What difference a chipbreaker

[derekcohen]

Hmm. Well I take Brent's point that the 'wear bevel' is a rounding over of both the planes that form the edge, so if you've lapped the top/back to the nth degree, when it comes to resharpening you have to take enough steel off to get past it back to the flat on that side.

Hi Ern

That is an example of excessive extrapolating.

The fact is that a wear bevel does not affect the keeness of an edge as much as construed by such conclusions. For example, if you take the above data literally, a wear bevel on a BU plane blade would quickly stop it planing. That there is a wear bevel is not something I disagree about, but that it creates premature failure of an edge is rediculous ... many tens of thousands of users of BU planes would have returned their planes already.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[IanW]

Nicely put Derek. The way things are going with sharpening it will only be a matter of time before someone moves on to saws. Sharpening with files will become anathema and a moderately quick job will become a nightmare with shaped stones etc ad infinitum.
Cheers,
Jim

I've been waiting for that to emerge too, Jim!

And I heartily agree with Derek - sharp enough is plenty sharp enough. My planes all work just fine for me with their freehand-sharpened edges and flat backs, and my saws cut reasonably well with their freehand-FILED edges. P'raps I could impove the sharpness of planes & chisels by a miniscule amount (observable only with a scanning electron microscope) by getting thoroughly obsessive about it, but I doubt I would notice any improvement in surface quality or ease of cut on the first stroke, let alone the 3rd or 4th......

Cheers,

[rsser]

I'll have to do some more reading. To be accused of excessive extrapolating is a red rag to a bull (even if prob true!). Need to find out what the typical size of a wear bevel say on 01 is. All you old hands know when an edge is blunt and how many strokes of what to bring it back into play. Without enough experience and with a dud right hand I'm going to concentrate on theory and other folks' data ;-}

[Horaldic]

I enjoy reading of the extremists and their extremities but there is a lot of poppycock put out about sharpening and flattening across the web. We are not building the superconducting supercollider we are working with wood, which is a material that shrinks and grows quite considerably with changes in humidity and temperature. This is one of the things I love about it, it's a dynamic material. So as some of you have said the tools just need to be sharp enough and flat enough for our purposes.

Metricians are fantastic people to have when you want to set up a milling machine, metal lathe or even a new tablesaw but I don't really need that approach for most woodworking planes or a chisel.

As for the claims Brent makes I've had a bit of a read and some of them seem very odd to me. I'm not going to start honing a back bevel on my bench plane blades because it makes resharpening them a pain. With his approach you are making four angles, when I only make two. (Flat back, followed by primary and secondary bevels) In most cases I can then hone just one and then after a wipe over the back to remove the burr get back to work.

With chisels I only have one angle. This might be heresy for some but it is what I was taught by my father who thought carefully about these things and my own experience has confirmed it. As we work with both sides of the chisel, on both the bevel and the flat, honing a secondary bevel is going to mess with the registration.

I'm not going to use abrasive paper to sharpen tools either. I just can't get the level of feel for the tool on the medium and I find abrasive paper unpleasant to handle and set up plus it is prone to bunching and tearing. What's more I can get thousands of sharpenings out of stones whereas the abrasive paper has to be thrown out, very wasteful and insensitive with regard to environmental concerns. I try and use planes and scrapers to minimise sandpaper use I don't want to be buying it for sharpening.

After a lot of years sharpening totally freehand I did finally buy a Veritas Mk2 honing guide last year. This has certainly made the process a bit easier. So there is one recommendation I would adhere to. Other than this I think maintenance of tool requires a bit of personal interpretation, it is part of each person’s craftsmanship and a didactic approach is anathema to this.

[IanW]

Aaah Horaldic - what a luverly spray - couldn't have put it better meself!

Ern, I am by training & inclination a sort of scientist, & I like to understand the theory behind things too. But when it comes down to it, sharp is just two planes intersecting (in as straight a line as possible for plane & chisel blades). At some point, you just chuck the books away, & start trying to do it. In a relatively short while, you will have a pretty good idea of what works & what doesn't, and what you need to achieve the kind of surface you find adequate. It's like driving a skew - very hard to put into words, but the first time that nice controlled shaving started whisking off, you knew you had it right, didn't you?

[seanz]

I try and use planes and scrapers to minimise sandpaper use I don't want to be buying it for sharpening.

Hallelujah!

[derekcohen]

I'll have to do some more reading. To be accused of excessive extrapolating is a red rag to a bull (even if prob true!).

Hi Ern

I wasn't acccusing YOU of such; I was saying this of Brent!

Metricians are fantastic people to have when you want to set up a milling machine, metal lathe or even a new tablesaw but I don't really need that approach for most woodworking planes or a chisel.

Well put Horaldic. That is exactly what I was saying.

Ian wrote:

when it comes down to it, sharp is just two planes intersecting

The question is what is the most efficient way of achieving this?

When it comes to sharpening, what I read on the forums around this world of ours is that few seem to be focussed on maintaining the edge after they have achieved the edge. Sooooo ... if you are struggling with insomnia, have a read of this piece I wrote ... http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Woodwor...gStrategy.html

Regards from Perth

Derek

[IanW]

Hi Derek - must be about lunch time over there?

Ok - I dutifully read your article - hasn't altered my state of conciousness (always a bit doubtful at this stage of the afternoon!), and I don't find anything to disagree with you about in there. In fact I strongly agree with nearly all of it. We drift apart a bit in your passion for BU planes - after 50 years of learning to make BD planes do what I want, I'm happy to coast the rest of the way.... It's a bit like changing from saws that cut on the push stroke to ones that cut on the pull stroke - just couldn't get comfortable with the latter. Though I need to confess made a small, very narrow keyhole saw from some leftovers of my saw making frenzy, which cuts on the pull stroke - couldn't work any other way with such a sliver of metal. The damn thing works surprisingly well - been using it quite a bit lately.

Sheer perseverance usually turns up a method for getting blades sharp that suits each of us, and there seems to be quite a few roads to Rome, so I too am not evangelical about methodology. You like your water stones & Tormek while I found the Tormek too tedious for me. A white 60 grit wheel properly maintained has never caused me any grief. And since I began with oil stones, I stay with them - the few extra strokes it takes to remove the same amount of metal is compensated by the much greater interval between flattening & deglazing. There is also the consideration of water around ferrous metal - we get enough of the bleeding stuff in the atmosphere over here, I try to keep it out of my shed!

Though if Horaldic wants to start a movement for the banning of paper-based sharpening methods, I might just sign up. As I said a long time ago, the only thing scary abot 'scary-sharp' is the number of otherwise good tools it is wrecking around the world!

Now, back to what I should be doing, or I'll never get home tonight.....
Cheers,

[jimbur]

As far as stropping goes I've had quite a few shaves by barbers using the old cut-throat razors (being of advancing years) and all of them were sharp. But then the barbers never knew they were heretics, they just had to have satisfied customers.
Cheers,
Jim

[IanW]

As far as stropping goes I've had quite a few shaves by barbers using the old cut-throat razors (being of advancing years) and all of them were sharp. But then the barbers never knew they were heretics, they just had to have satisfied customers.
Cheers,
Jim

Like "The man from Ironbark" ??

[rsser]

What chip type does the cut-throat produce?

Chip off the old block

(Good fun, but did the barbers never send them out for whetsoning? If so, at what point?).

[jimbur]

Like "The man from Ironbark" ??

rofl

[jimbur]

What chip type does the cut-throat produce?

Chip off the old block

(Good fun, but did the barbers never send them out for whetsoning? If so, at what point?).

I gather they had to be reset at some time but never in the middle of my shaves. They were hollow ground so I suppose (just suppose) they were whetstoned in the same way we'd sharpen a skew, heel and toe at the same time. I also assume regrinding would be a very skilled job with such thin steel.
Cheers,
Jim

[jimbur]

ps. chip off the old block. Ruined a cut-throat when I was a kid trying to trim some wood for a kite. Didn't get a chip off the block, just a clout on it

[IanW]

What chip type does the cut-throat produce?

Chip off the old block

(Good fun, but did the barbers never send them out for whetsoning? If so, at what point?).

Dunno wot the barbers done Ern, but my old man had a small hard black Arkansas stone he used about once or twice a year. He would just strop it before most uses. I remember trying it a few times in the forlorn hope of encouraging the the fluff that was sprouting here & there to turn into real whiskers. He would bellow from down the washroom "Who's been at my **#* razor!?". The various nicks on my face made denials useless ....

Now I wish the damn things would just stop sprouting - I hate shaving but hate having pubic hair all over my mug even more....

What's that old saying about being careful what you wish for??