That Narex plane is one ugly. . .thing. . .
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That Narex plane is one ugly. . .thing. . .
Making furniture teaches us new ways to remove splinters.
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I have to confess that I really love my cheap, junky Harbor Freight wood chisels.
They take a really good edge. They don't hold one very long in heavy use, but if I keep a pasted strop on the bench and hit it every 45 minutes or so, I can, and have, gone for 5 hours or more and keep a hair popping edge in the soft woods I'm working.
They are fairly ugly, unevenly ground, etc., everything you might consider a good chisel to NOT be, but for a beginner like me, they cost me less than lunch at McDonalds.I wish they were junk, so I could justify buying better. Sadly, no dice.
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If you have more time than money, yard sale or auction site. They may be the cat's PJs for someone.Originally Posted by John C Cox
If you are OK with money but lacking time, consider thrift stores. In our area, a lot of the thrift stores redirect tool donations to the local ReStore; if you lack a ReStore in your area, the thrift stores are probably more open to tools. Pick the thrift store supporting the charity you like and go from there.
[OP]
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I give them credit for at least trying something new.
The rotational coupling between the blade extension adjust and the lateral adjust is "unfortunate", though I wonder how bad it would really be in use, where there is blade tension resisting that lateral "push". Note that the Bailey adjuster also has some (lower) potential for the same issue, depending on how tight the wishbone part's hinge is and how tightly it wraps around the adjuster barrel.
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It would definitely be left behind on any of my rust hunts. Plastic handles and knobs are a turn off for me.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
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Fred,
I read your sharpening post with great interest, as I am looking for good information on "state of the art" sharpening methods, thus my great interest, but in spite of your innovative and well thought out method, your post did bring questions to mind:
1. Obviously your garage floor sharpening method is the method of choice when your after "state of the art sharpness" for your smoothing plane when you need to create curls you can see though. This, so that you can put finish on the resulting surface without sanding. My question is: do you have some quicker method that can be used when a shaving grade edge is not needed, say for a scrub plane or something similar?
2. My second question is: what do you do for a portable and light weigh sharpening system? Obviously you can't take your driveway with you. Do you have a couple of 12" cinder or concrete blocks in medium and fine grit, and if so do you have a couple of fair size heavy duty tool box that you can carry each in?
3. Finally, do you use some sort of honing oil on the garage floor like on an oil stone: Smith's Honing Oil?, mineral oil?, WD40?, used 10W40?
Please advise.......inquiring minds want to know.
Thanks and regards,
Stew
Last edited by Stew Denton; 02-10-2018 at 8:41 PM.
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All the best,
Fred
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
[OP]
Member
I was coming up empty, but Stew has inspired me...
Yeah, that works alright, but you have to be careful to pour only natural white concrete (henceforth: CNat) in your garage. The grey Portland stuff is OK for carpentry, but those iron and magnesium oxides are very rough on edges and prevent you from achieving the "airy scandinavian look" that you know your garage needs to put your epoxy-loving neighbors in their place.I use scary sharp for my new Stanley block plane. After having inserted the cheap, stamped steel iron carefully in my LV jig, I rub it back and forth on the concrete garage floor. (It cuts quickly and there's a lot of surface area, so it never clogs.) Then I follow with stropping on mdf slathered with LV green compound. When I need to change the bevel angle, I use the rougher concrete of my driveway. Then I repeat on the garage floor before stropping. I find this method to be superior to all others.
As a bonus CNat provides a gentler honing action leading to infinitely longer edge life, despite consisting of small silicate and alumina particles and other Stuff From A Hole In The Ground (tm) just like every other concrete in existence. It's magic!
PS - I had no idea that there was such a thing as "natural concrete" until I searched for it just now. My faith in marketers and human nature has been validated in a rule-34-esque manner: "If it exists, there is natural of it".
Last edited by Patrick Chase; 02-11-2018 at 12:49 AM.
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All depends on the colour and quality of the sand that is used....may try the Red natural from down South....around here, we have a Brown Natural...
Depending on the PSI of the CNat......determines the "grain" size......3000 has very small grains (aka gravel) vs 5000 that has very large grains.
If you mess up, you may get a contamination of Fibre-Glas.....that tends to rise to the surface....
Note: IF you are a chewer of tobacco pruducts,,,, a little spit on the concrete makes a "Natural" lube.....hence the term "Slick Finish" ( BTDT....)
[OP]
Member
Bravo, Steven. You're obviously a connoisseur of fine CNat. I had no idea :-).
Last edited by Patrick Chase; 02-11-2018 at 12:47 AM.
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We joke about it..... But there is a layer of truth in there....
When I was young - A neighbor of mine was Scottish.. He was an older fellow... Served in WWII.... His father was a jointer/carpenter of some sort or another and had apprenticed as such at a young age...
One day - I was watching him sharpen some tool with a rock... I was young and that was captivating.... And he put a good edge on whatever it was.. He said he had learned it from his father... And his father learned at the hand of his masters... Apparently, they walked to jobsites in those days before cars.... Weight went on your back - and so they liked to travel light.. And so they would find a proper looking rock or brick or some such to use on the jobsite.. They would flatten it and just use that to whet their tools while on the jobsite...
In the days since I learned to sharpen properly - I always filed this away as "crazy talk"... But since then - I have heard the same sort of things often enough to at least believe it probably happend ...
but then there is the other side too... What a 10 year old boy sees is not always what is happening.. There are things that a master has learned or was taught that he teaches the apprentice... What sort of rock... How do you find it... How do you prep it... How do you sharpen your tools properly with it...
I was amazed to see the sorts of things a master tool maker can do with a peen hammer...
Last edited by John C Cox; 02-12-2018 at 2:39 PM.
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I'd be lying if I said I have never had to sharpen a chisel on site with a rock or concrete. Normally it is at some relative's house where they only have plastic handled chisels from Sears circa 1975 (they make the best paint can openers, don't you know!), and I've been roped into putting in a lock mortice or something similar without enough forewarning to bring my toolbox with. I must say though, those old Sears chisels take a better edge than their flat blade screwdrivers......... argh.
[OP]
Member
I had *exactly* that happen at my Father-in-law's new house. His doorknobs wouldn't fit into their mortises (the usual square-corner-round-mortise issues) so he handed me this socket chisel that had apparently been handed down through 3 generations of his family, but not cared for (or fitted with a handle - the socket was very impressively mushroomed) in at least two. Garage floor to the rescue. It was grey Portland concrete though.
Member
Perhaps that's the real "Secret decoder ring" for the Japanese paper steels.... The paper color denotes the type of concrete for sharpening...
White paper steel sharpens best on the old traditional pure Quicklime/Sand concretes which were thought to have originally come from the mainland - most of the recipes originated pre-Rome.... Legend has it that this cement was originally sold in white paper bags....
Blue paper steel is a post WWII innovation which coincides with the increased use of Portland cement by the Americans... This portland cement does not generate the correct sort of slurry which results in significantly reduced edge life on the traditional white cement paper steels...
And so forth...
Last edited by John C Cox; 02-12-2018 at 4:55 PM.
Contributor
Speaking of garage floors for scary sharp,,
I bought some replacement ceramic bricks for my wood stove at the local tractor supply store.
Not sure of the bonding agent used in ceramic refractory blocks, but was thinking of using one for a roughing in stone for my chisels and planes.
At 5 dollars or so, per1 1/4x4 1/2x9" block, seemed a cheap way to rough in some tools. Any thoughts or has anyone done this?
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