Anyone use the Woodcraft sharpening service?

[Douglas Brummett]

I just ordered up an inexpensive Groz set of planes. I debated back and forth as to whether I should use their sharpening service. On the one hand it is nice to get a tool ready for use. On the flip side if it isn't done well it could be worse than factory condition and require more work to fix. I ended up paying out the $5ea for sharpening, so I guess I will be able to tell the results in a few days.

Any experience with their service on new tools?

[Johnny Kleso]

Since your considering this I am guessing your kind of green :)

It sharpening be a good thing but tuning the plane (setting it up) more important than sharpening..

Stanley sells blades for $20 with a new cap iron blades alone are like $15
http://www.stanleytoolparts.com/beplcu.html

Sharpening is some thing you need to learn and I bet they dont flatten (polish/sharpen) the back (big area not bevel)..

If you do buy them from WC for $5 it will not break the bank I guess but sharpening supplies might be a better investment..

Read my Planes101> Tune Up page @ www.rexmill.com (http://www.rexmill.com) make sure to read the artical by David Charleswoth at bottom..

He had let me now he has no problems with this being on my site.. He is a great guy and my favorite book author...

[Douglas Brummett]

Yep, very green in the neander-sense :D I have some waterstones (800/4000, 6000), the basic clamp style guide roller, and a bit of practice from my chisels. I am not really worried about sharpening, I was just hunting to see if anyone else had used their service and what their thoughts were.

[Michael Faurot]

For hand tools I don't use any sharpening service. Chisels and plane blades are the kinds of things one must be able to sharpen for oneself.

Carbide tipped saw blades for power tools is something I'd have a sharpening service handle--but that's a topic for a different forum.

[Douglas Brummett]

So that is another no then :D

I am slightly skeptical as I got notification that they shipped only about 3 hours after the order was placed. So unless they have a bunch of hand worked planes on hand I think I got duped for the $10. I will post my results for others reference once I know.

[Jack Camillo]

It would make business sense for them to have sharpened blades on hand. So, you're paying 5 bucks to get the plane with a sharpened blade vice a dull blade. It would make less business sense for them to pull a plane from the shelf and send it to the sharpening department. Americans like fast service, too.
But I'm not commenting on whether the service is any good or not. I wouldn't buy groz planes anyway. But that's not to say if they are any good or not.
Look forward to hearing what you get and whether it's any good.

[Greg Stanford]

Some years back when I first got into turning, I bought some gouges from WC & had them sharpened. I'd never sharpened anything like that & wanted something to go by. Seems like they did a decent job, at least as well as I could tell at the time - I now sharpen completely different but it gave me a place to start, to learn from.

I don't know anything about those planes, check out some of the links here about setting up a plane. With a little work, you may end up w/ a good user. Have fun.

g

[Tristan Raymond]

One of my first planes was a Groz jack. I got some use out of it before buying some old Stanley's. Then I decided to tune them all up and found that the Groz and the old Stanleys required about the same amount of work. All of them work better with a Hock blade, but I have since ground a bit of a chamber into the Groz blade and have been happy with the results - though in general I'd say the Groz blade is the worst of the lot. So, all's well and good, except the other day I was having issues with the Groz - pulled out the blade and the frog screws were loose. That really hampered performance :rolleyes: I'm chalking it up to 'just one of those things', but if it happens again it's Loctite time. This one's strictly for hogging off wood, so no mouth adjustment required for me.

[Greg Heppeard]

I used to manage a WC store and we sent things out to a local sharpenning service...I suggest just looking in the phone book and call the services directly.

[Douglas Brummett]

Well, not looking so good. The planes arrived today, but appear to have a solid coating across everything including the blades. From the looks I would say they did no re-work or special sharpening. I will place a call in the am and see what my nearest store has to say. :(

[Douglas Brummett]

I spoke with Woodcraft, the plane blades were sharpened. The wax dip they do is the tell-tale sign that they actually did something :rolleyes:

So out of the box I cleaned up both planes. I wanted to do little if anything to them just to see how they worked right off the assembly line. And of course I wanted to evaluate the Woodcraft sharpening. I did deviate slightly on the #4 by cleaning up the back iron, grinding it to an edge, and polishing it.

Initial impression of the sharpening. I was a little disappointed. The blades were technically sharp, but could barely shave hair off of my forearm. Looks like they just ran them over a tormek or low speed grinder and then sent them off. That said, they do work pretty well in the planes. The block planes works excellent, producing shavings thinner than .004" at full width and no edge gouging from the blade. The #4 seems to be pretty finicky. It does leave edge marks, so I will need to relieve the blade a little to correct this. It will produce shavings about .0045 thick, but does require a bit more effort to push than I had hoped.

These Groz planes appear to work. Neither are the quality of a $200 plane, but I have a hard time seeing why so many shun them. For a beginning WWer with some understanding of tuning these should work quite well. About the only complaint I have is that the throat of the #4 is a bit rough from the casting. Maybe I got lucky with mine, the soles were flat and don't look to need any work.

[Bob Strawn]

A perfectly keen edge would be one where the two faces meet with perfect angles. A keen edge is more perfected, it is not thinner or weaker, it has less irregularities. Keen is an important part of sharp, so is blade angle. A ten degree angle on a keen blade will easily remove hairs. A 35 degree angle blade, just as keen, will be a much stronger blade, but will not shave hairs as well.

If they sharpened a carving knife or paring chisel, I would expect hairs to jump off. If they sharpened a plane blade, you should be able to shave your arm clean, but it may take a pass or two extra. If they sharpened a mortise chisel, then a hair or two removed would be likely. A good plane blade at 25 degrees can be sharpened to scrape skin free of hair in one pass. Your arm hairs may vary however. I have gotten quite sharp blades from Hock Tools and Lee Valley. Lee Valley's Little Victor plane was pretty much perfect right out of the box.

While it is possible that a sharpening service might do a good job, with a few kanabans and some diamond paste, you should be able to quickly get edges that way surpass what most services would provide.

Tools for Working Wood, has some good supplies. (I don't think they stock any junk) While you are at his site, also read his articles on sharpening.

Here is my article on using diamond grit, Overkill Sharp. (http://battlering.com/overkillsharp.html)

Ron Hock on Sharpening. (http://www.hocktools.com/sharpen.htm)

Joel at Tools For Working Wood on Sharpening. (http://www.antiquetools.com/sharp/)

Bob

[Douglas Brummett]

Interesting reading Bob. I had read the Joel article before.
(side note, typo in your write-up 2nd paragraph: "Using, larger that 60 micron grit")

I will likely swap blade and cap iron in the #4. For now I polished the cap and ground the edge of it flat where it meets the plane iron. I wanted to get a feel for the sharpening service and the off-the-shelf performance of the Groz planes before I started tweaking them in on tools that the average beginner doesn't have (slow speed grinder, water stones, etc...). That way when the question comes up again (you know, the what 1st planes or budget planes threads) I can give an opinion based on what they would be receiving and not on a tuned tool.

[Douglas Brummett]

Just to close this one out. I took some pictures of the iron on the block plane before going to town on it.

As received from woodcraft
Back, obviously not flattened. Just as the factory ground it.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=95132&stc=1&d=1219265537
Bevel cut on low speed grinder and maybe a touch of honing wheel.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=95133&stc=1&d=1219265537

Obviously this is far from ideal in terms of razor sharp. However to Woodcraft's credit the blades did cut. Not great, but not hacking or tearing either. The last 2 images are of my sharpening. The mirror finish on the back is as good as I can get with my 6000 water stone. I kept the wheel ground hollow bevel and honed in the mircobevel about a degree steeper with a basic hone guide. End result, about an hour of my time and the cuts are smoother, thinner, and easier (could have been faster, but I jumped the gun a couple times going finer before the deep factory grooves were gone).

Was it worth it? I dunno, straight out the box they worked pretty well with the Woodcraft sharpening. Improvement was noticeable, but real world time well spent? James Krenov has a very good blurb about this kind of time, the difference between good enough and excellent, in Working with Handplanes. Something to the effect that you can sharpen effectively in short time or you can waste a lot of time and not produce much additional return for the time and effort. No kidding.

Personally I probably won't use the Woodcraft service again, but I would recommend it to get a novice up and running instead of fussing over sharpening.