, however. It's just that it's not cambered blade, but a straight blade with rounded off corners. It took me a couple of weeks to make clean camber with it :D

Sam, I'm glad you mentioned that, cause I've been wondering for a while why you can't just knock off the corners of your blade so that you can get the widest most even-thickness shaving possible without digging in with corners of the blade. Is there a reason this won't do the trick?

[Rick Erickson]

That's what Christopher Schwartz does.

[Sam Takeuchi]

It's simple. Wide cutting area isn't always a good thing. I do a lot of inlay work and inlays are laid out with grain perpendicular, often at odd angles, to the embedding surface. The type of wood I work with are brittle and porous kind. If I'm using straight blade, I usually end up planing the embedding surface across the grain. If I do that, it leaves fuzzy surface with torn pores. I can't plane across the inlay either. They are fragile bunch and mix of soft and hardwood. Strips of soft wood with thickness of 0.02" doesn't take kindly to getting planed from the side. Plane blade often rips it out. So I have to plane the inlay and take care not to plane the embedding surface cross grain.

What works for me is a cambered blade which gives me precise control of area of cut. With very shallow cut, inlay is actually planed imperceptibly concave from the embedding surface. With depth adjustment, I can plane just the width of the inlay. What's concave is later build up at finishing stage in the process of french polishing, so all in all it works out.

I do have straight blade with rounded corners. I use them for making veneer strips, inlay parts and cutting end grain. But for inlay work, I need a bit more control of width.

P.S. Knocked off corners still dig in. As long as there's a corner, rounded or sharp, it will dig in. It's not as visible on face grain, but on cross grain, it'll look like rounded corner dug in.

[Danny Thompson]

One other point. If you are using Scary Sharp (sandpaper) hit the corners on the pull stroke, not the push, otherwise you will find yourself taking shavings of the sandpaper!