Hand Tool Woodworking Q&A - When to Stop and Sharpen a Hand Plane
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- Опубликовано: 11 окт 2024
- Bill E. asked if I could illustrate when a hand plane blade needs to be sharpened. Not as in a fresh flea market find, but after using a plane for a little while, how to know that it may be time to stop and sharpen. This is a very subjective and tactile subject, so it's difficult to demonstrate in a video, but I did my best.
There may be 1 or 2 guys that I hit the thumbs up before I even watch the video and Bob is one of them. It doesn’t matter what the topic is he makes it interesting, practical and in terms a guy like me can really understand. I can’t begin to tell you how thankful I am I found his channel.
Bob, you put out very helpful videos. I'm glad I subscribe to you. One of my favorite RUclips channels.
I think you managed to cover this topic well by focussing on how sharpness is a tactile measurement. None of use can judge sharpness by sight but we can feel resistance and that is after all why we want to use sharp tool: to make the work proceed more easily.
So you're saying all of my planes have never been sharp since I got them, lol.
Thanks for this video!
PS Williams 🤣
Really true. Freshly sharpened blade go through the wood like butter effortlessly. And when I start sweating then I know for sure that it need to be sharpened. I'm a woodworking hobbyist since about 4 years (thanks to you and the other youtubers) and sometimes I don't touch wood for months...but after a couple of years I've start develop the feeling. Now I just need a second to touch the blade and know at what level of sharpening it is. My prefer method is to slide my thumb on the blade very very softly (along the edge, not through..and yes I know it's the best way to cut my finger :) ). Thanks for sharing.
I can only physically do small jobs, though I’d like to make a dresser unfortunately I never will. So my tools don’t get the same intensive use most other people’s tools will get. So I always sharpen on my 12,000 grit ceramic stone and strop before I use my planes (& chisels), and they are still well within comfortable sharpness when I put them away. As my sharpening is improving my blades are getting sharper on every use without waiting to go to coarser stones.
Brilliantly explained, thank you.
you are right- tactile is a key to a lot of this work--thx
great information and clearly explained.
I think that one reason a lot of us don't stop to sharpen/strop enough, is because getting the blade back to where you had it, before sharpening, can be tedious.
Matthew Buntyn Yep, it sure can be if you don’t do it enough. But like anything else, the more you do it, the faster and easier it becomes. It’s become second nature to me now. After sharpening, reinstall blade and extend slightly, sight down sole and adjust for even side-to-side projection, retract blade fully, start planing and gradually extend blade until it’s back to where it was. It took me longer to write the process out than it takes to do it 👍🏻. Takes a bit longer with wooden planes but still can be quick with practice.
Thanks for sharing that
But is it closer to an hour of use or ten minutes of use?
SkylersRants Could be either, or both. Time really isn’t an important factor to worry about as there are too many variables. It depends on the type of wood, the aggressiveness of the cut, the pace of the work, the angle of the bevel, the type of steel, and the needs of the situation. For example, I’ve often gone weeks between sharpenings for my jack plane and mortise chisels when working with white pine, while at the same time I may sharpen my smoothing plane after only 20 or 30 passes on a particularly squirrelly piece of curly maple. It’s more about the feel of the tool, the results you are getting from it, and how those two factors compare to your desires or expectations for it.
Clicked like before even watching the video. Do you still use oilstones to sharpen your blades? Have you changed any thing about the way you sharpen?
Snowwalker I still use oilstones for my gouges, molding plane irons, and other high carbon steel tools. For my bench stones I switched to Sigma waterstones because of all the abrasion resistant steels used by modern toolmakers. Other than that, I still sharpen the same way I have for many years - hollow grind, hone on stones and strop.
Bob Rozaieski Fine Woodworking thank you Rob I to use both oilstones and Sigma. Lately I've been experimenting with naniwa diamonds. I've heard they last for years they are quite fast and stay flat.
Effortlessly, Effortlessly, Effortlessly. What’s the problem?🤫
Without both planes being the same this demonstration is pretty worthless. The difference could be just down to the length of the bodies.
Well, you're only partly correct. If the board were rough sawn or the edge were not straight and flat, I would agree with you that the length of the plane could impact the demonstration. However, this board's edge had been planed straight and flat prior to the demonstration to take the effect of an out of flat edge out of the equation. So essentially, both of these planes were doing nothing but smoothing an already straightened and flattened edge.
However, I do agree that it is not easy to demonstrate the point that I'm trying to make. Attempting to show visually what is actually something very tactile, is not an easy thing to get across. But I did my best to answer the question.
@@BRFineWoodworking perhaps. Variables still negate experimental results due to their influence on outcomes. The point of experimentation is to find answers, not raise new questions. It sounded to me like you knew what you were trying to do was hard. It may be even harder to do than you realize. There would always be the human factor that would be extremely difficult to eliminate. Your subconscious bias could influence how you use a tool, which would skew results. For instance if you "knew" one plane was duller than another one. Then you'd likely use it differently. Science is a hard thing. Which is why I leave it to the men in the white coats.
Paul Frederick I agree. My day job is in science so I totally understand the scientific method and how having multiple variables can result in convoluted outcomes. However, this was not meant as an experiment, rather as a demonstration of how differences between a blade that is getting dull and one that is sharp might present themselves. I fully knew the outcomes ahead of time as I knew one blade was sharp and one was dull. I was not looking for answers to a hypothesis. I was simply trying to show the difference between sharp and dull.