[OP]
Member
I just picked up an stanley no3. I am trying to flatter the back of the blade and it is going slow.
Here you can see the high spot in the middle if that was a hollow it would of been a easy job.
20190908_164642.jpg
how should I go about getting this thing flat? Is there a short cut or is ti just going to be a long time at the diamond stone.
I have a coarse diamond stone, 1000 and 8000 shapton stones.
Member
Search David Charlesworth, "ruler trick".
Contributor
Whether or not you employ the ruler trick, the hump may cause a bigger problem with the chip breaker.Originally Posted by Jim Matthews
If the blade is properly hard, a file will likely not cut much.
David Weaver once posted about a set up he made to hold a blade while working the back. It was a piece of wood he could attach to the blade so he could apply preasure to the area being worked.
What one wants to avoid is rocking the blade side to side while trying to flatten the back. Some suggest only working the back by going back and forth along the long axis of the blade across the sharpening media.
You may want to preserve your stones and use a coarse sandpaper on a flat surface for the rough part of this job.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Member
Here's my adaptation of David Weaver's plane blade back flattening system. It uses 80 grit self adhesive sand paper on a granite surface plate. This jig allows concentrating pressure directly over the plane back and saves your fingers. I've never experienced a hump on a blade as shown by the OP though.
I wish that I knew what I know now... Rod Stewart from Ooh La La
Contributor
A dozen years ago I posted this photo of flattening the back of a blade ...
http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Woodwor...%20Blades.html
Regards from Perth
Derek
Member
What I have done with success is to alternate with a coarse diamond bench stone, to define the high spot, then go to the bench grinder or better yet a die grinder and LIGHTLY grind the high spot only and return to the bench stone for a nice long session, then repeat as necessary. Never bear down when power grinding and never go near the edge and keep the blade cool by using the mass of the blade to absorb the heat, the edge and sides are low mass areas. If you feel the blade heating up a little, you have to stop grinding. If you feel the need to quench, then you have ground the blade too aggressively. By alternating you can speed up removal greatly but aggressive dry grinding will result in harm to the blade.
Last edited by Roger Nair; 09-09-2019 at 10:48 AM. Reason: spelling
Member
Fresh 80 grit sandpaper will cut much faster than any diamond stone I've used. But keeping it fresh is important- you can remove more material in the first minute or two of use than you can in the next 10 minutes. So try to arrange the paper you stick down so that you can use every bit of it, and once every part is used don't hesitate to change it.
The prominent hump makes things more challenging. The safest way to lap is to only go in one direction instead of back and forth, and don't try to go too fast. You want to keep the pressure centered over the hump, and you do not want to let it rock side to side about the hump. Once you can develop a decent sized flat spot on the hump, that will sit stably on the lap surface, you can try going back and forth and increasing your speed.
Once I've gotten the back flat with 80 grit, I use some worn out section of 80 grit to remove the deepest scratches, then move onto 220 grit sandpaper. Then onto a 1000 grit waterstone, and arkansas stones after that.
Member
At some point you should say to heck with it and buy a new Japanese, Hock, Veritas, or even a new Stanley cutter and get on with life. Unless rubbing iron on sandpaper or stone is how you get your jollies there are better ways to spend your time in the shop.
Of course YMMV,
ken
Contributor
Yeah! You could be building another bench!
Member
David,Yeah! You could be building another bench!
You have been reading my mail.
My next build is a kick wheel for MsBubba. After that is a toss up between a tarted up shave horse (my current one is a prototype and pretty ugly) or a new bench with an Oak base and slab TBD. Whatever life is too short and there are too many options with respect to cutters to spend hours rubbing iron on stone unless the cutter is a really old forged steel that shouldn't/or can't be replaced.
ken
Guest
Yes! After having read the responses in the thread it's just bizarre that people would go to the lengths they go to for a cutter easily replaced. I get the mental image of wailing and the gnashing of teeth over a bellied cutter, all in the midst of thousands of dollars in other woodworking equipment, and some extraordinarily arbitrary line being drawn in the sand. It doesn't make sense. It's a Stanley plane iron, made in the hundreds of thousands if not millions, it's not a vintage Aston Martin.
Last edited by Charles Guest; 09-11-2019 at 7:09 AM.
Contributor
I agree about getting a new blade. Frankly you really could upgrade your plane by getting a PM-V11 blade. Over at WoodCentral Hand Tools forum David Weaver has been describing his exhaustive testing with a series of steels, and PM-V11 came out on top ... not just for being longer lasting, but producing a better finished surface than all other steels.
Regards from Perth
Derek
Contributor
These last 3 posts sound more like a "Message from our Sponsors"......OP has already FIXED his iron....
Member
Steven,
If you go back and read the original post that the last few posters were responding to it was posted well before the OP posted he had fixed the problem. I stand by my post, there is no "Message from our Sponsors". Unless you just enjoy rubbing iron on stones there are better ways to spend your shop time with little cost, replacement cutters are cheap, much cheaper than my time.
ken
Contributor
Justin, I would hang in there until it is done. You only have to do it once.
Unfortunately, the high area means that the more you do, the more you need to do. And then, finally, it is over. This is the situation where one would use the side of a Tormek or CBN wheel. Assuming that you do not own these, work with 120 grit (80 grit leaves deep scratches). I have a 1m long glass-on-MDF plate for such purposes. The long strokes are less fatiguing.
Depending on the length of the blade and whether it was laminated, you could turn it over and bevel the other side.
Regards from Perth
Derek
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