Bedding angle: Krenov style with thick iron and no chip breaker?

[Phillip West]

Playing with a krenov style plane..The iron is appx .215 thick behind the bevel slightly thicker at top end. Laminated wrought iron and O1 edge..I planned on bedding it at 45° but have been reading that some bed at 50° with no chip breaker..Do you think their would be problems at 45°? I don't think chatter should be a problem with a thick iron like that? Whats your thoughts? thanks

[Matthew N. Masail]

the thing is, if you want to avoid tear out in certain grains, a chipbreaker bedded at 45 or 55-60 is a better approach.
45 or 50 both work very well in domestic hardwoods but they will only be for well behaved grains, no more, which is perfectly fine if that's what you want, many use 45 degree planes without setting the chipbreaker for tearout control and it's fine for many situations.

I strongly recommend that you use as heavy a wood as you have, and size to back edge of the plane to be no less than 5inches back from the iron measured at the sole.

[Stewie Simpson]

Hello Phillip. Without a chip breaker a 50 degree bed would be the better option.

Stewie;

[Phillip West]

50°, thanks that's what Ive been reading too
..I make my own irons and don't want to fool with a chip breaker. Im using oak for the body, not sure about the sole..I was thinking about desert ironwood..Was also thinking of a non traditional approach and using Micarta(we have a lot on hand)..Its more durable than pretty much any wood and we work with it a lot. just kicking around the idea anyway..
Most of the wood I work with isn't too prone to tearout anyway to be honest..Most of my woodwork is rustic furniture and tool handles etc..Maybe Im peeing in the wind, don't know..Suppose I could make a chip breaker if I have too Id just rather not have too:D

[Warren Mickley]

What are you planning on using this plane for? Is it a jack plane? trying plane? smoothing plane?

[Jim Matthews]

I've got an HNT Gordon 'Jack' plane that's much as you describe.

It works well at the high bed angle with a single iron,
until the blade is dull. I find that for most tasks,
a cap iron gets me a better finish.

The main objection I have to Krenov style plane irons is that
they're very short, and holding them while sharpening
is difficult.

[Derek Cohen]

The last Krenov style smoother I made was a couple of years ago, and this has a 55-degree bed. It works very well ln moderately interlocked wood.

In the pictorial, on my website, there is also a picture of an original Krenov smoother. As with the plane I built, it uses a Hock double iron and has a 45-degree bed. What I find interesting is that it is evident that Krenov did not use the chipbreaker to control tearout. The plane arrived from him with shavings (he had used it recently) and the chipbreaker pulled back to about 1/16". The mouth is too tight to set the chipbreaker (and I do not plan to modify it).

There is no need to use a chipbreaker with the plane I built, but if I were making another I would have a 45-degree bed and widen the mouth to permit the chipbreaker to be used.

Link: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeTools/BuildingaKrenovSmoother.html

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Steve Voigt]

..The iron is appx .215 thick behind the bevel slightly thicker at top end. Laminated wrought iron and O1 edge

Hi Phillip,
Do you mean thinner at the top end? If not, your taper is in the wrong direction, unless you plan on making a japanese-style plane.

[Phillip West]

Steve:
No I meant thicker but it is marginal at best..A few thou at most..Just left over from the forging..You would not know its thicker just by looking at it..The iron is a bit longer than the typical krevov iron. Its about 4" long..
I thought about making a pretty tight mouth..I can always open it up, cant put more back in ya' know..We'll see, its a trial..if I need a chip breaker Ill rebuild the plane body and add one..
-----------------------------------
Derek;
That is very nice work..Thanks for the link.

[Steve Voigt]

If it is just a few thou, you should be fine. But in case you plane to make other irons, you will get better results if you run the taper the other way, which should be easy to do if you are smithing the iron. 19th c. plane irons are generally about 3/16 at the business end and taper about .090" over 7 inches, ending up around 3/32 at the top. 18th c. irons are thinner but have approx the same amount of taper, from 5/32" at the bottom to 1/16" at the top.

I would love to know more details about your smithing process. Are you using gas, coal, or ? Where did you get the wrought iron? How was forge welding tool steel to wrought; was it harder than welding to mild steel? Some pics would be great. Smithing an iron like that is no easy feat--congratulations.

[Phillip West]

Well my wife took over the business side out he shop sevreal years back. Laminated tools and traditional welded construction has been kind of a specialty of ours..We have coal and gas both..Most of the welding gets done in the coal forge.the gasser is used mostly for long and oddly shaped work pieces.
The wrought is sourced maily from reclaimed materials..Very old wagon rim is were the plane iron body came from..The marking knife at the bottom was a huge carriage bolt holding together a sawmill pillar in northern Michigan..Use a lot of mild steel for axe heads and hawk heads with welded in bits..Also work with a lot of mono steel too..
Here is the plane iron right after heat treat..You can see the lamination color difference..
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y165/kytrapper/112_zps9mebbqqx.jpg (http://s5.photobucket.com/user/kytrapper/media/112_zps9mebbqqx.jpg.html)
Heres the marking knife I mentioned. Hitachi blue steel on that one..
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y165/kytrapper/109_zps4y5pywmi.jpg (http://s5.photobucket.com/user/kytrapper/media/109_zps4y5pywmi.jpg.html)
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y165/kytrapper/110_zpspj4t03y8.jpg (http://s5.photobucket.com/user/kytrapper/media/110_zpspj4t03y8.jpg.html)
One last one here. you can see the welded in cutting bit in the head of this wrought iron hawk head..
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y165/kytrapper/008_zpse53c045c.jpg (http://s5.photobucket.com/user/kytrapper/media/008_zpse53c045c.jpg.html)
I have plenty of pics, WIP pics if anyone wants to see them..Pics of welding up an axe head etc..

[Mark Kornell]

Phillip, here's an idea - make 2 planes. Same iron, just vary the bed angle. A 45 and something in the 55-60 range. Then you can pick the one that best suits the task.

[Kees Heiden]

That's too cool Philip! I mean to become a blacksmith in my next life, so I always like to see stuff like this.

[Bill Rhodus]

A good many years ago I made a set of Krenov style planes for my travel box to reduce the weight of the box. I used single irons (no chipbreaker) because my brother in law is a tooling machinist and made them for free. When preparing to make the planes, I made several of them with varying bed angles (easy to scab together a platform without care for appearance) to determine the best angle for me. I chose 50 -52 degrees because I could get a good finish in most of the domestic woods I use and anything greater than 52 started to become harder to push. If I were buying the irons I would get double irons.

[Jim Matthews]

Okay, I want an axe from you.
Drop me a PM with how to place an order.

Jim