Never flattening a plane blade again!!

[Roger Turnbough]

Howdy,

I recently picked up on one of the forums a David Charlesworth tip about using a very thin 6" stainless ruler when flattening plane backs. Lemme tell ya, it works wonders.

The whole thing of it is, instead of flattening the last 1/2" or 1/4" of a blade, you place the rule at the edge of your stone, and in essense just make a micro bevel at the cutting edge.

Ive just spent the better part of a day, sharpening about 14 plane blades, some from my users (6 to be exact) and the rest from planes that I have picked up and just not gotten around to. All of the users except for 2 of them had previously had the backs flattened, requiring a great deal of time and effort.

Most all of the blades were started off with the Tormek to achieve a hollow grind. Then the Charlesworth thing on the backs, and waterstones to finish 1000, 5000, and 8000. Then on to a leather strop.

Im a happy guy with a whole buncha sharp planes and no hair left on the back of my left hand!!

Have a great day!! :D :D :D

Roger
South of Chicago

[Chris Padilla]

I just learned to do some plane blade and chisel sharpening myself. The guy who helped me had some Shapton man-made stones, however. It certainly does take some time initially, I think, but once you have done it, subsequent sharpenings are made much easier.

[Tyler Howell]

Hey Roger,

We talked about "Back beveling" an iron for quick removal of metal in the case of nicks and badly pitted edges. The up and down side is it removes alot of metal fast. I dought you'll ever wear out an iron hand honing and polishing but....
Never tried it but I'm going to on this old ugly Stanley #4.
Thanks for sharing

[Tom LaRussa]

The whole thing of it is, instead of flattening the last 1/2" or 1/4" of a blade, you place the rule at the edge of your stone, and in essense just make a micro bevel at the cutting edge.

Roger,

That's a neat trick, but the I'm not sure its much faster than the method I use. I just slap the last few inches of the back of the blade down on a stationary belt sander with about 150 grit, then hone it on the disc sander attached to it.

Kinda ugly, and slaughters a lot of innocent electrons, but it seems to work.