All the discussion about correct method of plane bottom flattening and how to measure flatness of hand plane bodies made me wonder if there's a correct method for testing hand plane performance?
I've been benchmarking my various hand planes and creating "gossamer wings shavings" to quote a PBS star. I started with a Veritas BU jointer and two blades, one at 38*, the other at 50*. I then planed various woods from soft pine to walnut, red oak, purple heart, chechen and cocabolo. After a few hours of experiments with mouth size, angle and depth I was able to create 0.5~0.6 mil shavings in various pine planks without any effort using the 38* blade (0.0005"~0.0006"). Hard woods were reliability surfaced with minimal tearout when the 50* blade was used. I then moved on to a Lie Nielsen 162 with 38* and 50* blades and duplicated the Veritas bu jointer's results within minutes. I basically duplicated the esteemed Derek Cohen's results.
Having these results I moved on to my Stanley corrugated type 19 #3, #5, and #7 with Hock O1 blades and breakers (blade sharpened at 25*). It took a some critical adjusting but within tens of minutes each of those planes were ripping 0.5~0.6 mil shavings in various pine planks. These planes are box-stock with the exception of the blade/breaker. Never had any surfacing or machining of any sort. I've never really measured the flatness other than visual on surface plate.
I think these vintage Stanley planes are well working based on the fact I can duplicate the results I have with Veritas and Lie Nielsen.
- Other than generating "gossamer wing" shavings and inspecting the surface quality what benchmarks should I be using?
- Am I deluding myself thinking my Stanleys are well working for their intended use and compare favorably to their Lie Nielsen counterparts? (I've never used LN bench planes and don't have any reference other my bu planes.)