Lie Nielsen Bent Plane Blade

[Al Weber]

Several years ago I purchased a L-N #2 from a private party as part of a larger group of planes he was selling off. It was obvious he wasn't too careful with his tools as a number of the planes had significant rust. This was an older production plane as it still had the old style chip breaker. A few years ago I purchased the new style chip breaker for it but never installed it or used the plane. I recently rediscovered it in my shop during a move and decided to set it up and try it. After installing the new style chip breaker I found that wood would pack between the chip breaker and the blade. I initially thought the chip breaker needed a bit of tune up to make sure the leading edge met the blade cleanly but after stoning the chip breaker to form a sharp leading edge, found I couldn't resolve the problem. I thought that perhaps the blade had been ground excessively to flatten the back but that didn't appear to be the problem. I finally evaluated the flatness of the blade on a straight edge and found the blade has a bend it it that allows a .020" feeler gauge to slip into the end gap when the blade is placed on the straight edge or a a flat surface like a table saw or jointer table. I've thought about attempting to flatten the blade by triangulating it in a vise but am apprehensive about doing that for fear of creating more of a problem. I'm sure L-N would replace or repair the blade if I send it to them and maybe that is the best course of action but I'm open to any suggestions here on how to solve this myself. I really don't understand how the blade could have been bent. Seems it would need some serious abuse to cause the problem. Thanks in advance for any recommendations.

[Patrick Chase]

Several years ago I purchased a L-N #2 from a private party as part of a larger group of planes he was selling off. It was obvious he wasn't too careful with his tools as a number of the planes had significant rust. This was an older production plane as it still had the old style chip breaker. A few years ago I purchased the new style chip breaker for it but never installed it or used the plane. I recently rediscovered it in my shop during a move and decided to set it up and try it. After installing the new style chip breaker I found that wood would pack between the chip breaker and the blade. I initially thought the chip breaker needed a bit of tune up to make sure the leading edge met the blade cleanly but after stoning the chip breaker to form a sharp leading edge, found I couldn't resolve the problem. I thought that perhaps the blade had been ground excessively to flatten the back but that didn't appear to be the problem. I finally evaluated the flatness of the blade on a straight edge and found the blade has a bend it it that allows a .020" feeler gauge to slip into the end gap when the blade is placed on the straight edge or a a flat surface like a table saw or jointer table. I've thought about attempting to flatten the blade by triangulating it in a vise but am apprehensive about doing that for fear of creating more of a problem. I'm sure L-N would replace or repair the blade if I send it to them and maybe that is the best course of action but I'm open to any suggestions here on how to solve this myself. I really don't understand how the blade could have been bent. Seems it would need some serious abuse to cause the problem. Thanks in advance for any recommendations.

Is the blade uniformly "bent" on both sides? (front and back)

If so then the most likely culprit is warping during heat treatment. As you say that would be nearly impossible to bend in use. Lie-Nielsen didn't always have the tolerances they do today.

If it's only on the back then that means that a previous owner probably dubbed the living daylights out of it during grinding/honing.

Which direction is the bend?

[Al Weber]

The curve is convex on the back of the blade such that the chip breaker won't meet the backside and is a uniform bend on both faces of the blade. I'm going to contact L-N next week and see what they say. Thanks for the commentary.

[John Lanciani]

Based on the past life and condition of the plane when you bought it it doesn't really sound like Lie-Nielsen's problem to me. If it were me I would just buy a new iron and move on. Buying used involves acceptance of risk.