Smoothing plane rounded corners

[Alex Liebert]

I'm working on fixing up a #4, and I'd like to lightly round the corners to avoid tracking.

Would someone be so kind as to post a photo of their blade where they've done this? It would be helpful for me to see the radius in a photo from a well done one.

[glenn bradley]

I'm sure some folks camber irons enough to be obvious in a picture. I just exert a little more pressure at the outer corners when sharpening to get the effect. In my shop, the camber I use for a smoothing iron is pretty mild. It doesn't take much when you are at that stage, the cuts are so thin.

[Kees Heiden]

Rounding the corners is indeed usually not recommended to avoid plain tracks. You give the edge some "camber". That is, you radius the entire edge to a very subtle curve for a smoothing plane. Best you do this indeed on the honing stones after you do the normal back and forth swipes on the stone, you lean on one corner for a few strokes, then the other.

How much depends on the cutting power of your stones, the width of your iron, how deep you cut. So it is best to experiment yourself. Take a sample board and your plane. Do some cambering and then take a few smoothing planing strokes on the board. You then look how wide the shaving is. It shouldn't be full width, but also certainly not too narrow. I usually shoot for something like 3/4. Of course it is also a bit of trial and error with the lateral adjuster to get the shaving really in the middle.

[Jim Koepke]

I'm working on fixing up a #4, and I'd like to lightly round the corners to avoid tracking.

Would someone be so kind as to post a photo of their blade where they've done this? It would be helpful for me to see the radius in a photo from a well done one.

Here is a post of mine on how a minimal amount of honing at the edge can work like a cambered blade:

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?158373

One of my statements in the post is it doesn't matter if this is done on the bevel side or the back side of the blade.

Also the insight gained from this experiment is one of my reasons for not being a 'ruler trick' enthusiast.

Most of the time my blades are not intentionally cambered. One of my block planes arrived, form an auction win, with a blade 'cambered' in this way.

For finish smoothing it has been my experience a very light cut can be used to control tracks.

A few light strokes with a fine stone at the edges of the blade allows one to take light shavings which will blend in to each other.

Many years ago one of my smoothers had a propensity to cut a bit deep on one side. It took me quite a bit of fiddling with this plane to get it to behave. When using it to smooth, the tracks would usually start to appear on one side, so the plane was worked from one side to the other going over and covering its tracks. Since then this plane has been fettled in to a better behavior.

jtk

[Alex Liebert]

Thanks guys! A vert gentle camber makes sense.

I had just flipped through the manual for the veritas honing guide and it has an illustration of a straight edge with rounded corners, which is why I asked- to see how exaggerated the illustration was.