Hmmm, NIB Buck Brothers #4 ( $7??)

[steven c newman]

Ok, I have since reverted back to my "normal self" after the episode with the Wood River #4 V3. Went on a short rust hunt ( while waiting on a tire store) and snagged a small, blue plane, complete with it's box, AND the instruction sheet! :eek: 263592Yeah, yeah. A Buck Brothers #4 "Smooth Plane". I currently run an iron from them in a #5 jack plane with good results. Decided to try the smaller plane. Body is ...Ok, sole was actualy flat!:eek: Tote? I would trash it, and either make a normal one, or slap an old stanley tote on there. Same with the front knob. Chipbreaker seems to have been stamped out. Took awhile to clean it up, and mate to the iron.

Iron; Most BB irons are a bit hollow in back, and boy was this one. Finally just used the grinder to at least get it close. Then some stones to polish it. Got the edge redone as well. That shaving is after all of the above....maybe 90 minutes of work. 263593that is almost a full width shaving. See what I mean about the tote?

Anyway, this was a garage sale item, and I even haggled it down to $7, from the asking $10. Now, IF they would only make these with some better looking handles...:D


While about on the Rust hunt, picked up a "No-Name" #4. Bottle cap adjuster, stamped frog AND levercap. Iron was easier to flatten and sharpen than the BB#4's iron. Handles even looked better!263594and at least an inch longer in the base than the BB#4. And, for $3 less.

Top it off with a Wards Master Quality hacksaw, with the amber-like handles (with sawnuts!) for $0.00 and i think I spent a decent day waiting around for a pair of tires to be installed....:cool:

[Jim Koepke]

Maybe the BB is a bit more vintage than the one another member showed me. The one I saw wasn't worth a bent nickel.

Well, maybe the blade was worth a nickel.

jtk

[steven c newman]

At least it has a lever cap. I had a #5 last year, pot metal? adjuster wheel. Brass bolt in the capiron. I think that it was warpped. Iron was good,again with the stamped chip breaker. NIB has been tuned up, and onto Fleebay. IF it doesn't sell, I could part it out for stuff, or just fix it up right. IF I do keep it, them handles will go it the trash can.

[Jim Koepke]

IF I do keep it, them handles will go it the trash can.

What, no wood stove?

jtk

[steven c newman]

waiting a couple days, to see IF it sells on fleabay. IF not, there will be some handle work going on. I can get full width, see-through shavings with this plane, without any chatter. Is there a range of makers for these planes? Not sure which "Vintage" this was. Have seen a few different ones, sometimes in the same row @ Home Despot. IF it has a "silver coloured adjuster wheel, run away! The most shavings one will get will be from the wheel wearing itself away. a pop can is tougher.263696 IF it also has that brass bolt on top, run away! Maybe different makers? ala Sears planes????

[David Weaver]

That black BB plane is a good candidate to be turned into a cast iron diamond lap. Just break it at the mouth, take all of the parts out of it and fit it to a piece of wood as a base. It has much more value as that.

It's nice to have a junk blade or two sharp to scrape off glue or junk off the top of a bench, too. The plane itself might be junk, but just in those two things, you can get a lot of value out of it.

[steven c newman]

Just sold it on the fleebay, at a profit, thank you. very little in the way of a tune up, maybe 1/2 an hour? Sole and the iron needed a little flattening is all.

[Tony Zaffuto]

David, George or anyone else with an opinion,

What material makes the best lapping plate? I'm a bit intrigued by Dave's suggestion for the use of the BB plane body. If anyone here has a commercial plate, to what tolerance are the plates ground to and are they also grooved?

T.Z.

[Mark Baldwin III]

David, George or anyone else with an opinion,

What material makes the best lapping plate? I'm a bit intrigued by Dave's suggestion for the use of the BB plane body. If anyone here has a commercial plate, to what tolerance are the plates ground to and are they also grooved?

T.Z.

Cast iron is real common for a lapping plate. It is stable and easy enough to regrind. Grooved, not grooved...it's up to you, they make both. Tolerance is as tight as your wallet is wide. Have a look at McMaster, they have a selection.
I have a 24" x 18" Starrett pink granite at work. After years of use it was out of tolerance (what can I say, not everyone who's allowed in the room with precision tools knows how to treat them). The guy that reworked it used a large cast iron lapping plate with a square pattern ground into it and fine diamond powder. The surface was repeatedly checked with a really trick Mitutoyo digital surf gauge until it was right. The lapping plate weighed about 100 pounds, has an NIST trace, and is checked monthly.

[David Barnett]

...anyone else with an opinion


Having used both commercial (Harris, et al) and shop made, for flattening I prefer either a 1/2" by 3" or 4" by 12" or a 1/2" by 4" by 24" plate of continuously cast grey iron full of lovely graphite flakes, Blanchard ground or hand flattened, then hand scraped to better than .0015" over its length, optionally grooved in a shallow and not-too-wide diaper pattern.

Likely candidates:

1/2" x 3" x 12" 8928K481
1/2" x 4" x 12" 8928K561
1/2" x 4" x 24" 8928K562

(http://www.mcmaster.com/#catalog/119/3682/=n369nh)http://www.mcmaster.com/#catalog/119/3682/=n36i9i

[David Weaver]

David, George or anyone else with an opinion,

What material makes the best lapping plate? I'm a bit intrigued by Dave's suggestion for the use of the BB plane body. If anyone here has a commercial plate, to what tolerance are the plates ground to and are they also grooved?

T.Z.

I'm more of a simpleton than David B (actually, I love the details and precision in Dave's posts, so I'm a simpleton not by crotchety-ness, I just don't have taste as refined as David's yet). At any rate, no surface interruptions, like David says. They provide no benefit with diamonds, and a plate is at its best if the surface finish is fine (which you can get through use or you could have one of the guys in your machine shop put a nice clean surface finish on a junk plane sole or piece of cast).

Surface interruptions only for stuff that has extreme swarf, like piles of loose silicon carbide grit.

I don't favor any of the commercial plates I've gotten (the big LV lapping plate - because its grooves make it unfit for diamonds and small tools, as well as bevel honing, and the $20 inexpensive japanese mild steel kanaban because it wasn't flat when it was new, but it did become close to it with use of 100 grit diamonds - and mild steel is not quite as good for diamonds as is good cast iron. To be fair, I didn't buy the LV plate for bevel honing, either, rather flattening small planes and al-ox psa sandpaper rolls is much more productive when working by hand).

Anyway, smooth uninterrupted cast iron. The finer the diamonds, the more important it is for the surface finish to be smooth (else it dingles the tool edge that you're trying to refine). If it's going to be used on backs, 2 thousandth or flatter over an 8 inch span would be my cutoff point based on experience with a 1k diamond hone that's 4 thou hollow in the length, and the effect on backs of irons is not inspring. If it was that amount convex, it might not be unpleasant to use, but hollow is bad.

[David Barnett]

I'm more of a simpleton than David B (actually, I love the details and precision in Dave's posts, so I'm a simpleton not by crotchety-ness, I just don't have taste as refined as David's yet).

As for my refinement, lest you think you're interrupting my recherche, mandarin bruncheon of lark's tongues in aspic, ambergris omelette and chimpstick with ants*, I'd rather have fried-SPAM-with-melted-Velveeta-on-Wonderbread-with-yellow-mustard-and-skillet-drippings in a slow, sluggish artery-clogged Deep South heartbeat.

I'm actually far less disciplined, more pragmatic and quite spontaneous in my woodworking tool sharpenings and flattenings these days. The most important thing is to know what sharp & flat is, what sharp & flat enough is and how to get both—then one can dilettantishly indulge in improvisational honing, which again, for woodworking tools leads to enjoyable and productive learnings with little chance of harming work or tool. Fun is where you find it.

For sharpening gravers and faceting gems, that's where the disciplined praxis and restricted schedules manifest, which is its own kind of fun, I suppose.

For lapping with diamond: keep it smooth, keep it flat, keep it cheap. For carbon steel gravers and narrow chisels, try jasper—its the new black.

*http://eater.com/archives/2013/05/09/watch-the-nordic-food-lab-make-insects-delicious.php

[steven c newman]

As for me: two eggs,over easy, along with two slices of baloney, covered in Frank's Hot sauce, washed down with a Diet (YUCK) Mountain Dew


Plane bodies: IF they ain't broke, I will NOT go and break them. I'd rather keep them usable, in one piece.

I do have a tile, ceramic, that I use on the irons. Along with a 30 yr. old two grit oil stone. I tend to keep the stone flat, even after all these years.

As for the above brunch, it was done smoothered in BUTTER on a griddle.

[David Weaver]

Different strokes for different folks - I'd separate that cast from the body in a second and cut it right at the mouth. It instantly makes something inexcusable into something usable. I've dismantled or cobbled apart many tools of that type for the good of man...vintage or otherwise. If someone wants to buy those planes whole, though, can't argue with folks who are trying to give you their money.

Dave B - I went around and looked for jasper stuff when you had mentioned it on woodnet. I couldn't find anything! I'm guessing that I'd need to look at a jeweler's supply place? I am a little bit afraid to find one that looks nice, though, I'd probably buy it. Using the world jasper in google led me to facebook...there is someone in the UK whose name is "Jasper Hone"...no kidding. Maybe the guy's father was a jeweler. There's other stuff that supplements facebook that implies that it's really the person's name.

So I can't find "a" jasper hone, but I have found "the" Jasper Hone. :)

[David Barnett]

Dave B - I went around and looked for jasper stuff when you had mentioned it on woodnet. I couldn't find anything! I'm guessing that I'd need to look at a jeweler's supply place? I am a little bit afraid to find one that looks nice, though, I'd probably buy it. Using the world jasper in google led me to facebook...there is someone in the UK whose name is "Jasper Hone"...no kidding. Maybe the guy's father was a jeweler. There's other stuff that supplements facebook that implies that it's really the person's name.

So I can't find "a" jasper hone, but I have found "the" Jasper Hone.

Most jasper slabs you'll see for sale or up for auction are intended for cabachon and therefore selected for their appearance rather than homogenous surface quality. What makes jasper attractive to a lapidary may make it less so to a sharpener. My inclination is to look for jaspers with smooth, unaffected figure or appearance, with a minimum of brecciation, orbicular patterns, whether solid or otherwise, fossilitic and lavic specimens. Lavic specimens may contain jasper, but little in proportion to the overall. In short, simpler patterning is usually best. If nothing else, an uncomplicated appearance makes it easier to see and judge the smoothness the slab surface.

Another reason to accept plainer specimens; most orbicular, rainforest, Apache, mushroom jaspers aren't jaspers at all but actually rhyolites* (volcanic origin) with jasper deposits, so aren't what one really wants at all. There are also rhyolitic jaspers, just to complicate things, but you'll generally be fine if you stick with well-known named jasper varieties; Biggs, imperial, Bruneau, Willow Creek and so on. Nomenclature's a bear, however, and there's a name for every color, formation and variety of jasper, and again, just because it's called jasper doesn't mean it is.

Although woodworkers often want the largest surface area, the longest, widest bench stones, I find for a finishing/polishing stone, I can get buy with a 6" x 2" surface for even my widest chisels and planes and far less for smaller tools and gravers. Of course, if one uses a honing jig of the sort that rides upon the stone's surface, larger is a necessity. That said, I saw several slabs on eBay last week that would render a 8" x 2½" honing area, each costing less than $15.

The surface must be ground flat and smooth—not polished, but smooth—fracture and pit free. To confuse things, jaspers may appear to have fractures yet be entirely solid, so whenever possible, it's best to find a seller who knows what you want.

Right now, and for the last couple years, I've been favoring a somewhat brecciated reddish, dark chocolate jasper of Oregonian origin, very similar to the dark brick red Arizona jaspers. This is my do-all stone for gravers and very narrow chisels, 1/16", 3/32" to about 5/32". I like it better than any of my vintage Behr-Manning translucent Arkansas bench stones or slips—oiled, watered, or dry— right up through my black translucent of unknown origin, as it performs better on both simple carbon tool steel gravers and even several HSS steels.

You're right, there's precious little online about jasper hones. I've found a bit more information on ancient whetstones, but not on jasper in particular. The British Museum shows stones from Northern Europe, Turkey, Iran, and so on, but few appear to be jasper. Of course, Ragweed Forge sells a modern version that for novelty may be worn around the neck as were many ancient examples, but these are harder than I prefer and remove very little metal so are for final polishing or burnishing at most. The knifemaking and razor forums have offered mostly favorable reviews. From Ragnar's website:

"In Viking times small whetstones were often worn as pendants. These are reproductions of whetstone pendants found in a Viking Age ship wreck at Kalåstad, Norway. Similar pendants have been found in York, Birka, and Gotland. They are cut from Jasper, and seem somewhere between the hard black and translucent Arkansas stones. That means they are super fine, quite a bit finer than the stones shown below. They are suitable for the final edge and polish, rather than removing nicks and general sharpening. ... Some of them are quite striking, but I expect the best sharpening would be achieved with the plainer ones."

http://www.ragweedforge.com/SharpeningCatalog.html

Streak tests on the unpolished jaspers I favor work quickly, leave fine, silvery lines and a polished surface on hardened tool steels. Some jaspers apparently do not.

To search for jasper slabs on eBay:
Collectibles > Rocks Fossils & Minerals > Lapidary Materials > Slabs jasper

*Rhyolites are closer to granite than jasper, flint or cherts, and you don't want granite.

[Mel Fulks]

After some googling it looks like jasper ,agate ,onyx, etc. are all same stuff. Maybe an old lamp base or paper weight would work ...and they can be bought as cheaply as a pair of dimes.

[David Barnett]

After some googling it looks like jasper ,agate ,onyx, etc. are all same stuff. Maybe an old lamp base or paper weight would work ...and they can be bought as cheaply as a pair of dimes.Quartz, yes, but not all quartz is chert—silica-rich cryptocrystalline-microcrystalline quartz—which includes novaculites and jasper. Real onyx is a banded chalcedony, and most so-called onyx large enough for a lamp base is not onyx at all but easily-carved calcite. Besides, you want smooth but unpolished.

[Mel Fulks]

Thanks ,David . Going to try it ,I'm sure I can alter the polished surface.

[David Barnett]

Always worth a try. Onyx lamp bases are actually calcite, though—easily carved with simple steel tools. Think travertine.