Newbie Questions Regarding Thread for Cutting Angle for Veritas BU Planes

[Joel Turner]

I didn't want to hijack this current thread (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?241196-Cutting-angle-for-Veritas-BU-planes), so I'll ask my questions here.

I'm very new to hand tool use and ended up buying a Veritas Low Angle Jack Plane several months ago that I am now getting ready to set up. I've read some of David Charlesworth's articles and watched Christopher Schwarz's Mastering Hand Tools video where he introduces an 8" camber to his blade to set up the plane for rough work. After some reading on this site and Derek Cohen's article on bevel up blades, I think I have a sense of what I need to do to sharpen the blade for use but wanted to ask some questions for clarification. Forgive me in advance as these may seem evident to long time sharpeners but can be very confusing to beginners. Here are my questions:

1) Preparing the back of the blade is done using progressive stones going from 1000 to 8000 grit. This process is the same regardless for bevel up or bevel down blades, correct?

2) Derek talks about grinding the blade to 25 degrees. In the same article he also discussed creating a jig to grind the camber. I wanted to confirm that the conclusion was to grind a primary bevel straight at 25 degrees and then introduce a micro bevel where the camber is introduced. Is that accurate?

3) Derek's article then suggests creating a micro bevel at the desired angle, in this case 30 degrees, yielding an effective cutting angle of 42 degrees. Is it at this point that I use David's 5 position technique to create the desired camber? If so, it seems to me the camber wheel option for my MKII is a desirable option.

4) If I employ the ruler trick, I do so as the last step after polishing the micro bevel with camber on the 8000 grit stone, correct?

Thanks in advance for your reply.

--Joel

[Prashun Patel]

Derek will surely write proper responses tonight. As a bevel-up user, here's what works for me:

1. yes.
2. I grind the primary angle straight - whether I'm hollow grinding or using a guide on my Worksharp. I introduce any camber when honing on the 1000-8000 stones with a guide.
3. I don't use the cambering wheel even though I have the MKII guide. I just press on each side of the blade a few strokes. My cambers are not dramatic - just barely enough to mitigate some track marks. In fact, it was Derek who advocated that technique to me.
4. I believe the ruler trick is for flattening the back of the blade only. My regimen is to flatten the back all the way up to 1000, grind the primary (if necessary), then polish the back up to 8000 and finally to hone the ubevel.

[Jim Koepke]

Edited...

I'm very new to hand tool use and ended up buying a Veritas Low Angle Jack Plane several months ago

More editing...

1) Preparing the back of the blade is done using progressive stones going from 1000 to 8000 grit. This process is the same regardless for bevel up or bevel down blades, correct?

2) Derek talks about grinding the blade to 25 degrees. In the same article he also discussed creating a jig to grind the camber. I wanted to confirm that the conclusion was to grind a primary bevel straight at 25 degrees and then introduce a micro bevel where the camber is introduced. Is that accurate?

3) Derek's article then suggests creating a micro bevel at the desired angle, in this case 30 degrees, yielding an effective cutting angle of 42 degrees. Is it at this point that I use David's 5 position technique to create the desired camber? If so, it seems to me the camber wheel option for my MKII is a desirable option.

4) If I employ the ruler trick, I do so as the last step after polishing the micro bevel with camber on the 8000 grit stone, correct?

Thanks in advance for your reply.

--Joel

1) The back of Vertas blades are usually better prepared than most are able to do at home. They may look cloudy, but that doesn't negate the fact of their being flat. If you must, use your finest stone and you will be amazed at how fast it turns to a mirror finish.

2) As a newbie, my suggestion would be to hold off on doing anything to your blade other than a bit of honing until you get more of a feel for the plane. There haven't been any threads to my knowledge about the blades coming from Lee Valley improperly ground or needing to be ground right out of the box.

3) Answer #2 applies here also. See how the plane does the way it arrives before venturing off into new territory. There have been a few times where someone, "has done everything to the blade and it now won't cut right" threads.

4) The ruler trick is a quick way to approximate a flat back on a used blade. Some have had problems with using it on a bevel up plane.

I am sure others will make suggestions counter to mine. For starting out my advice is to experience using the plane set up as it came from Lee Valley. Then you will be able to determine if any of the changes might improve performance.

How you use the plane also determines how much modification you will want to do to the blade. If you work a lot of rough lumber, then you may even want to purchase a second blade to camber more than what you would want for a smoothing plane. If you are doing a lot of shooting end grain you might want more of a secondary bevel to avoid excess blade wear.

jtk

[Mike Holbrook]

I second all the things Prashun and Jim suggested. Disregard the thread I am running regarding cutting angles for BU planes.

I am devising a sharpening system to match a 2 wheel CBN grinder, hollow grinding, Spyderco stones...I am also atypical in that I am not nearly as oriented towards making perfectly flat surfaces as most woodworkers are. Like Jim says, the better premium planes arrive in close to ready to use form. A new person may actually make them worse by trying to do too much. Not that I would know from experience or anything. Try the Veritas plane out like it arrived, making minimum changes at first, at least until you get more comfortable with a sharpening technique that is working for you.

I have been working with the CBN wheels for around 6 months and just getting to the point that I may feel comfortable building my sharpening system around them.

[Jim Koepke]

I have been working with the CBN wheels for around 6 months and just getting to the point that I may feel comfortable building my sharpening system around them.

My father first showed me a few things about sharpening almost 60 years ago and I am still learning and keeping my options open.

jtk

[Joel Turner]

I appreciate the feedback. So my takeaways are:

1) Flattening the back on new premium blades is largely unnecessary. If desired, polish with my 8000 grit stone.
2) No need to grind the bevel.
3) Hone a straight micro bevel and see how the plane behaves. Note pros and cons and make changes to technique incrementally and reassess.
4) Ruler trick not needed for new blades and may be of questionable value for BU blades.

--Joel

[Patrick Chase]

I appreciate the feedback. So my takeaways are:

1) Flattening the back on new premium blades is largely unnecessary. If desired, polish with my 8000 grit stone.
2) No need to grind the bevel.
3) Hone a straight micro bevel and see how the plane behaves. Note pros and cons and make changes to technique incrementally and reassess.
4) Ruler trick not needed for new blades and may be of questionable value for BU blades.

--Joel

That might work for the very first tuning, but you'll need to come up with some way of working the back in the longer term, for two reasons:

1. You'll need to be able to remove burrs from the blade back once you do significant sharpening on the bevel.

2. BU planes tend to develop wear bevels on the back. If you don't take those down every so often you'll start to lose clearance and the blade will eventually stop cutting.

FWIW I use a version of the ruler trick to manage the backs of my BU blades, but I'm careful about it. Specifically:

- I use a piece of 10-mil shim stock instead of a ruler, and I initially set it about 2.5" back from the edge. This combination yields about 1/4 deg of back bevel.

- As the wear bevel develops I gradually reduce the distance from shim stock to edge so that I keep working the edge, but I never let it go lower than 1.25" (1/2 deg of back bevel). When the bevel gets to that point it's time to re-flatten the back and start over. I mark the blade top with a Sharpie to keep track of where the shim stock was most recently positioned.

Charlseworth's version of the ruler trick always creates a ~1/2 deg back bevel, so the only thing that's difference here is that I start at a lower angle to leave some room for bevel to increase due to wear.

[Jim Koepke]

I appreciate the feedback. So my takeaways are:

1) Flattening the back on new premium blades is largely unnecessary. If desired, polish with my 8000 grit stone.
2) No need to grind the bevel.
3) Hone a straight micro bevel and see how the plane behaves. Note pros and cons and make changes to technique incrementally and reassess.
4) Ruler trick not needed for new blades and may be of questionable value for BU blades.

--Joel

1) Flattening the back on a Veritas blade is largely unnecessary. Other brands of premium blades may or may not require some work. A little bit of time on a fine stone can reveal what needs to be done. Many premium blades are not worked on the back to the same fine grit level of a Veritas blade.

2) Correct. It may benefit from a pass or two on a fine stone and/or stropping.

3) I would first try the plane without the micro bevel.

4) This is for the user to determine in their own blade maintenance methods. I do not normally use a micro bevel on my blades. My blades are usually back on the stones before they acquire much of a wear bevel. For me refreshing the edge also removes the wear bevel. To my way of thinking the ruler trick is making a defined and useable wear bevel. It works for many people. For me it is another step and less simple. I am a big fan of simple consistency.

It has been five years since my post on a different method of cambering a blade:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?158373-My-Camber-Blade-Round-Tuit-Finally-Came

One of my block planes came to me with a blade that is difficult to get flat all the way to the edges. Then the ruler trick came to my attention. It made me wonder if this was just another old method that was lost with the passing of time like so many others.

What can be taken away from this is many people work their blades to sharpness in different ways and we all get to a sharp blade cutting through wood in a manner that works for us.

"Yes Virginia, they can all be right." (And there is a Santa Claus, incase you do not get the reference.)

jtk

[Patrick Chase]

1) Flattening the back on a Veritas blade is largely unnecessary. Other brands of premium blades may or may not require some work. A little bit of time on a fine stone can reveal what needs to be done. Many premium blades are not worked on the back to the same fine grit level of a Veritas blade.

I'm not sure why we're focussing on the inital/as-shipped condition of the blade, because that only matters for the initial sharpenings.

The elephant in the room here is the wear-beveling that happens to the backs of all BU planes. There will come a time in the not-so-distant future when will have to flatten the back to get rid of that, and the fact that it came to you flat merely reduces the amount of work you have to do once that happens (you'll only have to remove the wear bevel, as opposed to having to flatten the back and remove the bevel).

[Jim Koepke]

The elephant in the room here is the wear-beveling that happens to the backs of all BU planes. There will come a time in the not-so-distant future when will have to flatten the back to get rid of that,

As the wear bevel develops, the work will not be as crisp as with a freshly sharpened blade. When it is noticeable, I remove the blade from the plane and refresh the bevel to the point of removing the wear bevel. The back of the blade is on the stones mostly to remove any burr produced during honing.

Others choose to refine the wear bevel by way of the ruler trick.

My suggestion is merely for Joel to try the blade before grinding, cambering, micro beveling, ruler tricking or anything else. Feel the out of box experience before doing anything. Then when it comes time to sharpen, don't try doing everything at once until he gains a bit of experience with first getting the blade to sharp.

If someone wanted to experiment with a Stanley/Bailey #4 or #5 my suggestion would be to head down to Home Depot and buy a $3 replacement blade with which to experiment.

You have your ways, I have mine. They both seem to work. I do not feel like converting today, likely you feel the same.

jtk

[Mike Holbrook]

There are many ways a thread can go, certainly we are all "guilty" at times of talking about what we use instead of what might work for the OP. The missing piece for me in this thread is I am not sure exactly what sharpening tools-stones/grinder/belt sander...the OP has available. He mentions 1000-8000 stones and using an 8000, so that is what I have to go on.

As Jim mentions it is easy to make whatever system the manufacturer used to make the original plane blade's bevel and micro bevel worse instead of better. In Veeritas' case I would label the "micro" bevel more of a secondary (thicker) bevel. The secondary bevels on the Veritas plane blades I have bought over the last year are not that small. The OP does not mention any sort of stone.. that I think would make sense to use to grind away the secondary bevel on a typical Veritas plane blade. Knowing only what we know I think it makes better sense for the OP to use the same system Veritas used to manufacture the blades rather than trying to alter that system in any way with stones that are typically used more to maintain than alter such a system.

For years I tried to regrind bevels/micro bevels on a Tormek. It was years before I figured out that my machine was just verrrry slow at that kind of work. I also have a very old bar on my Tormek that Tormek got rid of soon after. My Tormek bar wiggles enough to make it very hard to grind bevels, particularly micro bevels. Then I bought a belt sander...belt sanders make a convex bevel vs the concave bevel wheels make. So then I had a grinding system that basically did the opposite. Then I bought various coarse stones/diamond stones, which typically make flat bevels. I wound up with a complete mess in terms of the bevels/micro bevels on my plane blades.

David Weaver helped me locate a large used Japanese mortise chisel which I bought. The corner was chipped when I got it. I ground a new bevel for that chisel with a Dia-Flat Diamond plate, very coarse. I would not wish that job on anyone. It took quite a long time. I feel certain the job of regrinding a Veritas BU plane bevel on the Dia Flat would be even more of a challenge. If I have learned anything from using all these sharpening devices, it has been that changing bevels without appropriate tools and experience is a very frustrating pursuit that can eat up practically all of a woodworkers time in the shop.

So like Jim mentions above, I think the OP is better off sticking with the system that was used to make the plane blades he has rather than embarking on a potentially frustrating quest into different ways to alter bevels on plane blades. As Derek mentions in his suggestions regarding micro bevels for BU plane blades. A very small bevel needs to be very precise. Derek suggests using a good guide to assure this level of accuracy. I don't know that the OP has such a tool. Derek's method also involves regrinding the bevels on all BU plane blades to 25 degrees. I am not sure the OP has the sharpening tools or skill set necessary to make those methods work.

Now I have a grinding system I am successful with. Like Jim suggests, I started out grinding Stanley, thinner, softer steel blades, experimenting with hollow grinding. Then I ground a few Veritas PM-V11 blades made for Stanley planes. More recently I tried grinding old Veritas A2 BU plane blades. Only after months of experimenting with progressively thicker/harder blades am I considering a new grinding system for all my plane blades. Attempting a new sharpening system which entails grinding different bevels without a grinding system one is comfortable using can be very frustrating. If I can save someone else that frustration....

[Frank Martin]

There are many ways a thread can go, certainly we are all "guilty" at times of talking about what we use instead of what might work for the OP. The missing piece for me in this thread is I am not sure exactly what sharpening tools-stones/grinder/belt sander...the OP has available. He mentions 1000-8000 stones and using an 8000, so that is what I have to go on.

As Jim mentions it is easy to make whatever system the manufacturer used to make the original plane blade's bevel and micro bevel worse instead of better. In Veeritas' case I would label the "micro" bevel more of a secondary (thicker) bevel. The secondary bevels on the Veritas plane blades I have bought over the last year are not that small. The OP does not mention any sort of stone.. that I think would make sense to use to grind away the secondary bevel on a typical Veritas plane blade. Knowing only what we know I think it makes better sense for the OP to use the same system Veritas used to manufacture the blades rather than trying to alter that system in any way with stones that are typically used more to maintain than alter such a system.

For years I tried to regrind bevels/micro bevels on a Tormek. It was years before I figured out that my machine was just verrrry slow at that kind of work. I also have a very old bar on my Tormek that Tormek got rid of soon after. My Tormek bar wiggles enough to make it very hard to grind bevels, particularly micro bevels. Then I bought a belt sander...belt sanders make a convex bevel vs the concave bevel wheels make. So then I had a grinding system that basically did the opposite. Then I bought various coarse stones/diamond stones, which typically make flat bevels. I wound up with a complete mess in terms of the bevels/micro bevels on my plane blades.

David Weaver helped me locate a large used Japanese mortise chisel which I bought. The corner was chipped when I got it. I ground a new bevel for that chisel with a Dia-Flat Diamond plate, very coarse. I would not wish that job on anyone. It took quite a long time. I feel certain the job of regrinding a Veritas BU plane bevel on the Dia Flat would be even more of a challenge. If I have learned anything from using all these sharpening devices, it has been that changing bevels without appropriate tools and experience is a very frustrating pursuit that can eat up practically all of a woodworkers time in the shop.

So like Jim mentions above, I think the OP is better off sticking with the system that was used to make the plane blades he has rather than embarking on a potentially frustrating quest into different ways to alter bevels on plane blades. As Derek mentions in his suggestions regarding micro bevels for BU plane blades. A very small bevel needs to be very precise. Derek suggests using a good guide to assure this level of accuracy. I don't know that the OP has such a tool. Derek's method also involves regrinding the bevels on all BU plane blades to 25 degrees. I am not sure the OP has the sharpening tools or skill set necessary to make those methods work.

Now I have a grinding system I am successful with. Like Jim suggests, I started out grinding Stanley, thinner, softer steel blades, experimenting with hollow grinding. Then I ground a few Veritas PM-V11 blades made for Stanley planes. More recently I tried grinding old Veritas A2 BU plane blades. Only after months of experimenting with progressively thicker/harder blades am I considering a new grinding system for all my plane blades. Attempting a new sharpening system which entails grinding different bevels without a grinding system one is comfortable using can be very frustrating. If I can save someone else that frustration....

Mike, I believe you have a CBN wheel grinder. What new system are you considering now?

I have a belt sander and a Lap Sharp and sometimes think about a CBN grinder. So I am interested.

[Mike Holbrook]

Frank I was referring to using my CBN wheel system to regrind all my plane blades with hollow grinds. I think the OP read my recent post about grinding BU plane blades with a slightly different system than Derek suggests and got a little confused. I have been trying to explain the long journey I have been through in an attempt to become proficient at grinding new bevels on plane blades and how that might apply to someone thinking about changing the normal system Veritas uses on the blades that are delivered with their planes.

I still plan to base my sharpening system on my CBN wheels. I just realize that not everyone has these devises, many find other methods work for them. Grinding something as large as a BU plane blade is not easy. Some of the methods people mention, particularly Derek's methods for maintaining BU plane blades, may entail grinding blades to different angles. Certainly if one wants to use the system Derek mentions it would be easier to just buy blades with 25 degree bevels to start.

I think it is a well established fact at this point that CBN wheels can grind, particularly hard steels, faster than other grinding wheels. I want to be able to grind larger cambers, even in thick wide blades, this is why I base my system on CBN wheels.

[Joel Turner]

There are many ways a thread can go, certainly we are all "guilty" at times of talking about what we use instead of what might work for the OP. The missing piece for me in this thread is I am not sure exactly what sharpening tools-stones/grinder/belt sander...the OP has available. He mentions 1000-8000 stones and using an 8000, so that is what I have to go on.

Mike, your right, I should have probably mentioned what equipment I have. So I have:


Norton water stones - 1,000/8,000 combo and a 4,000
Norton flattening stone
Veritas MKII and camber wheel
Tormek T-4 with SE-76 square jig and truing jig (a gift)


I have a limited set of hand tools right now which includes a set of Marples chisels, a used Veritas LA block plane, the new LA Jack and router plane. To date, I've been experimenting sharpening the chisels. Taking a chisel as an example, a Tormek workflow consists of flattening the back on the side of the wheel (a fruitless exercise in my opinion), grinding a primary bevel, changing the stone grit from 220 to 1000, honing a portion of the bevel, and then polishing on the leather wheel with honing compound. If you've ever watched a Jeff Farris video he makes this look effortless; however, I've having trouble getting a sharp edge this way. I admit, this is probably my lack of experience with the Tormek.

So yesterday I tried this method as an alternative:


Flatten chisel back on waterstones going progressively from 1000 to 8000 grit. I've followed David Charlesworth's stroke patterns going side to side and then back and forth.
Grind bevel to 25 degrees on Tormek. Used a Sharpie to gauge progress
Place chisel in MKII jig and hone secondary bevel at 30 degrees on 1000 grit waterstone.
Polish secondary bevel at 30 degrees on 8000 waterstone.
Remove burr on on 8000 waterstone.


Granted I have very little practical experience, but this method yielded a chisel that slices paper with relative ease.

I think before trying anything with the LA Jack, I'm going to work on the used blade that came with the LA block plane. No camber is needed and I can keep everything at 25 degrees.

[Curt Putnam]

On a new Veritas blade trying to flatten the back will only make it less flat. They come insanely flat. Recent blades have come ground at slightly less than 25° - one can then readily hone at 25°. If you really want to put on 8" radius on a BU blade then you pretty much have a one trick pony. Getting back to a straight bevel will chew up a lot of blade. An 8" radius implies to me that you are going to be using the plane as a scrub. If this is the case, consider getting on old Stanley # 5 user and converting that to your scrub. If you do not want to do that consider getting the coarse toothing blade which will hog off wood rather quickly and is simply honed flat with none of the radiusing hassles.

[Patrick Chase]

On a new Veritas blade trying to flatten the back will only make it less flat. They come insanely flat. Recent blades have come ground at slightly less than 25° - one can then readily hone at 25°. If you really want to put on 8" radius on a BU blade then you pretty much have a one trick pony. Getting back to a straight bevel will chew up a lot of blade. An 8" radius implies to me that you are going to be using the plane as a scrub. If this is the case, consider getting on old Stanley # 5 user and converting that to your scrub. If you do not want to do that consider getting the coarse toothing blade which will hog off wood rather quickly and is simply honed flat with none of the radiusing hassles.

This is true for the very first honing.

As soon as you create a burr or wear bevel (either one) on the back you'll have to work it no matter how flat and smooth it may have been, and at that point it's no different from any other blade - you need to be able to work the part of the back along the edge at a bare minimum.

Don't get me wrong - I *love* Veritas' blades because they're so easy to set up. My borderline-obsessive posting habits notwithstanding, I have better things to do with my time than flatten the backs of my plane blades. I just don't understand the whole "don't touch the back because you'll just make it worse" thing. You're going to have to touch it in very short order, so you'd might as well figure out how to do that without making it worse sooner rather than later.

Also, accurately flattening blade backs really isn't difficult. Go find Charlseworth's "User's Guide to Waterstones" article from FWW. If you start with flat stones and follow his technique, including the stroke-count limits, you'll get adequate results (probably not as flat as LV's lapping machines, but nobody really needs that anyway). I've handed that article to a couple otherwise inexperienced friends and they were able to sort it out easily enough.

If you want to be all OCD about it you can be like me and procure a bunch of surface-ground steel plates to use with diamond pastes - at that point you'll be in "Veritas flat" territory, but just don't. Really, don't.

[Jim Koepke]

Curt Putnam:

On a new Veritas blade trying to flatten the back will only make it less flat. They come insanely flat.

Patrick Chase:

I just don't understand the whole "don't touch the back because you'll just make it worse" thing. You're going to have to touch it in very short order, so you'd might as well figure out how to do that without making it worse sooner rather than later.

Patrick,
I am not sure I am understanding this. Are you saying even if the blade is fresh from the factory, insanely flat, you suggest going ahead and try to flatten the back more than it already is because it will have to be done eventually?

Sorry, from the context of Joel's original post, in my opinion, that is not only a waste of time but bad advise.

Removing a burr can be done on a strop or with a few strokes on a finishing stone. That is very different from the work of flattening the back of a blade that is already flat.

As far as the wear bevel is concerned, I seem to have no trouble getting rid of it when honing the flat bevel. I imagine a secondary bevel being renewed would also remove enough metal to eliminate the back bevel.

jtk

[Mike Holbrook]

Joel if you were able to grind a bevel to 25, even a chisel, using your Tormek you have done better than I was able to do with mine. Admittedly mine was an old model. Mine only had a locking knob on one side of the bar, all other Tormeks have two knobs to lock the bar down. My bar would move around 3/8" at the end, which makes it very difficult to grind bevels with. It took me years to figure out why guys like Derek seemed to get results I could not.

Still, the stone on a Tormek turns relatively slowly, it isn't very coarse and it tends to get smoother when used, unless the surface is constantly reground. All this just means it may not be a particularly fast grinding system. Many posters on these forums use regular bench grinders with various coarse stones for grinding. This is probably the most popular system for grinding, although there are various other options out there. The issue some have with conventional grinders is coarse stones can over heat steel if the user isn't careful. CBN wheels just seem to work better for me. I can grind fast without fear of over heating my steel.

Lee Valley/Veritas generally put considerable thought into the products they put on the market and how easy they are to maintain. I think the posters advocating using the existing system are just trying to reduce the risk of you encountering frustrating additional work. My whole idea with the CBN system I am working on has to do with making all my sharpening chores faster so I can get back to the wood. Like any sharpening system it takes time and experience to make it work though.

[Patrick Chase]

I am not sure I am understanding this. Are you saying even if the blade is fresh from the factory, insanely flat, you suggest going ahead and try to flatten the back more than it already is because it will have to be done eventually?


No, with a fresh blade there's no reason to flatten the back, but I do (minimally) ruler-trick the edge right off the bat to get rid of any residual burr from working the frontside.

To be clear, I'm drawing a distinction between two arguments:

1. Don't do more than you need to

2. Don't touch the back at all because you'll just make it worse

The first is simply common sense, while the second is simply nonsense. As I've said a few times, there are two problems with the second argument:

1. You don't actually *need* that perfect flatness for woodworking, so it does not matter whether you can replicate it. IIRC Rob has stated in the past that LV did that because of customer demand, not because it was necessary (I believe it was part of an extended commentary about what the advent of cheap high-precision measuring devices was doing to the industry). He's right.

2. If you can't maintain the back of your blade you're going to be very unhappy in short order, because that initial perfect flatness will go away whether you work it or not.



As far as the wear bevel is concerned, I seem to have no trouble getting rid of it when honing the flat bevel. I imagine a secondary bevel being renewed would also remove enough metal to eliminate the back bevel.


I can only speak from my own experience here: I would have to remove far more material than otherwise needed to remove a wear bevel from the back by only working the face.

EDIT: Now that I think about it it may have been Leonard Lee who made the comments about woodworkers-with-micrometers.

[Jim Koepke]

1. You don't actually *need* that perfect flatness for woodworking, so it does not matter whether you can replicate it. IIRC Rob has stated in the past that LV did that because of misguided customer demand

It would surprise me if Mr. Lee isn't happy with every penny that "misguided customer demand" has come through the cash registers of his company due to his being able to meet that "misguided customer demand."

One of my early back flattening journeys was in trying to get a chip breaker and a blade to meet properly. It is true the back doesn't have to be perfectly flat. On a bevel down plane it does need to be flat enough to mate with a chip breaker without gaps.


I can only speak from my own experience here: I would have to remove far more material than otherwise needed to remove a wear bevel from the back by only working the face.

Is the wear bevel removed via the "ruler trick"?

Does the wear bevel eventually get to a point of the "ruler trick" no longer being effective at removing the wear bevel?

What is done then?

jtk

[Patrick Chase]

It would surprise me if Mr. Lee isn't happy with every penny that "misguided customer demand" has come through the cash registers of his company due to his being able to meet that "misguided customer demand."

One of my early back flattening journeys was in trying to get a chip breaker and a blade to meet properly. It is true the back doesn't have to be perfectly flat. On a bevel down plane it does need to be flat enough to mate with a chip breaker without gaps.

Three comments:

1. I've worked as a product designer for much of my career (not my current job though), so I know all about pointless features to meet customer-perceived non-requirements. The fact that those features paid my salary has nothing to do with the fact that they were pointless. Doing stuff like that is actually depressing, because they force you to add cost to the product and that ultimately *hurts* the very same consumers who demanded them. Such is the reality of free markets (an economist would label this an example of "imperfect information").

2. I use Charlseworth's method for the most part, and don't have any trouble getting the chipbreaker to mate adequately. If somebody has that problem then the solution is to fix their technique, not avoid working plane backs.

3. The title of this thread is "newbie questions regarding thread for cutting angle for Veritas BU planes". Why are we talking about chipbreakers?



Is the wear bevel removed via the "ruler trick"?

Does the wear bevel eventually get to a point of the "ruler trick" no longer being effective at removing the wear bevel?

What is done then?

jtk

Already addressed in detail in post #7 of this thread.

[Patrick Chase]

2. I use Charlseworth's method for the most part, and don't have any trouble getting the chipbreaker to mate adequately. If somebody has that problem then the solution is to fix their technique, not avoid working plane backs.


One other remark: Because of their geometry the mating surfaces of chipbreakers can't be lapped on the machines (designed for polishing silicon wafers) that LV uses for their blade backs. Examination of the surfaces reveals that they're done via conventional grinding/polishing.

In other words, the fact that LV's blades and chipbreakers mate "out of the box" proves my point that you don't need the sort of flatness the blade backs have.

[Jim Koepke]

The title of this thread is "newbie questions regarding thread for cutting angle for Veritas BU planes". Why are we talking about chipbreakers?

Because the Original Poster isn't the only newbie likely to read this thread in the future. Many beginners may think what is good for one blade is good for any other.

With some of the 'information' provided in these threads a new user might get the idea that before a plane is put to wood out of the box they need to camber, micro bevel, back flatten and ruler trick a blade to get the plane to work properly. In my opinion, it is likely to cause more problems for a user new to woodworking than it will cure.

Surely:
332584
I know mine does.

jtk