Veritas skew rabbet sharpening challenges

[Scott Winners]

If you have one, can you look and see if the iron isn't bedded 8 degrees away from perpendicular to the mouth when viewed frm above please? I think it must be.

I got in a set of 30 degree skew jaws for my LN honing guide, the current Lee Valley website describes the cutting angle as 30 degrees, but the iron I just got in the mail today (Veritas skew rabbet) is ground at 22 degrees from perpendicular to the blade axis.

The simplest explanation is the iron is bedded not perpendicular to the mouth when viewed from above.

I am planning to take all my bits to my machinist Monday, so feel free to kick this around a little bit. I just have too much clock time coming up to get there any sooner.

Option one, looks bad, I could have the edges of the iron reground so that I can use the 30 degree LN jaws, but that is going to a LOT of material off the iron. I would probably have to replace the adjusting screws on the plane body and who knows how well it would function in KD hickory.

Option two, looks expensive and risky, I could have my LN 30 degree jaw set remachined to 22 degrees. They look like they are made out of really good steel, and then I wouldn't have them anymore.

Option three looks like the way to go: Ask my machinist to make a set of 22 degree jaws that could attach to my LN honing guide out of, gosh, 1065 would be fine, and just use those. I would probalby need two sets made of slightly different length, one for the primary bevel and the other longer set for the secondary bevel.

I shall upload pictures before you fall asleep.

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As pictured in the last two pics only the short corner is on the graph paper. The rest of the edge rises off the graph paper - at about 8 degrees. So the penciled bevel angles are just estimates.

The way the iron on my Record 778 is shaped I can use an ecclipse style guide and grind 25 degree primary with the jaws on the narrow upper portion of the blade, and a secondary starting at about 30 degrees (or higher) with the jaws on the wide part of the iron closer to the edge. The tapered or flaring portion of the Veritas iron is a bit more generous than the Record.

The fundamental problem in my shop is space. I have been working too much OT for about five years, with insane clock hours since March 2020, so I have money and not a lot of time, but the biggest problem in my shop is actually space. I can buy all kinds of stuff I don't have room for, I would truly rather, in this season of life, blow a couple hundred on a custom jaw set than make room for another guide.

Anyway, thanks for your comments, this problem is getting solved.

[Scott Winners]

And solid geometry is not my strong suit. I laid both blades out on graph paper and find the flaring or tapering length of my Record 778 iron is 1/2 inch on axis, but on Axis the same changing width length of the Veritas blade is only 3/8".

For now my plan is to have 22 degree jaws made overlong and grind off what is in the way.

[John Erickson]

I'd modify the existing set of LN 30* jaws and order a replacement set. The Veritas Instruction Guide (2090 KB, PDF) (http://www.veritastools.ca/Content/Assets/ProductInfo/EN/05M0920EN.pdf) says to skew is 22*

[Derek Cohen]

Scott, don't mess with the Veritas blades. If you are intent on using the LN guide, then create a set of jaws to hold the blade.

An alternative: Personally, I hollow grind these blades, and then freehand them on the hollow. I last had to hollow grind them (I have a left and right) several years ago. I use mine often, which says this method is very efficient.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Kevin Jenness]

I agree with Derek- just freehand them. You can hollow grind them just up to the edge so you don't lose the angle.

[Brian Hale]

Mine reads 15 degrees on both the honing guide and dial protractor. I'd suggest freehand honing but avoid changing the blade angle. Perhaps ask LN if they have any suggestions.461202461203

[Scott Winners]

Mine reads 15 degrees on both the honing guide and dial protractor.

This explains some of the murkiness I encountered reading up on this plane online. Brian's iron's outline is different from my iron's outline.

Thanks for input so far.

[lowell holmes]

The bevel is 40 degrees and the blade angle is 62 degrees. I measured using a Swanson speed square.
This is a Veritas Skew Rabbet Plane.
Rob Lee reads this site. He may very well comment. I have five of his planes.
If you desire, I will trace the outline of the iron and mail it to you.

[Scott Winners]

If Rob does comment my biggest question would be what can Brian Hale do if he needs a replacement iron?

In my online research on a website other than this one I found two posters going after each other with venom, one insisting the edge is ground 22 degrees off axis to the iron, the other insisting the edge is ground 15 degrees off axis.

Brian's (earlier style?) iron with a straight side on what I think of as the heel end of his edge has a hexagonal relief hole and is convincingly ground 15 degrees off axis. My current production iron has some taper or flare on both sides of the iron, an oval relief hole in the middle and is convincingly ground at 22 degrees off axis. The only skew rabbet blades on the Lee Valley website right now this minute have the oval relief hole and taper or swell on both sides of the iron.

Looking more carefully at the pics of the plane online at Lee Valley, I think the iron probably is mounted a bit off axis to the axis of the plane and am willing to believe the product offers a 30 degree cutting angle even though the edge of my iron is only 22 degrees off axis to the iron.

Lowell if you had pictures in your post I can't see them.

That still leaves me with the sharpening problem. I am not putting one of these on backorder (currently expected Dec 03, 2021) until I know I can keep it sharp with a square edge. There is no tolerance here. I can't just fiddle with the lever like on a Bailey. This iron needs to be right.

I can't free hand. Not really. I can get a sharp edge, but I can't keep the edge square to the axis of the blade. I confessed this publicly here, gosh about a year ago. When I first got my LN guide in one of the first tools to go in it was my 1" LN chisel that doesn't fit in my Eclipse clone, and I found out right away my freehand edge was not square.

I am reluctant to bring in the Veritas top clamping guide. I am sure it can do the job, but I am also confident I would be one of the users that pushes too hard or whatever it is folks are doing wrong that lets their irons rotate in the guide.

Agree with Derek I am not going to modify the iron shape to work in 30 degree jaws. As soon as I drew it I saw it as taking way too much metal away, as a biologist; I am not an engineer.

FWIW I did first look for a replacement iron for my Record 778 in modern steel. It seems to me (I certainly stand to be corrected by those more knowledgable), my Record 778 uses the same blade outline Stanley introduced in the #75 in the 1880s. The first ones had no depth adjuster mechanism at all. Then there were the slots cut in the underside of the iron with a thumb lever for depth, and then finally the screw type depth adjuster like I have. To make a replacement iron to work in all three styles would be lot of machine work and a very high price for a replacement iron. Or a bunch of different SKUs with the correspondingly high price that way.

My 778 works fine in softwood, my only beef with my 778 is edge retention in hardwood. If LN made a rabbet plane that works with the LN guide I would probably buy it, I think I could put a fairly steep secondary bevel on A2 and be happy with edge retention in hickory.

For now my plan is to toddle over to my machinist Monday morning with a box full of pieces and ask what he can do or who he knows. I am really dreading the trig I will have to slog through to come up with where the screw holes would have to be in how wide stock so I could grind both a primary bevel at 25 degrees and a secondary bevel at 30 degrees on a current production stock iron. If you are good at 3-D math and want a pair of 22 degree jaws for your LN guide drop me a message.

Kudos to Lee Valley for an innovative rabbet plane. Kudos to Lie-Nielsen for a guide that can handle any parallel sided blade except the Lee Valley skew rabbet.

[J. Greg Jones]

Brian should know what plane his blade came out of, but it sure doesn’t look like the blade from my Veritas Skew Rabbet plane. I’ve owned this plane for many years now and the blade for it is skewed at 22*. Combined with the 8* skew of the frog, the blade does address the wood at a 30* combined angle. The narrower width of Brian’s blade combined with the 15* angle would suggest to me that perhaps it is from a skew block plane?

[Michael Bulatowicz]

If you’re intent on getting some jaws made for the LN honing guide, there’s a relatively simple solution (at least in concept). I’d suggest a set of jaws that holds the cutting edge square to the guide. Once the cutting edge is square to the honing guide, there’s no longer any special trigonometry involved, and you’ll be able to use your favorite angle setting jig for the primary and secondary bevels you want.

[J. Greg Jones]

I’m sure Rob will chime in at some point, so as a suggestion I sure would like to see Lee Valley make jaws for their skewed blades (skew block, skew rabbet, side rabbet, etc.) that mount to the LN jig. I know that will be highly unlikely, as they have their own solutions to sharpening these blades, but clearly LN is never going to offer jaws specific to Veritas blades in their jig.

[Brian Hale]

I'm sorry, that's the blade from the skewed block plane, not the rabbet plane. I apologize for creating more confusion. :o

[lowell holmes]

I did not post pictures. I hone my irons on diamond hones freehand.

[Scott Winners]

there’s a relatively simple solution (at least in concept). I’d suggest a set of jaws that holds the cutting edge square to the guide. Once the cutting edge is square to the honing guide, there’s no longer any special trigonometry involved.

I know all y'all have been helping, but this one clicked for me. I got pics, and I didn't have to do any trig. Thank you Michael.

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First pic is the 30 degree jaws that are the same width as the carriers on the honing guide, demonstrating that if these exact jaws had been cut to 22 degrees instead of 30 degrees they would have a substantial grip on the thin part of the iron (the tang I have been thinking of it) for honing a 25 degree primary bevel.

Second pic is the best option I found in my existing jaw set for honing a secondary bevel at 30 degrees. These are the "short" ends of the long jaws that stick put 5/8" past the body of the honing guide. They have, in my experience with my Record 778 iron, enough grip on the wide part of the blade to work for several years before my secondary bevel angle will have to creep upwards from 30 degrees.

Third pic is full scale drawing in fractional inches on decimal inch graph paper. I need the "7/16 inch?" back to make this work. I did free hand the screw heads. The jaw on the right needs to be smaller, pushing the third screw from the left closer to the iron to get my 7/16" back.

Fourth is the same drawing with the 30 degree jaws and the honing guide on it, the body of the guide will open far enough to hold the two custom jaws when I recover that 7/16 inch.

[Scott Winners]

One thing I just couldn't get my mind around is can I do this one set of jaws as above, or will I need two sets.

These two pics are the LN 30 degree jaws with the iron inserted from one side - note brass on left, and from the opposite side of the jaws - note brass on right. Notice in both pics the iron is bevel side down and logo side up. I am sure some of you knew that but i had to try it myself, because I wasn't sure.

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[Scott Winners]

So when talking about bevel angles on skewed irons, is it customary to measure the bevel(s) perpendicular to the cutting edge, or parallel to the axis of the iron?

Looking at this iron with the 22 degree skew, it seems like the factory primary bevel is at about 30 degrees relative to the blade axis, but about 25 degrees perpendicular to the edge.

In practice I bet it doesn't make a lot of difference, but I would still like to use the terms correctly so as to avoid further confusion in the future.

I did check my copy of Leonard Lee's 'Complete Guide to Sharpening', followed every mention of skew in the index and still don't know. I will be settling in with appendix one, chip types later this evening - leading me (probably) to Mr Lee's recurring theme of "shallowest bevel angles possible consistent with good edge retention" most likely at the end of the evening.

[Scott Winners]

Does anyone know what type or searchable name can be applied to these four screws? I know my local hardware stores don't have them, so I will have to internet search.

I can figure out the diameter, they are probably a #4 or #6 if they are not metric, and I can count the thread pitch, I just want to know what search terms to use to get the wonky thread pattern.

Thanks

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[Scott Winners]

I did get my thing back today. Don't even ask for my machinist's phone number. At pick up I asked him (having plunked down for four hours of machine shop time in cash) how much he would want to make a mirror image set in case I order the left hand skew rabbet plane later. His response was first I would need to find a machine shop willing to do the work and ask them how much they want.

The shop that took my job makes mostly round things with cams and gears on them. And they robbed screws out of a jaw set to attach the new jaws to my guide.

I think this is going to work fine for me. There is a little problem with racking, or wracking (twist?) when the long side of the jaws has too small a grip on the wide part of the blade. About the shallowest secondary bevel I can make comes in at roughly 28-30 degrees depending on whether I measure perpendicular to the edge or parallel to the iron of the axis. About the steepest secondary bevel I can manage will be in the 34-36 degree range. My range for honing primary bevel starts around 18 degrees and goes up to the 24-27 degree range as above.


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My next step will be to go to the LV website and put a rabbet plane in backorder.

[Mike Soaper]

Does anyone know what type or searchable name can be applied to these four screws? I know my local hardware stores don't have them, so I will have to internet search.

I can figure out the diameter, they are probably a #4 or #6 if they are not metric, and I can count the thread pitch, I just want to know what search terms to use to get the wonky thread pattern.

Thanks

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Captive panel screws?
captured screws | McMaster-Carr (https://www.mcmaster.com/captured-screws/rounded-head-captive-panel-screws/)

[Scott Winners]

And I am not done yet. Pics attached. The left side of the LV iron is 'wide' for a greater length than the right side of the iron is 'wide.' My custom jaws to fit the LV honing guide can grip the iron, but when I torque the guide down firmly enough to acutally hone the iron, the jaws or threaded rod flex, or the iron slips in the dovetails; and the edge is no longer in alignment with the axis of the honing guide. I can hone a 25 degree primary bevel no problem with the jaw set I have. All I have left to figure out is getting a secondary bevel at 30-35 degrees. The lateral adjustment screws for the iron in the plane body can only handle about half of the pictured error, and the iron isn't firmly grippd by the honing guide as pictured.

On the one hand she is pretty enough to deserve her very own sharpening guide, the one tool on the planet an LN honing guide "can't" handle. On the other hand I am now an irritated old fat guy from Alaska. I am leaving my factory new PMV11 iron unbesmirched until I get this worked out on the sacrificial O1 iron. When I expained to my wife this joinery plane is a she I got the one eyebrow of doom, but I saved it with "because she is so adjustable." Her name is going to be something like Miss Behavin, Miss Demeanor or Miss D themaintenance. The O1 iron works OK with a secondary bevel at 28 degrees in SPF, but I am not holding my breath for poplar and my stash of white oak is laughing quietly.

If Tom and Rob have an annual golf match on Saint Somewhere in the Caribbean I suggest Grenada this year, where the major domo at the yacht club can be counted on to make Pina Coladas with vanilla ice cream instead of coconut milk. The calaloo at the Med School canteen on the leeward beach near St George is fabulous. Be sure to ask the stewardess for a preview of the customs forms while inbound. My stash of River's Rum from St. Antoine is long depleted, but I had nothing to declare. Barely.

I plan to try wooden shim(s) to fatten up the narrow part of the iron over the weekend, and head back to a machine shop next week for some oompa loompas made out of 1035/1065.

Especially colorful, blasphemous, and offensive expletives deleted.

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[Derek Cohen]

Scott, I have a number of skew bladed planes, including this Veritas, which I have had since road-testing it before it was produced for sale. That is several years ago. Back then I hollow ground the bevel, which is actually easier to do than one imagines. To sharpen, I simply hone on the hollow grind, which acts as a guide. Easy peasy. I have yet to renew the hollow grind. It has lasted that long.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Tyler Bancroft]

Derek's suggestion of grinding hollow and then freehand sharpening is a good one. Keep in mind that most woodworking projects ever created by humans were made with tools sharpened freehand – extreme precision in sharpening angle is generally not needed, IMHO (although I am sure there are some exceptions). I saved a lot of time when I stopped using a jig and went to freehand for most sharpening, with a coarse diamond plate and a jig when needed to reset the primary bevel.. If you don't have (or want to use) a grinder to put a hollow grind on it, you can just sharpen the primary bevel only – it'll take a bit longer than sharpening a secondary bevel, but it makes the sharpening extremely simple.

[Assaf Oppenheimer]

I actually would like that they expand on there eclipse style honing guide. I love the MKII system, but sometimes you just can't beat a side clamp. if they could add that as an add on to the MKII it would be the best of both worlds

[Derek Cohen]

Assaf, the Mk II does have a small blade accessory which is effectively a side clamp.

I do not know of any side clamping guides which can hold blades at variable angles. Only the MkII is capable of this. As I have written before, the MkII works perfectly when you do not expect it to do all the work. Think of it as an extension of your hand, holding the blade at the chosen angle. Your hand is still in control.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Scott Winners]

I got a message through the forum about a week ago, some anonymous guy asked for my addy so he could send me a guide to try. I decided to try it, sent my address, the guide came today and it is working good enough for me.

It is the Veritas "Short Blade Honing Guide", Lee Valley stock number 05M09.30 The one thing this guide cannot do is correct an iron whose skew is incorrect. Whatever skew you have when you start, you will still have when you are done.

But with that out of the way, the guide holds the iron well enough for me to get a pretty primary bevel at 25 degrees and a lovely secondary at 30 degrees. It is the only top clamping guide I have ever used, so I have no reference point, but I was super gentle with it on the stones, just letting the diamonds do the work and don't mash down hard enough to knock the iron out of alignment.

Currently shows available online at Lee Valley dot com for US$ 59.50.

I am going to try to keep the wear and tear on mine down to a minimum since it is the only good guide in the shop I have for the skew rabbet. I do have a tiny little block plane, a thumb plane I think, that I will probably try in this guide next time I have the guide out.

For the money this is an excellent solution to the skew rabbet iron challenge. The paperwork with it mentioned spokeshave irons as well, and there is more verbiage on the vendor website. Do be careful when you are using the 25 degree side of the guide to use the 25 degree side of the thickness gage, and when you flip the iron around for 30 degrees you need to flip the thickness gage to the 30 degree side also.

I owe somebody 60 bucks plus shipping, I am keeping this thing.

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[David Publicover]

Thanks for the review Scott. I just ordered a skew rabbet plane yesterday and will keep the sharpening jig in mind.

[Scott Winners]

Thanks for the review Scott. I just ordered a skew rabbet plane yesterday and will keep the sharpening jig in mind.

Welcome. I have some kind of guide rail system from Lee Valley (still in the box) that can bolt to the table in front of my bench grinder. To use it I will have to unbolt my grinder from the worktable and scoot the grinder back to make room to bolt down the guide.
I will try to at least get the boxes opened in the next couple days to see if it can handle a skew iron. I really don't want skew angle getting away from me on this iron.

Sweet, I can edit. i brought in the Grinder Tool Rest and matching Grinding Jig (Items 05M06-01 and 05M23.01) so I could hollow grind the iron on my #8 Bailey. That iron is 2 5/8 inch wide, and I just don't feel good about freehanding that. This tool set can handle the iron on my #8, and looks like it an handle the skew rabbet iron as well.

So two possibilities. I did freehand hollow grind my 'practice' O1 iron for my rabbet plane, but at my age reducing the total drama in my life is desirable. With this tool set a fellow could, after manually setting the skew angle of the iron in this clamp set, get a good hollow grind and then freehand on the stones using the hollow.

I did not get a protractor out. I think the pic shows the skew rabbet iron in the grinding jig clamp at pretty close to correct, with visibly more than adequate space to fine tune the skew angle without running out of clamp. I just bought what I needed to not have to freehand my #8 Bailey. The grinding jig has factory pin holes for square, 30 degrees right and 30 degrees left. No idea if an additional pin hole for 22 degrees left and right is possible. And looking at the paperwork a little closer I see I have my irons mounted backwards. I think it will be fine. I am on call this weekend and have a bunch of crap to get done tonight, so I am not going to get all those pieces back out before next week.

[Scott Winners]

And it came to me in a dream last night that after installing the grinding jig as perfectly as possible in front of my grinder it would be prudent to clamp a wheel dresser in the grinding jig to make the wheel surface square to the jig. Truly. I am not that smart.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Scott

Before you use the blade much, now is the time to set up the honing guide to ensure that the angle and the projection is repeatable. Below is an example, where I am using a set up for another honing guide (the blade is actually being honed at around 25 degrees). It was close enough to use in this case ...

https://i.postimg.cc/MGWtVMtQ/5.jpg

Regards from Perth

Derek