Thread: HNT Smoothing Plane compared to Veritas Low Angle Jack

Originally Posted by Anotherplane

.... do you think the advantage really shows on difficult grain only or is it more a case of all round better perfomance ?...

The latter, A-p, it just makes a better all-round plane. Sharpness matters a lot when dealing with obstinate grain, and most of the new irons hold their edge better than old ones, so I suppose there will be a small advantage there too. But cap-irons and mouth openings have the same effect, whatever blades you're using.

There is a law of diminishing returns with blade thickness - the thicker the blade, the longer the sharpening bevel. With bevel-down planes, that means the last point at which the blade contacts the frog gets further away from the cutting edge. But apart from that, the old Stanleys & Records were made to fit their own blades. The individual parts vary due to manufacturing tolerances & minor changes made over time, but in general, the screw which holds cap-iron & blade together is just long enough to fit the combination it was made for. If you use a blade that's too thick, the screw will either not grab at all, or hold by the barest part-turn of thread. Even if you fix that by using a longer screw, the cam of the adjuster yoke may not engage the slot in the cap-iron properly. This will greatly reduce the amount of adjustment travel available, or in a worst-case scenario, you'll get none at all. Opinions will vary, but I reckon 1/8" (3.2mm) is the best compromise for the "good ol' Stanleys & Records" of yesteryear, and that's what most after-market suppliers seem to have decided. A 1/8" blade will go into the vast majority of oldies with no problems. You'll definitely notice an improvement in the feel of the plane, and that sweet edge will last quite a bit longer after sharpening.

If you're getting good service from your existing blades (& I've found they really vary a lot - some are good, some are terrible), there is little point in rushing to spend tool $s that you might prefer to spend on other things, but when the time comes to think about blade replacements, it's the way to go, imo. I'll bet half a stubby that when you do, you'll wonder why you didn't do it sooner - I did!

Cheers,

Ian’s already given you a great reply to this.

Having gone through this problem myself in some detail I’ll give you what I learned.

There can be a number of benefits to the thicker replacement irons aside from better handling of cranky grain, however this depends upon which ones you opt for.

I have experienced what I think of as reduced “chatter” from a thicker blade. In general usage the blade cuts with more of a slicing feel to the cut, which feels like translating more of my energy into cutting and less into vibration. It feels like less work to push the plane.

They make most work in hardwoods a little easier going because of this improved feel. You may or may not notice this if you exclusively work softwoods. I almost always work with hardwoods so I can’t really comment on what happens with the softer timbers.

I also seem to achieve a better finish with an equivalently sharpened iron, I think that this may also be due to the reduced “chatter” but in the absence of time lapse high definition microscopy I am merely speculating.

Last night, I mucked around with a 1950’s era English stanley no 4 with the original iron and a circa 1930 USA Stanley no. 4 with one of my custom M2 2.5mm irons, partly as a result of some thinking generated through this thread. They were both sharpened using the same stones to the same standard. The chipbreakers were set very fine on each, with a very close mouth.

The finish on the same piece of timber was slightly furry to the touch with the original iron, whereas the finish from the custom M2 iron was significantly smoother to the touch. With the board finished with the original iron, to achieve the higher level finish I gave it a very light sanding with 120grit paper, really just a few very light swipes and the two became close to indistinguishable.

Another benefit is in the durability of the sharpened edge. However, for this you need to choose an iron with different steel. After the work I did for my, admittedly uncontrolled, experiment the original blade was not “singing” as it was at the start, whereas I know the custom M2 iron will most likely do for four such boards prior to needing a lick on the honing stone.

Much of the native Australian timber that is sold here is both hard and abrasive. This leads people, like me, who use Australian hardwoods to highly value abrasion resistant steels in repeated-use cutting tools, the right steel can result in much less time working sharpening stones and more time working timber.

Somewhere I have a spreadsheet of the performance of many of the available replacement plane irons from a few years ago. It made for interesting reading and ultimately lead me down the custom-made path. At the time this testing was done Academy Saw in Brisbane was selling M2 plane irons which were head and shoulders above others in abrasion resistance but they subsequently stopped such production.

However, since then Lee Valley through their “Veritas” brand have started selling their PM-V11 irons. After doing some reasearch I purchased a few of these but I haven’t had mine for long enough nor worked them hard enough to give a long term report. However, from a few weeks usage, only substantially in one of my Stanely no.6s at this point, they are absolutely superb.

One trade-off with using a high speed steel (HSS) like M2 for plane irons can be that, although it will last 6 times longer prior to needing sharpening, it can often be very difficult to sharpen. Some of the traditional oilstones and waterstones will not be at all efficient. If you happened to have only used O1 steels for chisels and planes and someone handed you an M2 iron to sharpen on traditional stones you might think they were playing a joke.

I have used specifically selected japanese waterstones which are great for HSS for years now so this hasn’t been an issue for me however, when shopping for irons, ease of sharpening is a consideration.

The Veritas PM-V11 irons on the other hand are fantastic. They last about 4 times as long, in my experience, as an equivalent Stanely iron, give a great finish and can be sharpened using traditional oil and water stones.

Another thing to be aware of is that some replacement irons require a wider mouth opening than that which can be accomplished through adjusting the frog, this is usually achieved by filing the mouth of the plane. This may or may not be an issue for other folk but I frequently use Stanley planes from the late 1920’s and early 1930’s and do not want to physically alter these planes in a non-reversible manner.

Some thicker Irons can also make the adjusting yolk inoperative because it can’t reach all the way through the iron to the chip breaker which houses the slot for depth adjustment. The Veritas PM-V11 irons are 0.1” or 2.5mm thick (about .5mm thicker than standard). These work well in my old Stanleys, the mouth opening can be satisfactorily adjusted with the frog alone and the chip adjusting yolk reaches though to allow full adjustment.

I had a mishap a few years ago and, unknowingly, purchased some 3mm irons and was not at all impressed with the issues they created.

There are are probably other things to consider but that’s a decent start, I hope it helps.

Thanks fellas, some good and useful points there. For me even if the actual result was only small but the "feel" of working the plane is nicer it would make me work better....

I'm getting real close to getting one of these in my Stanley #3.

To save on postage it may be more economical to order all of your replacement blades together, as the Veritas blades need to be shipped from Canada. This way you’ll only pay once on postage costs. Another option not raised yet is the HSS replacement blades made and sold by Mujingfang.

Jim Davey also has a selection of Veritas PM-V11 blades on his web shop. He’s got the Veritas cap irons for Stanley planes too, only place in Australia unless I’m mistaken. Was considering buying some from him last week but I need to order an upcut router bit from Lee Valley anyway so going to order from them instead. Excited to see what sort of a difference the upgraded blade and cap iron yields on my 50s era Stanley #4!

Something is very wrong if a V11 iron lasts 4 times as long as a 1930s stanley iron or the finish from the stanley iron isn't at least as good as M2 (it will generally be better, though it won't last as long).

When I first started planing, I got better performance from harder irons, but somehow with more experience, the hardness of the iron above a certain point, and the alloy, hasn't made much difference. Irons that aren't above that certain point are those like 1960s and 1970s US and sheffield irons - those are pretty terrible.

There's likely a plane setup issue (cap iron too close, perhaps, on the stanley iron) if the surfaces differ.

What actually occurs in an equivalent setup between M2 and O1 (that is appropriate hardness - you can't really compare 62 hardness M2 and O1 at a lower hardness and make a conclusion) is that the M2 releases its initial edge almost immediately, leaving tiny lines on the surface that's been planed, but it stays durable once the edge has got some bluntness and holds that shape for a long time. Sharp feeling, but not even. The O1 wears faster, but evenly, unless it's not good O1 or wasn't done properly.

The actual edge life in wood that is not full of silica isn't that different. The wear bevel on high speed or highly alloyed air hardening steel is shorter, but the business end of the wear bevel is more blunt. The simpler steels with smaller carbides wear a longer wear bevel, but the thickness of the edge at a given length of it is not as thick. Specifically, the effect of that is that the simpler steels actually cut better with the same length wear bevel. the surface stays uniform, and the only trick needed to keep them in the cut is a cap iron and a reasonable shaving thickness. After the initial work, both should have a better surface with a slightly thicker chip (say, three thousandths) than they do with one that's not as thick (like 1 thousandth) unless the wood being planed has very fragile earlywood (like quartered cocobolo, etc). The slightly thicker chip somehow hides the lightest edge deformation and yields a surface with fewer lines, supposing a decent planing wood.

I used to concede that very hard wood is better done with a harder and thicker and more highly alloyed iron, but handsawed and then finished the purpleheart infill on my last plane without resharpening an old sorby jointer that I have (metal plane, original iron - not hard at all and certainly a simple steel). PH has a huge range of hardness (1700-3900 observed according to a wholesaler here), and I'd figure this wood was denser and more finely grained than most I've seen, so it's probably in the middle of that.

To plane the endgrain on the bed of the plane, I used another infill plane with an O1 iron of my own treatment. It's about 62 hardness and wears uniformly.

I haven't encountered anything that works better (in a jointer) than the sorby plane does as a whole (it cost me a lot of money, too), and that includes a lie nielsen 7 and 8 that I used to have. It wasn't taking 1 thousandth shavings on PH, which helps (an iron will continue to cut much further into a dullness cycle on thicker shavings, but that is how we should be working in the first place except for the final cuts. I made the last couple of shavings (to size the blank on the infill) with the same smoother that i used to plane the bed of the plane.

I've come to realize over time that either the plane is defective (like 1970s round top stanley irons, as a part of a plane) or a user just hasn't gotten as far as they think they have if all of these irons make that much of a difference.

The PH that I used in my infill plane is hard enough (the end grain is absurd) that I can't shoot it with any plane on a shooting board. it's too hard and resilient. I guess the bed angle made for a cut that was enough "up the grain" that it could be planed.

(the V11 iron is a bit different in M2 in that it doesn't lose its initial edge in blobs, which also correlates with being sharpenable on just about anything, though slow on some stones - not an issue for someone with a grinder. I've sharpened it on oilstones without issue, and a fine india will remove minor nicking or heavy wear as well as anything else I've used. ten years ago, I would've sung its praise about making my plane edges last a lot longer, but having taken a huge fascination in how planes are made and set, it doesn't make much difference these days).

D.W. I can assure you there’s nothing “very wrong”, that is unless a North American or European woodworking view of the world is considered “right” and Australian woodworking somehow aberrant.

Firstly the timber we use is more much more silicacious and also harder, length for length, than most of the equivalently stocked North American or European timbers. Take American or European oak and compare it with Tasmanian Oak which have roughly similar applications. The edge on stanley blades gives up significantly earlier. Yes the common 70’s junk does that sooner but I have a lot of experience working these types of timbers with stanley planes and only one stanley iron type has held up under longer usage, that being the HSS edged irons made in the Stanley Hobart factory; long closed, unfortunately. There’s a good reason they were made here, necessity being the mother of invention, our timbers created a demand for them.

Secondly, the research testing and development we did wasn’t because I wanted to spend time studying metallurgy and related science nor because I wanted to be able to sit around and pontificate about it afterwards, it’s because we got sick of irons that didn’t perform. We read the work of others, bought some test irons and, eventually, got our own irons made. These M2 irons last about 5 to 6 times longer than standard Stanley irons and deliver consistently good performance throughout that time.

Thirdly, I didn’t come down in the last shower. Things like chipbreaker adjustment were taught to me a long time ago, well before any of this type of thing became fashion. I didn’t have to “discover the lost art of chipbreaker tuning”. I’m a few generations deep in this, it’s not a hobby I “took up”.

Finally, for me the jury is still out in terms of a long term view on PM-V11 irons. I would need a couple of years usage to be confident in giving a totally unqualified recommendation.

What I can say is that the edge has lasted four times as long in the same application as a “sweetheart” iron. Why is that? Well, because I have my grandfathers’ Type 13 no.6 fitted with one and prior to that I had a “sweetheart” iron in that same plane, I know it wasn’t the original iron for the plane, that wore out long ago, but it’s still an iron from that era marked with the “sweetheart” logo. I worked the same timber on the reverse side that had dulled the old iron and the PM-V11 was still good. I then worked two other sides cut from the same board (but this time 9’ long as opposed to 6’) and the new iron continued to perform better than the old at the point I had set it aside. In my book that’s a genuine improvement over the old iron.

I’m no internet woodworking guru, I can really only speak from my own experience. I did learn a lot from my grandfather and father mostly the latter - who would tell you I was a bugger to teach and did a lot “self-directed” learning. However, I am confident in my own usage that the new irons I am using are better performing than the old ones and that’s not down to a fault with the plane or my incompetence.

I have barely made a post on a forum in several years and wouldn’t be posting on here now unless I was laid up. I’d bet though that most users of these irons using similar materials would have the same experience, they’re probably out in their workshops enjoying their woodwork though, which is where I’d rather be too!

You must be planing MDF to see that kind of difference in edge life. It's not like we don't have woods with silica here, we just generally have better alternatives. I have stuck myself dimensioning (including hand sawing) cocobolo, purpleheart, ebony, etc, including with a stanley iron and it hasn't made me want to get the planes out that I have with HSS irons.

As far as needing years to recommend V11? Hogwash. Really. You can figure it out in a couple of sessions. I haven't seen a bad one yet, but I've seen a lot of poor finish strokes off of M2 (leaving tiny lines everywhere).

Ok, let me get this straight, despite me describing the circumstances and my experience, (i.e. that I was planing Tasmanian Oak, most likely, eucalyptus regnans) you’re choosing an “alternate truth” (i.e. that I was planing MDF) because my experience doesn’t suit your view?

I think rationality has departed this discussion. However, just for giggles take a look at the data sheet provided by Lee Valley on their website regarding PM-V11 steel, Veritas PM-V11 - Story this shows the results of their testing and mirrors my real life observation. If you go here: Veritas PM-V11 - Testing Summary you can see how their testing was done.

We have a conversational nuance in Australia, it’s sometimes called laconic understatement. It might pay to brush up on that too if you are going to choose to talk with us.

Not to beat about in the bush your current style is coming across to me as rude.

To make it clear these irons from Lee Valley appear to to me to be the best that are currently commercially available for use with Australian hardwoods in Bailey type planes.

My view of “long term” in irons is at least two years. Before giving an unqualified recommendation I’d want to see how they performed all the way through the usable portion of the iron. There are also things like wear rate with sharpening that I can’t comment on yet.

Originally Posted by Horaldic

Not to beat about in the bush your current style is coming across to me as rude.

Feel the same way. Dismissive and rude.

D.W. I can't help but point out that the comparison between wood hardnesses seems to come up all the time when you get involved in discussion.

The woods in Aus are just harder, man... They're not even comparable. Like that's just how it is. It's fact. It's not fake news.

There are a couple of Aus hardwoods which are legitimately "soft" but most of the stuff down there is way, way more abrasive to tool edges than what we have here in the US. I'm speaking from the perspective of someone who lived there for just shy of 5 years, obsessively worked as many woods as I could possibly get my hands on, and then shipped 1800 bdft of the stuff back to the US with me when I moved.

I feel like I'm as qualified as anyone here to talk on this point of comparison, and it's just not even up for discussion. Like we really just have to move past this. You can't apply the same logic that you would apply on Lumberjocks or Sawmill Creek on this forum, and you seem bound and determined to continue, year after year, to do that.

Don't get me wrong, your input is valuable, but you have to accept at some point that your experience with the volume of cocobolo, purpleheart, and ebony you've had in the US does not qualify you to comment on what it's like to be in a position where you exclusively have access to Aussie wood species. Those woods you mention are available in the US in "craft sizes" at best. These guys are talking about full scale cabinet work in stuff that is considerably harder than Oak, Beech, Osage, etc. You're simply not working cocobolo, PH, or ebony in that volume. No human is.

Like I said, your input is valuable, but you can't just call "Hogwash" in response to a multitude of experienced woodworkers from literally the other side of the world without some kind of basis for the commentary.

Yeah I find the comparison to Australian timbers pretty funny when it comes up like this. Even in Perth we can access a huge amount of timber from North America and the rest of the world, when people say our stuff is tough to work it’s not an assumption - it’s based on experience with both.

How many Americans have access to Aussie timbers to be making the same comparisons? With the exception of Luke I’d say very few indeed but it doesn’t stop this topic coming up time after time.

I used some walnut and cherry for the first time last year. It quickly became timber that I had to have more of. Aside from looking pretty, they were nice and easy to work with. They planed and carved with ease. Of course they're just two timbers out of how ever many there are but compared to Tas Oak/Vic Ash (which is my staple), I'd rather use the walnut. I can see why Mr Maloof chose it as a timber of choice for his rockers.

Luke -I'm curious what timber made the cut to travel across the pond?

Originally Posted by lewisc

I used some walnut and cherry for the first time last year. It quickly became timber that I had to have more of. Aside from looking pretty, they were nice and easy to work with. They planed and carved with ease. Of course they're just two timbers out of how ever many there are but compared to Tas Oak/Vic Ash (which is my staple), I'd rather use the walnut. I can see why Mr Maloof chose it as a timber of choice for his rockers.

Luke -I'm curious what timber made the cut to travel across the pond?

1800 bdft of the finest birdseye huon pine?

It really is amazing how easily walnut and cherry work and how easy they are on blades, compared with Australian stuff like Blackbutt and even milder stuff like Vic Ash. Let's not even talk about Gidgee, bulloak etc. I have a block of gidgee that I'm reluctant to even try an edge tool on...

Edit: Also, thank goodness this post took me off my post count of 666!

Cheers,

Dom