Rehabing some old hand planes... Is this normal?

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I have been trying to arrange my small basement workshop. In the organization part of this, I was placing all of my hand planes into a single large drawer in a new cabinet that I built and I realized that I had two hand planes that I acquired and they were in bad shape. One is a number 5 and one is a number 6.



Step 1: Remove the rust. Done!
Step 2: Polish the back of the blades...


OK, so I started with the back of the number 5 iron, and it has a pretty large hollow on the back of the blade. After wearing out my arms trying to polish up the back of the blade I remembered that I have a spare Hock blade, so, I polished the back of that one. I will come back to the other blade later I think.

Then, I took the original chip breaker / cap iron and.... the bottom part was not square, so, if I put it on the blade, I could have the left side at the very end of the blade and the right side was 1/8" back. I pulled out a grinder and squared that up. Then, I put the chip breaker onto the blade, it touched the blade on the left and the right, but, I could see light through the middle section. I was in the process of flattening this part out when I received a phone call, so I have not finished with this yet, but, I am surprised how many things were so out of sorts with this plane.

Is this normal? I do not ever remember noticing a chip breaker this far out of square, or, for that matter, one that mated so poorly with the blade. I figure that I will rehab the existing chip breaker, and, if that works poorly, I might procure a hock chip breaker to go with the hock blade.

[steven c newman]

Sad to say, but yep. IF anyone should know about this sort of thing, it would be me.

IF you do have a beltsander handy that you can clamp upside down in a vise, then run the back of the iron on the spinning belt. But use the side of the sander, right in the middle of the platten. Put a few fingertips ON the iron, if even one fingertip says it is too hot, pull away a cool it off a bit. While it cools down, check the back for flat. Keep it up until the back is flat, THEN you can do all the "normal" things to the iron.

Chipbreakers can be a bear to get right. I usually try to get a "hollow grind" look to them, after the edge is square. I try for a knife edge at the iron. That way, when you clamp the CB to the iron, it will seal a bit better.

[Jim Koepke]

Is this normal?

May not be normal but it isn't uncommon.

jtk

[Kees Heiden]

I see you had a hollow in the back of your plane iron? That would be an asset, not a problem. It limits the amount of metal to be removed, just as like in a Japanese plane. You are only concerned with the metal just behind th eedge, that needs to be flat. Not everything further up the iron.

Other then that, I agree, there is usually quite a bit of work, but sometimes you get lucky.

[don wilwol]

It's typical. As advised above, fix the chip breaker and just flatten the very tip of the iron.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

That's one of the reasons people like certain era Stanley planes, they were pretty consistently uniform and well made, and this would be abnormal for them. What are you working on? IMHO, after WW2 era stuff took a quality control dive.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I see you had a hollow in the back of your plane iron? That would be an asset, not a problem. It limits the amount of metal to be removed, just as like in a Japanese plane. You are only concerned with the metal just behind th eedge, that needs to be flat. Not everything further up the iron.

Other then that, I agree, there is usually quite a bit of work, but sometimes you get lucky.

Unfortunately, the hollow on the back of the #5 blade is perpendicular to the cutting edge and it runs all the way to the plane face. On the #6 on which I am working, it is parallel to the face, but, a portion of it does run all the way to the cutting edge. Initially, that one seems to be flattening faster than the #5. Ironically, the hollow runs directly to a chip in the cutting edge, not sure if it is related.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

That's one of the reasons people like certain era Stanley planes, they were pretty consistently uniform and well made, and this would be abnormal for them. What are you working on? IMHO, after WW2 era stuff took a quality control dive.

Neither of the planes are Stanley. I will post the brands tonight...

[Robert Hazelwood]

For flattening a vintage iron...unless it's in very good shape I will take the back to a belt sander with 120 grit, and carefully grind out any pitting and establish a general level of flatness. If there are any deep pits near the edge I will sometimes grind back the edge until that is gone. But in any case I always grind the edge a little to square it up and have a clean flat to work with for grinding the bevel later. Then I use sandpaper on a granite surface plate, starting with 60 grit, to get things dead flat. I'm only really concerned with the area right behind the edge, up to maybe 1/4" back. After 220 grit sandpaper I will move to the 1000 grit waterstone, then 5k, then 15k. Then I'll grind a 20 degree bevel on the belt sander, then sharpen at 30 degrees with the waterstones. Then it's ready to go...

You can always use the ruler trick to make a back bevel, which will be many times faster than what I described. But you'll have to sharpen using the ruler trick, every time, which for some reason doesn't appeal to me. But, I admit it would take a *lot* of sharpening sessions before the time spent fiddling with the ruler on the stone will surpass the time spent flattening the back of a typical vintage iron. Just an option to consider.

As for the chipbreaker...did you grind the chipbreaker back to make things square, or the iron? An 1/8" out of square is quite a lot, but I would bet that the blade was ground off-kilter rather than the chipbreaker, since most people never mess with the chipbreaker. And due to the way the CB is made, you only have maybe 1/16" to 1/8" of metal contact surface at the business end, so that's the limit to how far you can grind it back before you get into the "hump" of the CB, and once you do that it will never sit right on the blade. Maybe this is what a previous owner did. But I would check the blade to make sure it is square; it's more feasible to grind the blade back to square than the CB.

[Robert Hazelwood]

Unfortunately, the hollow on the back of the #5 blade is perpendicular to the cutting edge and it runs all the way to the plane face. On the #6 on which I am working, it is parallel to the face, but, a portion of it does run all the way to the cutting edge. Initially, that one seems to be flattening faster than the #5. Ironically, the hollow runs directly to a chip in the cutting edge, not sure if it is related.

I've never tried this, but Paul Sellers had some blog posts/videos recently about hammering bumps and hollows out of plane blades. Might be worth trying if it's an egregious hollow, since if it runs down the length of the blade I don't even think the ruler trick would help you too much.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

With the #5, I polished up my spare Hock blade and dropped it in. I set the cap iron very close to the edge of the blade, and, because I had to remove about 1/8" to square it up, the blade did not stick out far enough to take a shaving. If I had not squared up the cap iron, I could take one end very close and have the other end far away.

The cap iron does, however, sit very tightly against the blade with no visible gaps. I set the cap iron a bit further back from the edge than I normally would and I was able to take some nice shavings (between 0.003 and 0.001), but that was on a piece of nicely behaved scrap cherry that I had sitting around. I think that the plane is very usable as is, especially with the Hock blade (it is high carbon steel, it is not the A2 or O1).

Now I need to see if I can find a replacement cap iron so that I can set the end closer to the cutting edge for the times when I need or desire to do so. Well, I almost always do so. It makes a big difference from how it was having a sharp blade that is thicker and the cap iron set back (what I consider too far) works much better without the gap than when it had a huge gap in the center, even if the entire thing is set back when before only about half of it was too far back.

So, where does one find a replacement cap iron? I can probably buy a new one from Woodcraft.... Perhaps I should post first in the section where they sell stuff, but, I think that I will wait until I finish with the #6 in case I need more than just a #5 cap iron.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

For flattening a vintage iron...unless it's in very good shape I will take the back to a belt sander with 120 grit

I keep thinking that I should get a belt sander :-)


You can always use the ruler trick to make a back bevel, which will be many times faster than what I described. But you'll have to sharpen using the ruler trick, every time, which for some reason doesn't appeal to me. But, I admit it would take a *lot* of sharpening sessions before the time spent fiddling with the ruler on the stone will surpass the time spent flattening the back of a typical vintage iron. Just an option to consider.

I have used the ruler trick in the past, but, I don't favor it. I prefer to just flatten the back, add a hollow grind on my Tormek, and then I free hand it for touch-up.




As for the chipbreaker...did you grind the chipbreaker back to make things square, or the iron? An 1/8" out of square is quite a lot, but I would bet that the blade was ground off-kilter rather than the chipbreaker, since most people never mess with the chipbreaker. And due to the way the CB is made, you only have maybe 1/16" to 1/8" of metal contact surface at the business end, so that's the limit to how far you can grind it back before you get into the "hump" of the CB, and once you do that it will never sit right on the blade. Maybe this is what a previous owner did. But I would check the blade to make sure it is square; it's more feasible to grind the blade back to square than the CB.

Oh, it was the chip breaker that was out of square. It was strange. My first thought was that it was intentional, but, it looked more like a strange casting defect. I was careful to only grind back as far as was required to get to the non square part, not that I realized that shortening the chip-breaker meant I could not push the blade out the base as far (just had not thought about how it worked). Luckily, the flat part that contacts the blade was oddly shaped as well and it left me with plenty of chip breaker touching the blade, it is just a bit further back than I would like.

I really think that this was a manufacturing defect. I think that this particular plane belonged to a now dead relative, probably a grandfather, the person who I think owned it would have had no compunction of making modifications, but, his forte was repairing and building electric motors, not working wood, so, it is more likely that he inherited it from one of his brothers who were avid wood workers.... Hmmm, but odd that they would have had such a poorly working plane if that was the case. He died so many years before I started working wood that I did not even know that he owned a plane until my Father said "hey, you want this... it has been in my basement for years".

I actually considered grinding the blade at a slight angle rather than fixing the chip breaker. I did not drop a square onto the blade since I have not finished with the back (since I had a hock blade just sitting around that fit). Might be an excuse to purchase a belt sander; every now and then something comes up where I think that a belt sander would be the perfect tool for a particular job, but, since I don't own one, I usually find some other way to do the task. Not sure where to start if I wanted to buy a belt sander. If I remember correctly, it is nice to have one that you can turn upside down and let it run so that you can do exactly what you mention. Beyond that, I have no idea on sizes or ease of use, reliability or "persnickityness".

[steven c newman]

Beltsander I use is a $40 B&D Dragster. The"D" handle onit can be rotated and locked in place. Belt is 120 grit 3x21. I run the rotation away from me. Got the sander at WALLIEWORD. Seems to be holding up.

[Sam Stephens]

I've bought several replacement vintage cap irons on ebay to replace some snaggle toothed pitted ones and been pleased.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

These are the plane blades. I am not finished with them yet. The one on the right is for the #5. Notice how that center depression goes all the way to the front of the blade. I have been running this on a diamond plate for a while. If I had known, I would have used a courser plate or just used tom course sand paper. I have not worked as long on the blade for the #6 (left).
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The number six is labeled KK6 (Keen Kutter). I removed a bunch of rust, seems to have worked mostly...
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The number 5 is a Great Neck. This also had a bunch of rust on it. You can see a bunch of the cherry sawdust on it now.
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The closest I can put the chip breaker is 1/16" or I cannot take a shaving because the blade will not protrude enough to take a shaving. I can a shaving that is 0.003 of an inch thick. Not sure if I can make it much thicker than that.
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[Kees Heiden]

That nr. 6 blade kind of looks like you enter the end of a lamination. In other words, that blade is almost used up. The nr. 5 doesn't look too bad, just a load of work.

I always wonder, when I rehab an old woody, if the previous user EVER touched the back of the blade. Somehow I'm starting to believe that all this back flattening to a mirror shine is just a waste of time.

I would certainly get another chipbreaker. The Chinese Quangsheng ones are pretty cheap, but don't expect them to be flat either.

[David Weaver]

That nr. 6 blade kind of looks like you enter the end of a lamination. In other words, that blade is almost used up. The nr. 5 doesn't look too bad, just a load of work.

I always wonder, when I rehab an old woody, if the previous user EVER touched the back of the blade. Somehow I'm starting to believe that all this back flattening to a mirror shine is just a waste of time.

I would certainly get another chipbreaker. The Chinese Quangsheng ones are pretty cheap, but don't expect them to be flat either.

Mirror shine is a waste of time (well, that's just my opinion, I used to go there with every iron), but it is nice to be able to remove the wire edge easily on the stones when you have a stone with a flat back. When I get to the point with a washita stone that I can lay the iron on the stone and the wire edge moves from the front to the back of the bevel because the iron is flat with the face of the stone, I'm done then, only to return for more work if the planed surface doesn't look good.

Not being able to get the wire edge to move (due to an iron out of flat) drives me nuts, but I could just lift the iron if all I wanted to do was move the wire edge and not worry about the amount of wear on the back of the iron. I like to remove the wear on the back too, though.

The finer the finish stone, the less important it is to have the back of an iron polished for the purpose of no more than getting the plane through the wood.

[Kees Heiden]

When I progress through the grits until my 8000 stone on the bevel, I feel that the burr is mostly gone allready without any attention yet to the back. I suspect that a few flips on a strop removes the rest. In a plane I don't feel that it is neccessary to polish the back, because during use the wood allready made a wear bevel on the back and this wear bevel is highly polished allready.

So I can see how you would be able to use a plane iron without any back flattening, just using a strop, which doesn't need a flat back to reach the edge. Pitting in the back is something else of course. That really plays havock with the sharpness of the edge.

But until now I have always religously flattened and polished the backs of all my cutting tools.

[don wilwol]

I agree with David, it doesn't need to be a mirror shine, but it does need to be flat and polished IMHO. I did a not so scientific study if interested, https://timetestedtools.wordpress.com/2013/01/18/sharpening-past-the-dmt-and-polishing-the-iron/

[David Weaver]

I came to the conclusion that I did when I switched to arkansas stones. There is nothing that I love about using an arkansas stone to flatten and remove every single scratch on the first pass, so I did what I normally do with irons, which is to run them from very coarse (if necessary) to a 400 grit atoma, and then I went directly to a washita arkansas stone and checked to see if I could create a burr and remove most of it with a couple of alternating front and back strokes. And then I used the plane, figuring if it was lacking, I'd go back and polish the back more.

It hasn't been lacking. I've been making (very slowly) kitchen cabinets, which isn't the most demanding thing in the world, but functionally around some defects in the wood (small knots, etc) I've had no issues. The irons that I sharpen that way still easily remove hair from your arm, and the only real functional difference has been that if I take a shaving that's sub thousandth just for experimentation, a typical fully polished edge will make a waxier shaving that stays together better. But the surface of the wood doesn't really look any different.

I don't leave any defects in the iron at the edge, though, and my washita stone contacts the whole edge of the stone on the back. Eventually any remaining scratches from the 400 diamond hone will be worked out, nothing that's left seems to affect the appearance of the smoothed cabinet bits and parts.

Also, the cocobolo smoother that I showed on here a month or so ago was made entirely with a stanley 4 that was prepared and sharpened that way with the block squared up from rough sawn with that plane, and then the surfaces of the wood final planed with it, too - including wedge parts, etc, and including end grain and facets.

Presume from all of this that if someone is lacking functional sharpness in the edge, it's really because they've got a wire edge hanging on, a substantial one, and they're not getting it removed in their sharpening process.

If we really like the planes we're using enough, subsequent sharpenings will really get the back uniformly polished to the grade of the final stone, and soon enough.

[Kees Heiden]

Don, I didn't quite understand your experiment. What did you change, and what was the result?

[don wilwol]

Don, I didn't quite understand your experiment. What did you change, and what was the result?

I started with an unflatten back. Every step to polish it got better. For best results, it needs to be polished, but a mirror finish isn't required. A hard stone will note give a "see yourself" shine, but its polished enough to work well. I polish mine to start, just because I have a buffer on a motor and its easier to make sure its flat, but I only do it once. From there its just the stone, so the "see yourself" shine goes away, but the performance doesn't.

[Kees Heiden]

Interesting. Thanks.

[steven c newman]

There are some irons out there, that I have to flatten BOTH the front and back. Almost like the iron was bowed up in the middle. Not too good for a bevel down iron as that is where the iron rests in the plane. IF there is a bow the right way, iron will rock side to side using the bow of the iron on the ramp/frog it is trying to sit on. You might want to check both sides...