My first Hand Planes

[Sean Troy]

Small gloat. My first hand planes, used but appear to be in good shape. No. 4 & 5 Stanley/Bailey . I could use some help with what type of stone (oil or water) and a jig for guiding the blades to use for sharpening. Any other info would also be appreciated. Thanks, Sean

[Billy Chambless]

That's an excellent start on a set of planes.

Others are better qualified to give sharpening advice, but I've had good luck with the "Scarey Sharp" system. Just do a search, and you'll have reading for days

[Sam Yerardi]

Sean,

I do more than 75% of my hand planing with the same two planes. I set the primary bevels on the irons the same, about 25 deg. I use a belt sander with 300 grit to first flatten the back, and then to establish the primary bevel (25 deg to the back), while constantly dipping the iron in water. I then go to my stones and work the back and the primary bevel again on a hard black Arkansas. I go back and forth to remove the burr. I make the secondary about 30 deg or so (with respect to the back again) . I use oil stones, the finest of which is on a rotating flat setup. I use oil for wetting the stone but sometimes I use WD40 which seems to work good for me. I polish & strop the irons when I'm done honing. On the #4 Stanley, I very slightly round the corners to help prevent digging in. I grind the blade with almost no camber. I use the same process on the #5 Stanley, but add about 1/16" or less camber for what I'm doing. If I had more planes I would adjust each a little differently since I would be able to have a range of camber to square edge to work with (if that made sense).
I work the edge of the cap until I get a tight fit against the back of the iron. Make sure that you cannot see light between the cap and the iron. If you do, go back and work the cap again. Make sure that the iron and/or cap is flat and that there edges are parallel to each other. I've even had to bend the cap slightly to get the edge of the cap firmly acorss the iron, but that's just what I've ran into with the planes I've restored.

[Sam Yerardi]

Sean,

I guess I didn't really answer your questions. There is an enormous amount of info on the net that is good so that is a good starting place. There are a LOT of different ways to sharpen irons, etc., but what you are trying to achieve is the same regardless of the process you use. Here are the steps you are trying to achieve. The first few steps are the rough grinding steps and I'm not using stones yet. In either case, myself I don't use jigs. I just use my hands. I'm sure I'm off a bit but my results seem to work for me. The following steps are based on starting from scratch with an edge that needs to be established:

1. Make the edge of the iron square to the face of the iron. Typically I will use a grinder with water to achieve this.

2. Flatten the back of the iron. This is probably the most important step because if it isn't right you'll never get the edge you need. For this step I use a sander (300 grit) with water. Others might use a grinder - it just depends on what you feel comfortable with. Use water if you are grinding or sanding as this is a step where it is very easy to take the temper out of the iron. If you see blue then you've gone too far. To recover, grind away the blue to get to steel that will hold the edge for you.

3. Establish the primary bevel. Myself, I use the sander w/ water again. Others may use a grinder. What I like about the sander approach is I establish a flat bevel instead of a concave bevel. I set this to about 25 deg with respect to the back. The back and the bevel aren't where they need to be yet - you will use stones for that. I use oil stones. Others prefer waterstones. Either will work.

4. I hone the back and then the primary bevel on a hard black Arkansas stone. I use oil, sometimes WD40.

5. I next hone the secondary bevel on the same stone. I try to set it around 30 deg or so.

6. Throughout all of the above grinding and honing, I am constantly going back and forth to remove the burr.

7. I then strop the edge on leather charged with green polishing compound.

8. I'll then work on the cap as I described in the earlier post.

[Danny Thompson]

A great honing guide is the Veritas Mk.II Honing Guide, which you can find at www.leevalley.com (http://www.leevalley.com), www.woodcraft.com (http://www.woodcraft.com), www.craftsmanstudio.com (http://www.craftsmanstudio.com), and I am sure many other places.

I started with waterstones, but have seen other less messy methods recommended. For beginners, the "scary sharp" system which is sandpaper-based is the cheapest way to get started, but may be the most expensive over the long run. I have seen several strong recommendations for the method described on the Tools for Working Wood site:

http://www.antiquetools.com/sharp/

[Sean Troy]

Thank you all for the help. I'll probably first use these on a new work bench I need to build. After, of course I do some practicing. Sean