David Weaver
07-28-2013, 10:57 AM
OK, there's not really anything about it that's homeopathic, because everything described below actually did what's shown.
I got a nice #4 from the classifieds in the mail yesterday, and for the first time in a while, someone else did all of the work. Kind of had a jones for a later model stanley, I've developed a soft spot for these later cocobolo handled stanleys, no clue what type they are, I don't follow that kind of thing much. But, they're new enough the parts are usually in better shape, and as long as they're close to flat, there's no issues. And the large adjuster wheel is an improvement.
So, i whipped the plane out of the box, it was literally ready to use (that's great), and then set the cap iron closer (just out of habit) and honed the iron front and back only on a lilywhite and took a swipe off of a piece of beech. Worked pretty good, so I wound the thickness down and literally with nothing else other than a lilywhite and bare leather strop (trimmed all of my tenons on a kitchen cabinet face frame using only the lilywhite, too, and a vintage buck chisel), and was surprised with how thin of a shaving it would take:
267363
7 ten thousandths of an inch (!), from this:
267364
And this:
267365
It did require some time on the bare leather, probably 20 strokes, to get all of the wire edge off, which is much more substantial than it would have been off of the usual shapton finisher (which replaces the leather step), so it doesn't really save any time, but the stone is for play - really like the washitas, and the shame of it is unlike a lot of the super high dollar super quality natural stones, there is no shortage of the natural rock that these washitas are cut from that I'm aware of, it's just a lack of general interest in them that keeps them from being marketed for a reasonable price. No such similar material exists out of pike/behr manning/norton in the newer marketed stones, though, so avoid any new mined stones that use the term "washita" because they are not the same thing. These "pike mine" stones like this vintage stone literally wiped out use of an entire array of various interesting stones in the UK. (not advocating buying a vintage one as smart money, either, they are expensive unless you can find someone asleep at the switch selling them or get one hidden in a lot of stones on ebay, and they don't do anything modern stones won't do, either, they're just more interesting than modern stones).
For reference of shaving thickness, off of a 15k shapton, a complete non-torn shaving will come off minimum size of approximately 3 to 4 ten thousandths of an inch, so it's not as if the washita is duplicating a finish stone, but just how far it will go is interesting. I don't know of any better test for initial sharpness than shaving thickness, and I don't know of any better indicator of longevity for a particular iron than initial sharpness once other variables are set (steve elliot actually put data to this, and for a smoother, time spent honing is rewarded in the balance of things when you look at time between honings).
Side comment about the planes, and the array of things that we hear when we're beginners that just aren't right, in this case we're often told that these types are not good users. The old stanley planes have a milled frog and more mating surface, as does the bedrock line. The frog on these newer stanleys looks like it was subjected to a large belt sander. In use, I actually prefer these newer planes, milling the entire frog serves little purpose in a practical sense vs. a few slivers of contact area if the contact is in the right place (you learn this quickly if you make your own metal bottomed planes by hand). What is offputting about some of the newer stanleys is beech handles, but that's cosmetic and there are plenty with cocobolo. Going later than this one is a bit of a minefield, though, they did drop significantly in quality shortly after these, but this one has the ugly frog,etc and a fairly modern iron that can be just cut with a file.
I got a nice #4 from the classifieds in the mail yesterday, and for the first time in a while, someone else did all of the work. Kind of had a jones for a later model stanley, I've developed a soft spot for these later cocobolo handled stanleys, no clue what type they are, I don't follow that kind of thing much. But, they're new enough the parts are usually in better shape, and as long as they're close to flat, there's no issues. And the large adjuster wheel is an improvement.
So, i whipped the plane out of the box, it was literally ready to use (that's great), and then set the cap iron closer (just out of habit) and honed the iron front and back only on a lilywhite and took a swipe off of a piece of beech. Worked pretty good, so I wound the thickness down and literally with nothing else other than a lilywhite and bare leather strop (trimmed all of my tenons on a kitchen cabinet face frame using only the lilywhite, too, and a vintage buck chisel), and was surprised with how thin of a shaving it would take:
267363
7 ten thousandths of an inch (!), from this:
267364
And this:
267365
It did require some time on the bare leather, probably 20 strokes, to get all of the wire edge off, which is much more substantial than it would have been off of the usual shapton finisher (which replaces the leather step), so it doesn't really save any time, but the stone is for play - really like the washitas, and the shame of it is unlike a lot of the super high dollar super quality natural stones, there is no shortage of the natural rock that these washitas are cut from that I'm aware of, it's just a lack of general interest in them that keeps them from being marketed for a reasonable price. No such similar material exists out of pike/behr manning/norton in the newer marketed stones, though, so avoid any new mined stones that use the term "washita" because they are not the same thing. These "pike mine" stones like this vintage stone literally wiped out use of an entire array of various interesting stones in the UK. (not advocating buying a vintage one as smart money, either, they are expensive unless you can find someone asleep at the switch selling them or get one hidden in a lot of stones on ebay, and they don't do anything modern stones won't do, either, they're just more interesting than modern stones).
For reference of shaving thickness, off of a 15k shapton, a complete non-torn shaving will come off minimum size of approximately 3 to 4 ten thousandths of an inch, so it's not as if the washita is duplicating a finish stone, but just how far it will go is interesting. I don't know of any better test for initial sharpness than shaving thickness, and I don't know of any better indicator of longevity for a particular iron than initial sharpness once other variables are set (steve elliot actually put data to this, and for a smoother, time spent honing is rewarded in the balance of things when you look at time between honings).
Side comment about the planes, and the array of things that we hear when we're beginners that just aren't right, in this case we're often told that these types are not good users. The old stanley planes have a milled frog and more mating surface, as does the bedrock line. The frog on these newer stanleys looks like it was subjected to a large belt sander. In use, I actually prefer these newer planes, milling the entire frog serves little purpose in a practical sense vs. a few slivers of contact area if the contact is in the right place (you learn this quickly if you make your own metal bottomed planes by hand). What is offputting about some of the newer stanleys is beech handles, but that's cosmetic and there are plenty with cocobolo. Going later than this one is a bit of a minefield, though, they did drop significantly in quality shortly after these, but this one has the ugly frog,etc and a fairly modern iron that can be just cut with a file.