Eric,Originally Posted by Eric Rathhaus
it depends on what you want to use the cutter for. For smoothing it is too much. I use slightly less on my jack but more on a scrub.
ken
Member
Eric,
it depends on what you want to use the cutter for. For smoothing it is too much. I use slightly less on my jack but more on a scrub.
ken
[OP]
Contributor
It looks like you have the shape good for using as a scrub blade.
Though it looks like there isn't much of a bevel on the edge.
One of my scrub blades, on a #5-1/4, looked like this in the beginning. At first it was sharpened only in the center and the bevel was increased with each sharpening after that.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Member
Thanks Ken and Jim. I think the picture is slightly deceptive regarding how much bevel is there. At first, the bevel just before the edge began to look almost perpendicular to the back. But when I reground the blade and concentrated on lifting less, I couldn't;t ever raise a burr. Maybe I just need to keep at it. I just don't wan't to destroy the iron in the process. It's a pretty good EA Berg iron.
[OP]
Contributor
Have you tried it in a plane to see how it works?
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Member
Jim, we've reached the bigger issue. I was having some problems using the plane. Learning at home alone one of the biggest challenges to diagnosing causes. I kept getting shaving/saw dust stuck between the blade and mouth. My diagnosis, blade chip breaker set needs refining and mouth needs some smoothing. My process was to get the blade ready, work on the chip breaker to get a good fit, and then file the rough spots off the mouth. Since I've altered the blade, I need to work on the chip breaker but am hesitant to start until I know how the blade will end up. Does this make sense? I could drop it in, but the chip breaker hasn't; been cambered.
Member
Eric,
The cap iron should not be cambered.
ken
Member
Even if the corners protrude past the profile of the iron?
Member
I'm wondering this as well. On my #4 smoother I very lightly cambered the blade. Putting the chip breaker up as close as I've read I'm supposed to (1/64" to the edge)... the corners of the chip breaker seem to be leaving tracks on the work.
Contributor
Seems there’s some mystery surrounding sharpening and the camber in particular.
Goodness knows I’m no expert, but if you want to build the skills to sharpen perfectly and quickly, every time, I recommend picking up David Charlesworth’s plane-iron sharpening video through Lie-Nielsen. He explains everything clearly and patiently, from flattening the back of a new iron to honing and polishing the secondary bevel. Then he shows a fast, foolproof method to camber the iron.
The basic camber in question is for what most of us want from a smoother or Jack, when flattening a board or squaring an edge. (But that is for another day.) A scrub plane would use a more pronounced camber, and that too can be had by taking David’s method just a few steps farther.
He finishes by teaching a marvelously simple two-minute resharpening process of a cambered iron.
Materials needed:
- the video, $30
- Eclipse-type honing jig, $15
- a way to measure angles of the iron in the jig. I used a 5 x 8 stiff cardboard cutout for years; requires a $2 plastic protractor and an Exacto (or marking) knife. A 150 mm metal ruler helps speed up repeat settings.
- 800 (or 1000), 4000, and 8000 waterstones (the most expensive part, about $125 for Norton’s beginner paired set)
- Nagura stone, about $12
- 220 wet/dry sandpaper, $0.80 a sheet
- 9 x 12 float glass, 1/2” thick, maybe $25 from a glass supplier
Entire kit is about the cost of four premium plane irons, and you can even find less expensive waterstones to cut the cost further.
David’s methods (think “ruler trick”) are the real deal, have been around for decades, and have spawned many household-name exponents repackaging his wisdom. But it’s all there in one video. As the saying goes, “some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the ring passed out of all knowledge.” And then there was YouTube.
It will take you a few hours to go carefully through the 90-minute video, and then maybe several more hours to take notes and then perfect the method, but once you invest the time you have a lifelong skill that lets you consistently, confidently achieve precise, predictable, reproducible sharpness.
Last edited by Bob Jones 5443; 07-04-2020 at 3:09 AM.
[OP]
Contributor
Cambering the cap iron is not necessary for setting up as a scrub plane. On a cambered iron for smoothing, there shouldn't be so much camber to the iron that the cap iron needs to be cambered to match.
1/64" is ~0.015", if the corners of the chip breaker are leaving tracks, that is much too thick of a shaving for smoothing. If the edge on a blade is straight, the chip breaker is set as close as a few thousandths of an inch to the edge. Then only if you are taking shavings of about a thousandth of an inch. Many users simply give an extra stroke on their finishing stone to the corners of their blade to produce a very subtle camber.
Here is an image from the first post in this thread:
%22Cambered%22 Blade Shaving.jpg
The 2" blade has almost no camber. The edges of the shaving virtually disappear.
The chip breaker should be set for the thickness of shaving one will be taking. A thick shaving will clog if the chip breaker is set for a thin shaving. A thin shaving may produce tear out if the chip breaker is set too far back.
These blades are for scrub plane use:
Scrub Blades.jpg
The chip breaker is set behind the edge of the cambered blades. Setting the chip breaker closer will cause shavings to catch at the corners of the chip breaker. The blade on the right if from a #40 which doesn't use a chip breaker.
From my experience having an almost perfectly straight edge on my blade and taking a very thin shaving can be done without leaving any tracks. This was not something that came to me immediately. It took time and a lot of practice.
Some folks do camber their chip breakers. IMO, this is something to save until one has much more experience with hand planes.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Member
Well II did drop it into the plane and give it a try. Like planing with a supine spoon. Definitely not sharpI'll work on it some more.
Contributor
Eric, I see three possible problems. 1) If the corners of the chip breaker extend past the cutting edge, they will cause “tracks”. Re-set the CB. 2) If the bevel approaches 45 deg, the heel of the bevel will ride on the surface of the wood, not the cutting edge. Re-grind/hone the bevel to 30-35 deg. 3) The produced shaving is too thick, and jams in the mouth (between the iron and the front of the mouth). Move the frog to the rear .015-.030”. Make sure the cutting edge is shaving-sharp. Good luck.
Member
As an update, I went back to measure the angle on the bevel. I must have really rolled over the edge because it was dramatically more than the 32 degrees I had ground. Back to the grinder to set an appropriate angle and then hone again. wish me luck!
[OP]
Contributor
One note on this. Setting the chip breaker as stated above may cause difficulty adjusting the blade's cutting depth if the iron has been overly cambered.
With a little fiddling using the plane being modified one could likely determine the maximum set back of the chip breaker. This would also indicate the maximum depth of the blades arc of camber.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Member
Jim, happy to report that after grinding a new bevel at 30 degrees, I was able to get the blade sharp and spend the afternoon planning down the rough boardsI'll be suing for my bench top. Next up, figuring out how to use the ECE jointer. Thanks everyone.
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