I think my handplane is tearing in on the corners?

[Brian Sommers]

I bought a Veritas jack plane and I have it set up for smoothing and I'm noticing what I think is edge/corner digging..

Is this what this is?
346068

see those tracks? Is that the corners digging in a bit? How do I fix that? Can I sand the corners down a bit? Knock them off with a moto tool? Other than that. I love this plane.

[steven c newman]

IF it is just one corner doing this.....lateral lever to fix. Tap it towards the track marking side a hair.

IF it is both corners, the solution will involve dubbing both back a bit. Usually a few trips on a stone with each corner.....but, first off, take a square across the back of the iron. Looking to see IF the center section is worn more than the corners. Too many trips as a jointer will wear the center of the iron more than the outside corners...BTDT. Check to see if this is the case.

I'd try option #1 first. Maybe the lateral got bumped a bit, throwing the setting off to one side. Easy fix.

[Brian Sommers]

I never thought of that. It does look like the right side tracking.

[Prashun Patel]

I dub my corners as Steve mentions on all my planes - even my smoother. It's a the slightest bit of roundover.

[Luke Dupont]

Silly question, but:

Do you know how to sharpen / have you sharpened a plane iron?

A standard step in any sharpening procedure for plane irons is rounding off the corners.

[Patrick Chase]

A standard step in any sharpening procedure for plane irons is rounding off the corners.

For smoothers, yes. For joinery planes (shoulder, rabbet, router, etc) decidedly not.

For non-smoother bench planes it's a grey area IMO. Jacks and Scrubs with camber obviously don't need it. For jointers it's optional since you're going to clean up with a smoother afterwards anyway, so the roundover doesn't buy you anything in terms of the final result. For me guaranteed flatness is more important than not tracking in a jointer.

Given that it isn't so clear-cut I wouldn't question whether somebody "knows how to sharpen" on that basis alone.

[Jim Koepke]

I have seen this type of problem on a plane in need of a very slight tightening of the lever cap screw. What happens is the lateral adjustment can slip a touch in use.

When I say very slight tightening, that is usually less than 1/8 of a rotation.

jtk

[Mike Cherry]

Keep in mind, the minor clipping of corners that many use in a bevel down plane is plenty to remove plane tracks. In a bevel up plane it takes a little more work to get the corners out of the way.

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/WoodworkTechniques/TheSecretToCamberinBUPlaneBlades.html

[Luke Dupont]

For smoothers, yes. For joinery planes (shoulder, rabbet, router, etc) decidedly not.

For non-smoother bench planes it's a grey area IMO. Jacks and Scrubs with camber obviously don't need it. For jointers it's optional since you're going to clean up with a smoother afterwards anyway, so the roundover doesn't buy you anything in terms of the final result. For me guaranteed flatness is more important than not tracking in a jointer.

Given that it isn't so clear-cut I wouldn't question whether somebody "knows how to sharpen" on that basis alone.

Right -- I figured joinery planes and cambered irons to be a no brainer :P

That's really interesting that you don't round the corners on jointers, though. I suppose there is no need for it. I would have thought that, if you take thick shavings, though, the corners might try to dig in and tear up the grain. That isn't an issue, I assume?

[Patrick Chase]

Right -- I figured joinery planes and cambered irons to be a no brainer :P

That's really interesting that you don't round the corners on jointers, though. I suppose there is no need for it. I would have thought that, if you take thick shavings, though, the corners might try to dig in and tear up the grain. That isn't an issue, I assume?

I've seen it "pull across" sometimes, but that doesn't matter since anything on the same level will be removed in smoothing. I haven't seen it "pull out" (i.e. cause worse tearout than the rest of the blade) and that's what matters. I'm sure there's a range of opinions on this one, though. I know that a lot of folks advise rounding everything, but I just don't bother because I've never seen an impact that wouldn't get fixed in smoothing anyway.

Even on smoothers I probably round less than most people. In my experience the wood gets somewhat burnished and changes in reflectivity as the blade transitions from cutting to not cutting along a gradual roundover, and that can cause subtle but visible tracking. To avoid that I try to round over only as much as I need to get adjacent passes to feather together. Hypothetically, if I usually take ~2-mil shavings then I might try to round by a mil (done totally ad hoc though. At one point I tried to measure the corner relief with shim stock, but decided it was a waste of time).

[steven c newman]

If a Jointer plane is doing it's designed job..jointing an edge of a board...most of the blade wear will be right in the center, as the corners are usually out in midair. Seen way too many irons with just the center of the edge worn away. Whereas a camber would look like a smile, most jointer irons I've rehabbed were shaped like a frown. I regrind the edge into a straight line, square to the edge of the iron sides. I figure it can wear away as it wants to.

So, did the plane get fixed?

[Patrick Chase]

If a Jointer plane is doing it's designed job..jointing an edge of a board...most of the blade wear will be right in the center, as the corners are usually out in midair. Seen way too many irons with just the center of the edge worn away. Whereas a camber would look like a smile, most jointer irons I've rehabbed were shaped like a frown. I regrind the edge into a straight line, square to the edge of the iron sides. I figure it can wear away as it wants to.

Yeah, for edge jointing it simply doesn't matter. What I said above was mostly relevant to panel jointing.

[Brian Sommers]

I haven't messed with it yet. Probably in the morning.

[Brian Sommers]

I tried to adjust it side to side, maybe a little better but still there. I will have to take it across some sandpaper and see if I can knock down those corners a bit.

[David Eisenhauer]

Just to make sure - you did test the lateral setting of the blade by checking that the blade is cutting to equal depths on both ends of the blade, correct? Lots of experts recommend putting a 1/2" or so thick piece of scrap in a vise, set the plane for a very shallow cut (probably have to keep advancing the blade until it just starts cutting) and then push each side (only) of the plane across the 1/2" scrap to visually compare the size/amount of the shaving produced by each end of the width of the plane blade. By using the lateral adjustment lever (or tapping with a hammer), the blade is adjusted to result in an even amount of protrusion across the width of the blade, which then produces a consistent thickness of cut along the full width of the blade. You can also do this by hand-holding the plane upside down and running the 1/2" scrap across the exposed blade rather than use a vise, but either way, the scrap test is more accurate than just gauging the gap between each end of the blade and the mouth cut in the sole of the plane by eye. With that, and a very slight "rounding" of the blade corners, you should get rid of the "tracks" in the planed surface of your wood.

[Prashun Patel]

One more thing to help insure lateral setting is correct (thanks to David Charlesworth's DVD):

Turn the plane over, and take a narrow chip of hardwood and run the flat edge over the blade in multiple passes from one edge to the other. Ideally it starts making slight contact inside the edges, not at the edges, and contacts uniform distances from the center.