Thread: HNT Gordon video - bevel angles

Originally Posted by D.W.

Don't forget to get the expensive water treatment, a couple of hundred dollars worth of jigs, a big pan to put the whole thing in, a couple of different stone graders (in case you get the black stone, silicon carbide on silicon carbide tends to just make very fine silicon carbide on both things), maybe a drain in the floor in case you drop it and a spare wheel in case you break your wheel getting it off of the arbor!

I think we can get this thing to $2000 US and really feel good about standing in front of it and waiting for it to do something that can be done quickly on a $40 bench grinder.

Of course, I had one - one of the old "supergrinds". It frustrated me enough that I gave it away.

Nope - comes with everything I need to easily put new main bevels on plane blades and chisels, including blade holder, stone grader, etc.

Tormek T-8 Sharpening System - Wetstone Sharpeners - Sharpening Tools - Hand Tools | Axminster Tools & Machinery

Microbevels and nanobevels would still be done by Veritas honing guide plus a couple of fine ceramic stones. The ability to put very accurate and controllable camber on plane blades straight off the Tormek is an interesting improvement.

Wait... is someone actually using the term "nanobevel"? I thought that was a joke.

*Gets up and puts on his jacket, angrily shaking his head as he slams the door*

What about macrobevels and picobevels?

I want a plane iron that goes a parsec before resharpening.

Originally Posted by D.W.

picobevels?

I think you have been playing too much Pokemon Go

Cheers

Doug

Fortunately, I have literally never seen Pokemon go (it's one of those things that you don't play, because what if you do and you like it?).

I do, however, like to keep a mental bank of ridiculous terminologies so that I can claim things such as "my edges are sharpened with grooves one picometer apart. When I plane, there are small nuclear reactions because I am not only splitting wood fibers, I'm splitting atoms, too".



I like to plane in picometers for parsecs

Originally Posted by Norleb

1. There is only one variable in my study, not two like Steve Voigt said. Only the sharpening angle.

2. All the testing was done with a 45° bedded plane. I don't know where Steve was going with his remark about changing the bed angle. It is not applicable to my study.

Apologies for necro-posting; I don't visit here very often. What a thread! It was a little like watching a slo-motion collision.

Anyway, I should respond when someone (incorrectly) tells me I'm wrong. Normand, you might want to crack open your high school math text and revisit the notion of variables. They can be dependent or independent. For example, in the line equation y = mx + b, "y" is a dependent variable; even though it completely depends on x, it's still a variable (whereas m and b are constants).

Similarly, in your study, there are 3 things: Bed angle, sharpening angle, and clearance angle. Bed angle is a constant. So the equation for your study would be clearance angle = bed angle – sharpening angle, or c= b – s. So c (clearance) is a dependent variable, just like y in the line equation.

Why is this relevant? Because it gets to your blind spot in point #2 above. My point about changing the bed angle is that your assumptions about clearance are completely dependent on an arbitrary bed angle of 45. You claim that 17 is the ideal clearance angle. But suppose you were using one of Terry Gordon's planes with a 60 bed. Do you really think the the ideal sharpening angle would be 43? That would be silly, even though it yields your supposedly optimum clearance angle of 17. Your study makes sweeping claims about clearance angles, but they are really limited to only a very small subset of situations.

As D.W. very correctly said about Brent Beach's "research," or Streeper's tests that claimed that ordinary saws were like 64 RC or something, people do studies out of context, they make certain assumptions, which may not be true, or may be true but not relevant, and then they make all sorts of grand claims based on the research. It's almost never true. Steve Elliott and Kees Van der Heiden are the only two people who seem to be able to pull it off, because they have their feet grounded in actual, pragmatic, woodworking.

I'll go back to lurking now.

Steve,

Normand made clear that the bed angle of his test plane was 45^o. His, like all studies, is necessarily limited. However that fact that his work has limitations doesn't necessarily invalidate his results, nor does it doesn't constitute a 'blind spot' or undermine his credibility.
I would welcome some additional data in this area so if you have some please contribute or link to it.

Cheers,
Rob

I don't know much about normand. Does he have a long history of making things and using planes, or is the study stuff just someone else coming along and making a study about a single issue?

I would say as a heavy user of hand planes, the whole clearance issue in terms of measurement is a lot less important than learning to sharpen quickly and reliably and find a clearance angle that gives a lasting edge, but that doesn't cause chipout.

I think most people actually using planes a lot will come to the same conclusion. The same as most who use planes heavily (for more than smoothing) usually don't care much about the steel type or hardness debate. We do tend to perk up and listen when someone doing a lot of the same stuff says something.

Originally Posted by D.W.

I don't know much about normand. Does he have a long history of making things and using planes, or is the study stuff just someone else coming along and making a study about a single issue?

I would say as a heavy user of hand planes, the whole clearance issue in terms of measurement is a lot less important than learning to sharpen quickly and reliably and find a clearance angle that gives a lasting edge, but that doesn't cause chipout.

I think most people actually using planes a lot will come to the same conclusion. The same as most who use planes heavily (for more than smoothing) usually don't care much about the steel type or hardness debate. We do tend to perk up and listen when someone doing a lot of the same stuff says something.

I looked up his blog, it does look like he's done a fair amount of work with hand tools only. That's good to see. I could've helped him make a better wooden plane, but I had to build a bunch before I realized I wasn't making planes equal to the old ones, and that doing so would make working entirely by hand a lot easier.

The chest that he made for his daughter (all by hand with tons of drawers and a dovetailed carcase) is quite nice.

Originally Posted by rob streeper

Steve,

I've never read the SMC posts by Normand, I only looked at his website and the comments posted on this thread. Normand clearly laid out his parameters and methods, your opinion is just that, nothing more.
Your readiness to make personal jabs undermines your arguments.

Cheers,
Rob

Steve's more accurate than normand here. Now I remember what I thought was strange about normand's argument. If I could hone irons at 28 degrees and have them not chip, I would do it, too. But they chip and then they don't finish plane that well and you have to sharpen more metal off of them. The cycle is not that great in actual work.

So I've learned to sharpen around 33 degrees (freehand, not because I calculated to 33 degrees, but because that's where habit took me in avoiding chipping irons, because it's faster to avoid irons that don't chip no matter what a test that doesn't involve work cycles might say).

So, anyway, the strange thing is that normand insisted that he saw no defect in a planed surface at 28 degrees, which could only be attributed to very poor eyesight. The counter to that, that something in the low 30s is needed in total angle to avoid chipout which has been found not only in individual data points (i found it, so did brian holcombe, etc), but in tests by steve elliot where he suggests something around 33 or 34. Normand's comments drove me to measure my honed irons for the first time ever to find out what angle they were, and they were 33 to 34. By chance (really not by chance, I guess), they were right where steve elliot suggested they'd need to be. Steve spent a lot more time presenting his case, though.

Of course, you could keep Normand's clearance suggestion and add a 5 degree back bevel to planes, but that would be pretty dumb if you're actually trying to get work done with the planes.

33 to 34 degrees is an overkill on traditional tool steels.

I'm guessing you don't do a large volume of planing at any given time if you've come to that conclusion. It preserves your ability to hone nothing but wear away from the edge. It's also more than enough clearance to wear you out a couple of times over between honings if you're taking more than dainty shavings.

David; I am guessing your lacking some depth of knowledge. Under your scenario you would need 35 - 36 degrees for A2 tool steel. You can accuse me of not knowing what I am talking about, but from my own experience with working a wide range of Australian Hardwoods, historic precedent, and advice from the tool manufacturers themselves, you have a rather week case to argue on.

Stewie;

You guys were having fun without me!

What I found interesting is to see that more than a thousand people went to read the study on my blog but no one said that they did a test to see by themselves if my conclusion was worth anything. We've spend so much times discussing all kind of details about it when, in no times, someone can sharpen at 28° and 35° (as an example) and test to see if one prefers this or that angle.

I'm doing unplugged woodworking for 10 years now and freehand sharpening for 6-7 years. I've tried to modify my own technique in order to get closer to 28° and...it's not easy. The closest I can get is 30° sometimes 32°.

DW,
The plane I made was to convince me that I could fabricate a real wooden "functional" plane. I'm beginning my second which should be more old style with a wedge.

Steve,

it seems to me that Normand stuck to his guns

You must have missed one of my reply at SMC where I said:

Ok, ok. I agree that the wording used, especially in post #1 were too conclusive.

Your a planemaker and you make beautiful planes. Those are the kind I would like to make. Your website gave me some hints as to how to achieve that as well as choosing wood types, etc. I checked in my area but couldn't find any 3" thick beech...Any suggestion for the second best wood to use or should I laminate one?