Thread: Tuning My First Kanna

Before I try to answer any of your questions, have you seen what Chris Hall has posted on his blog (http://thecarpentryway.blogspot.ca) about tuning kanna? I haven't yet read Des' book, but I understand it also has lots of info on tuning kanna.

1. and 2. These are personal preference, if they bother you, remove them, if not, leave them. In use, the dai is likely to get stained by your hands anyway, so it won't keep its pristine look forever and no point in trying, I don't think.

3. I would leave it at two contact points, since this is a finish kanna and the dai is fairly short.

4. and 6. See Chis Halls blog - he has a comprehensive description of dealing with the ura-gane, osae-bo, and mimi (ears), etc.

5. I'm sure the lamination is mostly for edge durability. Although it doesn't cut, it has just as much contact with the shavings as the cutting edge does so will benefit from having steel that is more abrasion resistant. I would imagine that the laminating and heat treatment also impart some sort of structural benefit as well, but that's a guess.

+1 to what Sheets said, definitely read Chris Hall's recent blog entries on the subject.

If you like colour and movement:

'Sumokun's' how to prepare a Kanna blade
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SOl...yeApQ5p4joZWSA

And his first video on tuning a Kanna
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQyt...yeApQ5p4joZWSA

he talks slowly and there is probably better conceptual detail in Chris' posts but sometimes you need to see it done in real time.

Derek

I'd forgotten about that series of vids - they are very good. So much info out there, but hard to keep it all in the memory .

I have all of Sumokun vids I download anything worth keeping and keep it locally for future reference. I reviewed them all today.

I did not have time to work on the kanna much, however I did grind the ears of the blade so that they were narrower then the cap iron as suggested by Sumokun. I removed the stickers and started removing any surface defect in the dai. I wear gloves when I work with hand tools because I have very acidic hands as I turn any steel I touch into rust and any tannin rich woods into ebony. I have manged to completely halt all rust on my tool with gloves, a paint brush to remove shaving and dust and liberal and constant wipes of cloth covered with camellia oil. Love the stuff.

It seems that I will need to flatten the sole and redo the hollows after all. The hollows are huge. Well over 0.5mm the same for the mouth it is about 2mm. So I am going to flatten the dai router an insert to close the mouth to at most 0.3mm.

Yesterday I adjusted the backing iron so that it did not rock on the blade. Relatively quick and painless.

I must confess that I find sharpening the blade slightly more challenging. I have always used the Veritas Mark 2 honing guide for my Western blades. The width, thickness and geometry makes the blade completely incompatible with the Veritas Mark 2 honing guide. So I have been honing by hand, its not soft steel and it takes a fair amount of effort to turn a burr and when you turn the burr the burr is so fine you have to really intuit that it even exists.

I managed to get a decent edge (shaving hair and finger nail) on the blade today and fitted it to the dai. I suspect that I have removed to much material from bed of the dai. I have the sneaking suspicion I should have left it a tighter fit. At the moment I can push the blade within 2mm of the mouth opening with hand pressure. I tried shimming the bed with some paper and the blade just engaged more positively. Well at least I learned it on a $30 kanna instead of a $400 kanna.

I tried to plane an assortment of scrap wood, PNG Rosewood, New Zealand Beech & Hoop Pine. The New Zealand Beech did the best planing cleanly but what would you expect from one of the best working woods in the world. The PNG Rosewood got gutted and the Hoop pine was okay.

The dai is only setup for ruff work at the moment the hollow is to pronounced and the mouth opening are way to wide for fine cuts.

I find that the amount of excretion required i.e. work is far less with a kanna then with a metal body plane. The kanna moves itself I just have to guide it allong.

I also found that the sole has three high burnished points forward of the mouth.

Unfortunately my exercise in learning to plane with a kanna was way to short. After a 10 strokes less then 2 meters in total the blade edge had completely failed. The edge was ragged & chipped in half a dozen places, leaving scratch marks in all the planed surfaces. Why?

I also have a problem with the blade always protruding more from one side then the other other words it tends to sit skew, by a tiny amount. I can adjust with a genno, however it nags me. I am weary of removing any more material from the bed. The graphite spreads evenly across the whole bed even on the sides when applied to the plane blade. Suggestions!

Also the bevel of the blade is at 25 degrees, should I increase this to 30 or 35?

I have pulled out my copy of Demsond Kings book and I am planning to read it again.

TS,
I found that A2 blades on my Veritas planes needed a few sharpenings before I got through to stable metal that didn't chip easily. It's possible that this blade is the same?

I believe that some dai are set at a relatively low bedding angle (for soft woods) so a 25 degree bevel would not be unusual in Japanese planes.

Hopefully someone like Gadge can step in.

Derek

I Thumsucker,
I'm not an expert but could make a couple of suggestions.
If the blade is skewing the edge may not be square. When next sharpening you may need to take a little more off one side than the other. This is only one possibility, there are others.
The bed angle might be around 38 degrees which means if you make your bevel 35 Degrees it will be virtually parallel with the sole of the dai. Not good for cutting as there will be no clearance angel under the bevel. On a western plane the bed angle is usually around 45 degrees and the blade bevel is around 25 degrees giving a clearance angle of 15 degrees. I think the clearance angle should be around 10 to 15 degrees for good results.
Toshio Odate says the brittlenss will decrease with usage as the blade will temper a bit with the heat generated. He suggests lightly raising the blade up on its cutting edge on the stone after completion of sharpening. Basically to round over the cutting edge and making it less vulnerable until it settles down a bit.
By the way, I'm glad you are using less excretion. That can get very messy

Regards,
Gadge

Originally Posted by Gadge

Toshio Odate says the brittlenss will decrease with usage as the blade will temper a bit with the heat generated. He suggests lightly raising the blade up on its cutting edge on the stone after completion of sharpening. Basically to round over the cutting edge and making it less vulnerable until it settles down a bit.

In my experience it only has to be a micro-secondary bevel. Keep it small; just a glint along the edge that is visible to the naked eye will often do the job, otherwise you are going to lose valuable steel. This is also a way of increasing the effective bevel angle for our hard woods without unduly compromising the clearance angle.

This morning I fitted the blade to the Veritas guide, I used a ruler measure the distance from the edge of the blade to the edge of the clamp on the guide was parallel, more as a holder then anything. I increased the bevel of the blade from 25 to about 30 degrees I also worked the blade a little longer on the 700 grit stone then what it needed. My intention was to wear away some of the brittle steel.

It seems to have worked. The blade did not fall apart and the edge held, in limited testing.

I also removed the hollows on the sole of the dai. Then added in three contact points. The hollows are very small the light barely shines through. Will get some tallyho papers to test later today to see by how much.

I am happy to report that the plane is working better. My shavings were a little finer and more even. However my skill is not there yet. As soon as I get the plane setup I am planning to just make a huge pile of shavings. The quality of the finish is very smooth and shiny compared to my LN plane on softwoods, which tends to make the surface furry.

However the mouth is still way to large and I cannot get fine shavings. So my next major operation is to close the mouth.

I think that Gadge is right about the blade maybe not being square, one side sharpened more then the other. However getting it square maybe is challenge. I will use the Veritas guide to establish the bevel at 30 degrees and in time correct the edge then switch to freehand sharpening again.

Will resharpen and get back to you all.

Yes - always use minimum excrement.

Except in those areas where it may be warranted...

Originally Posted by thumbsucker

. Will get some tallyho papers to test later today to see by how much.

For our overseas members:

From Wiki

Tally-Ho is an Australian brand of cigarette rolling paper.... The packaging of the product aims to appeal to Australian patriotism, with many assertions such as 'Australia's Finest' and 'Australia's No.1 paper for over 60 years'. It also offers pieces of trivia on the packaging which again appeal to Australian patriotism, such as 'Australia's dingo fence is twice the length of the Great Wall of China' and 'Australia has more beaches than any other country - about 7,000'. The product is actually produced in Belgium... )

Neil

Helmut

If the last photo in your first message of the thread is the mouth opening, you don't need to do anything. It's not too wide. Unless you know exactly what to do, and whether to have end grain or face grain on the sole for any piece you add, and why, there's every possible chance you'll ruin the dai. I have kanna with openings wider than that, and they give me thin and wispy shavings. The blade and chip-breaker are the key. How they are set up is more important than the size of the mouth opening.

Again on that photo, you need to grind the mimi so the cutting edge doesn't extend beyond the sides of the mouth, otherwise shavings will get caught under the blade, and it won't cut, or it'll start to chatter.

The kanna you have is a sun-pachi (70mm), which is quite a large and difficult kanna to learn with, so you need to avoid becoming impatient with it. Using the kanna requires a whole new set of muscle movements that aren't used in Western push planes, so persevere, and understand that it's not going to be easy to get nice full-width shavings. But with practice, they will come eventually.

Finally, now is the time to learn how to sharpen the blade free-hand. The Veritas guide is great for Western plane blades, but free-hand is the way to go with the Japanese blades.

Hang in there.

Des

Hi Des

I have trimmed the ears on the blade so they are narrower. I will take a photo tomorrow.

I was freehand sharpening however since I increased the bevel angle from 25 to 30. The Veritas guide will help me establish the 30 bevel. Then I will go back to freehand. At the moment the 30 degree bevel is to narrow for me to balance the blade on the stone.

You are right I cannot get full width shavings. I get sporadic shavings in all kinds of thicknesses. I do feel a little retarded when I use the kanna, the feeling is uneasy, uncomfortable. I am however very patient so I will keep at.

Thanks for the advice regarding the mouth. I will leave it as is.

I had another play with the kanna today.

I sharpened the blade.

I tried to plane some radiate pine, no bloody luck I can hog material off at the start of the cut but then it just stops cutting.

I had much better luck with the western red ceder. If I set the plane for a heavy cut I can get full width shavings but they are almost 1mm thick.

I can get very light fine shavings, however never full width, just threads and dust.

The surface finish is great, shiny and glistening. However my skill makes it sporadic.

I tap & I adjust trying to get the blade to take full width fine shavings but no luck.

I try to follow Desmond's book, keeping my arm fixed relative to my body and trying to pull with core/legs. I am getting better, subjectively. At least today I took some shavings consistently.

Can anyone give me advice as to how to place hand pressure on the plane as I move the plane through the cut?

I will try to fettle the plane again to see if I can refine it some more.

I needed to pack the bed with some paper can anyone recommend something better then paper to pack the kanna bed for a tight fit?

One thing that I had great success with was planning end grain. The kanna gave the most perfect shiny end grain on radiate pine & western red ceder. It terms of performance the kanna eats any block plane I have used far better then the Lie-Nielsen or Veritas one I have used.

I am thinking of getting a narrower kanna, Maybe a Yokoyama Kunio 42mm, something easier to use.

http://homepage2.nifty.com/togi/1syuunenprezento.htm