Josko, no bevel down plane blade should be sharpened at 25 degrees. Not even PM-V11. 30-35 degrees is optimum.
Regards from Perth
Derek
Contributor
Josko, no bevel down plane blade should be sharpened at 25 degrees. Not even PM-V11. 30-35 degrees is optimum.
Regards from Perth
Derek
[OP]
Contributor
My bad - checked and they are at 30. Still, should they go steeper for very hard woods?Originally Posted by Derek Cohen
Last edited by Josko Catipovic; 03-04-2020 at 6:36 PM.
Contributor
Hmmmm.....mine are all sharpened at 25 degrees....and are doing just fine, thank you very much.
Resaws, inside face cleaned up.JPG
2 drawer chest, back of drawer planed.JPG
Heart of Ohio, Oak, after.JPG
Just a nice flat back, meeting a simple flat bevel....nothing complicated....and, these work the same way as went they were just off the factory floor. No "miracle steel" required. That last plane was made in WW2...still has the OEM iron and chipbreaker. And it planed that old, knotty white oak just fine...
Even Millers Falls stamped their iron with what angle to set the bevel to.....25 degrees. And..I have never had a Millers Falls plane chatter, ever. And, I work with all the hard Hardwoods one can get in Ohio....
Just a "Before" picture of that piece of Oak..
Heart of Ohio, Oak,before.JPG
Plane is a Millers Falls No. 15, Type 3.....same size as a Stanley No. 5-1/2 Jumbo Jack.
Last edited by steven c newman; 03-04-2020 at 10:37 AM.
Contributor
Yes Steven ... 25 degrees will cut wood. Hell, 15 degrees will cut wood. But not for very long.
Some of us have actually looked at what works better, and tested different angles. 25 degrees for O1 steel sucks when planing hardwoods, and especially abrasive hardwoods. 30-35 degrees lasts so much longer.
It is one thing being a curmudgeon; it is another being knowledgeable.
Regards from Perth
Derek
Member
Not saying they didn’t do that at some point, but they certainly didn’t do it on all their planes. I have 11 Millers Falls planes, from Type 1 through Type 4, and none of mine have the sharpening bevel stamped on the blade.
Contributor
OOOOH, My mistake....but..that do say 25 degrees, I just checked...
Bevel angle 1.JPG
Pictures worth a....
Bevel angle users 1.JPG
These work on Ash, all the Maples, all the Oaks, all the Cherry, all the Walnut...as well as any Pine, or Poplar....you, just Ohio wood....may try some Hickory, if it shows up
Bevel angle users 2.JPG
I guess it would help IF I was going WITH the grain..
Bevel angle users 3.JPG
These are all a #4 size...YMMV
Member
I wonder if the difference here is grinding angle vs. honing angle? I grind the primary bevel to 25* also, but then I hone it to between 30* and 35*.
Contributor
Most of my work is in soft woods so 25º works fine and doesn't dull too quickly. Some of my blades are at 30º for hardwood.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
[OP]
Contributor
I got home and checked all my plane blades. All the Record/Stanley ones are ground to and say '25 degrees', while the LV (PMV11) are all at 30 degrees. It's kind of embarrassing that I never noticed this before. What's going on here? Did Record not know how to set the primary angle on their plane blades?
Contributor
Or..maybe they did indeed know what they were talking about....hmmmm
Where is that one fellow, the one that always claimed you needed 4 bevels, each different....in order to have the "perfect" edge?
KISS....then go from there...maybe the Old-timers might have known a thing or two about how to sharpen the tools way back then?
Contributor
He's probably stuck in his shop with all the time it takes him to set up a blade for all those different bevels.Where is that one fellow, the one that always claimed you needed 4 bevels, each different....in order to have the "perfect" edge?
For me, it is keep it simple with one flat bevel.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Contributor
Actually ..
Brent Beach passed away about three months ago.
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/ti...&pid=194652011
Regards from Perth
Derek
Member
What old-timers are we talking about, and what qualifies as “way back then”? My grandfather, born 1897, taught me how to sharpen plane irons by using a hand crank grinder to make the primary bevel and honing a secondary bevel on an oilstone. I’m re-reading right now one of my Charles Hayward (1898-1998) books from Lost Art Press and there is no question in his writing that, in his opinion, a primary grind angle followed by a secondary honing angle is the accepted way to sharpen plane irons. Leonard Lee and Ron Hock are also highly respected for their perspectives on sharpening, and they recommend(ed) a primary and secondary bevel. Everyone is certainly entitled to say that the ‘best’ way is to do it differently, but to say that sharpening with multiple bevels is a new development is just not accurate.
Member
Paul Sellers seems to be a well respected “old timer” here as well, and here is something I just came across on his sharpening routine:
“I want to revisit something that proved interesting throughout my tour in the US these past three months. I asked attendees at each seminar what angle we grind our chisel and plane bevels to and everyone said 25-degrees. I then asked what angle do we hone them to? The answer was a resounding “30-degrees” and so I asked them, “Why 30?”...”
https://paulsellers.com/2013/04/myth...chisel-bevels/
Contributor
Fettle and fiddle
If it don't work,
Change it a little.
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