 QUICK LINKS:
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ADVANCING HANDTOOLS:
Severing Wood Fibers -- The More You Know about Edge Geometry, the Less You Experience Tear-Out.
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FYI: The Perfect Edgeis now available in paperback only. |
IN THE SPOTLIGHT:
Radius-Edged Plane Iron Assemblies.
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MIA CULPA: So Sorry! Hock Tools Can't Make it to HandWorks in Amana, but...
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To make up for it, we're offering a 10% discount on all website orders from Hock Tools during the month of May 2013.
Orders must include the words "HandWorks Rocks!" in the comment section! Ron's explained the whole thing on The Sharpening Blog, where you can read all about it in his entry entitled HandWorks Rocks, but...
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Greetings!
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Ron Hock
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If you took our last survey, thank you!
You may know that we've been publishing Sharp & to the Point every other month for a bit over two years. And now, thanks to survey comments we're adding a Q&A issue that will appear in between. This means you will receive a monthly edition of
Sharp & to the Point.
For the Q&A issues we'll select one or two questions about woodworking and/or metals and/or sharpening and publish them along with our answers. Isaac Fisher, our tool designer and kit maker, will answer woodworking questions and I'll tackle your questions about blades.
Also, we've set up the archive for Sharp & to the Point on the Hock Tools website. We'll also keep a link available for you to use in each newsletter in the Quick Links section to the upper left. All you have to do to read a previous issue is to click on the archive and scroll down for an issue that interests you. It's simple and I hope you enjoy using it.
And, of course, please let me know if you need anything from Hock Tools.
Ron Hock
Hock Tools (888) 282-5233
(707) 964-2782
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Q & A: Cambering Corners
of Blades
QUESTION:
I've got a couple of your replacement blades for my Stanley planes. What's your way of cambering the corners of those blades? I don't have a grinding wheel and if I did I'd probably beat the hell out of the edge. I do have a Veritas honing jig but rocking that while honing does very little and I'm much too old to wait until it does something.
RON'S ANSWER:
It depends on how much camber you want. And a little goes a long way. Camber -- a slight curve on the edge of the blade -- is used for different things. A lot of camber can make for an aggressive cut to remove a lot of wood in a hurry. Or a small amount can be used when jointing to slightly change the angle of the edge of a board by simply sliding the plane side to side. Mostly, a very small amount of camber is added to a plane iron to avoid leaving "tracks" on a smooth surface. The camber keeps the corners off the surface so each pass with the plane blends with the one beside it.
 "The Amount of camber is different for different planes. Use more camber when roughing and dimensioning [as much as 1/16" (1.5mm), less for smoothing and finishing [.005" (0.12mm)]." From page 109, Chapter 6; Plane Irons, Cambered Irons section of The Perfect Edge.
I'm an advocate of hand-held honing. (Jigs are fine but being able to resharpen an edge freehand is a skill worth developing. It's a real time-saver.)  "Cambering a plane iron by loading the blade on one side ile honing. I'm using the Veritas Honing Guide with the camber roller but most honing guides can be loaded in this same way to camber a blade."From page 109, Chapter 6: Plane Irons, Cambered Irons section of The Perfect Edge. When adding camber hand-held you need simply load one corner for a few strokes, then switch to apply pressure to the other for the same number of strokes. It's almost easier to camber a blade than not to.
Veritas makes a barrel-shaped wheel for their MkII guide to facilitate this, but by the time you've got it all set up you'd be back to work if you'd done the job freehand.
I think cambering a blade is a good idea in
some instances and the techniques mentioned above rely on it. But I suspect many may be taking it too far. A little is usually more than enough.
James Krenov just dragged the corners of his blades over the stone to "denature" them to avoid leaving tracks. No camber, just a very slight
chamfer on the corners. The range of "camber", from a scrub plane to a straight edge, leaves a lot of room for experimentation. Start with a small amount and, if the work demands, add a little more with subsequent honings.
If you have a question, send it to linda@hocktools.com. We'll do our best to get to it. |
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