Thread: Warning - Arousing Photo's - HNT

What are you doing with the piece of wood, again? Is this something you'll use for reshaping the soles of the planes after some movement down the road? If Terry recommended it, I guess it works, but it seems to me that a piece of wood would warp and bend just as much as the planes over time and be useless when the time came to put it to use. But maybe you're talking about something else? I might consider just buying or turning an appropriate diameter dowel when the time came. Keep in mind that having a perfectly shaped "master" and then laying sandpaper over it will actually make a slightly larger/smaller diameter radius, which could cause your blades not to fit properly.

You can get by sharpening hollows with leather wrapped around a pencil and charged with honing compound, but that will eventually round over your bevels, so it's not really a good solution for long term use. If you want to buy some proper stones for it (I would recommend that), I wholeheartedly endorse Norton multiform superslips. I use a fine India for reshaping them (which is rarely necessary), and a hard Arkansas for honing them. I also have a small, hard Arkansas stone that works well for the smallest sizes. If you ordered the set he sells, you don't have the 1/8" size, so you probably don't need the smaller one right now. The DMT Diamond Wave is another good tool for sharpening hollows, but it isn't quite fine enough to get the edge I like to have on my planes. It's a good step between the India and Arkansas stones though.

Also, I did have one of my planes (only one of eighteen) come with a blade that didn't match the sole. At first I thought it was just cocked funny, but I couldn't get it to cut consistently for the life of me, and I eventually realized it was slightly off. Not a big deal. It shows that they're finished and fettled by hand, I suppose. Hopefully this is irrelevant for your experience, but if you find yourself wondering what is going on, it's not out of the realm of possibility for one of them to not match.

I can't say anything bad about ones I have. I really enjoy using them. I like the low profile a lot more than the limited number of traditional sized moulding planes I've used.

Cheers,
Luke

Thanks Luke,

I'll go back and read the instructions that Terry includes with the planes again, but I'm pretty sure it said to cut the master forms/pieces of wood with each plane, and then wrap sand-paper over the sole and sand the form (this sorts out the thickness of sand-paper problem you mentioned). My understanding is that these are for reshaping the planes if needed due to movement, or if they are damaged I guess. He recommends using a very stable timber and sealing them up in plastic so that they are less likely to warp. Maybe it's not worth the hassle?

Thanks for the tips regarding sharpening. Who sells the norton super-slip sets? I'll check it out. Otherwise, the included instructions also suggest making some drums and then resharpening (I guess for actually re-grinding the bevel rather than touching up) the blades by using these drums in the drill-press with sand-paper stuck to them - if that makes sense.

Thanks again mate.

Cheers,

Dom

I'm not sure who sells them in Australia. That may be tough. I was never really shopping for them down there. My guess is that you'll have to look over here. It's not a set, per se, it's just a single stone with a progressively smaller radius on one side and a progressively more acute angle on the other. Here's a link to one:

https://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/N...slip-P122.aspx

That's the finest one. The other is the fine India. They make a medium India but I can't imagine needing something that coarse unless you were shaping your own blades from scratch and at that stage you'd probably just use a file.

It may be worth grabbing an item number and getting in touch with Norton to find a distributor in Aus. If nothing else, someone would probably be willing to order them in for you in a future wholesale order, which would likely save you shipping.

The trick with the sandpaper on the soles of the planes is slick. I never thought about that.

I've seen the thing Terry uses to sharpen his plane irons. It's an interesting contraption. I think it's made in Australia. With that said, I still would always want to hone mine to a finer edge than you can get with sandpaper.

Have you read "Mouldings in Practice" from Lost Art Press? If you're interested in planing mouldings, I'd highly recommend it. It talks about using H&Rs, but there is also a section on sharpening and grinding them. I remember seeing a post recently that Carbatec had LAP books on sale right now. That's where I got my copy of Mouldings in Practice a few years ago.

Cheers,
Luke

P.S. If you do buy those stones, keep in mind they're oil stones. They'll try to sell you some kind of high dollar oil to use with them. Don't buy that. Just use any plant based oil that's in your kitchen.

Thanks Luke,

Yeah I have that book, I hadn't read the part on sharpening though - I'll refer back. Oh, and I'm the one who posted about the carbatec LAP sale haha.

I have a couple of flat arcansas stones and some oil already (was cheap) but thanks for the heads up.

Cheers, Dom

Originally Posted by Luke Maddux

P.S. If you do buy those stones, keep in mind they're oil stones. They'll try to sell you some kind of high dollar oil to use with them. Don't buy that. Just use any plant based oil that's in your kitchen.

The best oil for sharpening is neatsfoot oil thinned with kero. Its advantage is that it doesn't dry out and leave a gum residue on the stone which clog the pores when the stone is stored.

I use auto transmission fluid, it is thin and holds the slurry in suspension very well and is cheap.

Oddly, I sorted out sharpening straight edges and convex curves easily enough (only took about 20 years or so), but I still find sharpening any concave blades like hollows or in-cannel gouges a bit of a challenge. I don't have all that many concave-edged tools, 3 pairs of H & Rs, some carving gouges, & several turning gouges, so p'raps it's just lack of regular practice. I have a small collection of round stones of different diameters & grits, most of which aren't a very good match for any of the tools I need to sharpen, but I've acquired quite a few scraps of worn India & carborundum stones over the years, and have shaped these to suit my most-frequently-sharpened edges. They're remarkably easy to shape using another piece of the same compound, or a coarse diamond stone, or even a concrete floor.

Like Luke, I wouldn't think H & Rs need a lot of rejuvenation in one lifetime. Mine are Northern Hemisphere Beech (typical) & quite old, & the soles of all but one were in very good condition (or appeared so to me) when I got them. A 1/2" round was in very poor shape, though, & needed some remedial therapy, which I did by eye, matching the sole to the blade (rather than the other way round). I wouldn't expect the Gidgee examples to show much wear for a very long time, unless you use them constantly on very abrasive woods. If you are anything like me, by the time yo want to refer to your master set, you won't have the foggiest notion where you put them.......

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Oddly, I sorted out sharpening straight edges and convex curves easily enough .......... only took about 20 years or so.....

Cheers,