Thread: Aftermarket plane blades

Hello Rodney

Since no one has chipped in, I will step up to the plate.

The advantages in favor of after market blades that they will stay sharper longer. Depending on what steel is used in the blade and the RC of heat treat. Brent Beach has made detailed reviews of many after market blades from the view of sharpening and edge retention.

After market blades are thicker between 2.6 mm to 3 mm. This will reduce the amount of flex and chatter in the blade. This will give you better surface finish.

A possible problem with aftermaket blades is that they use much more abrasive resistant steels. This means that if you are sharpening on oil stones you will have a hard time sharpening them. You will need water stones or scary sharp if you wish to sharpen with ease.

The problem with a thicker blade is that the yoke, has to traverse a greater distances due to the thicker blade and therefore the range in which the yoke engages with the cap iron is slightly decreased.

In short will an after market blade improve you plane, the answer is yes.

In term of manufactures, your choices are:

Lie-Nielsen
Hock Tools

A good brand used to be Paul Williams but supplies has dried up, as he retired and sold the business, and the new guy has not gone into production as far as I know.

If you are not familiar with steel it basically goes O1 (very much like traditional tool steel), A2 is the middle ground, M2 is the most abrasive resistance and will hold its edge longer then the others but some people feel that it can be a little harder to sharpen.

Your other source is the blades made through this forum. We have a few left but not in all sizes but we could fill most of your needs. You can see the thread here for the current thread. Members seem happy with them but I cannot objectively say I will let other verify or deny my claim.

I have a few of Thumsuckers, and a few Lie Nielsen both excellent and a million times better than the original blades.

Another source for after market blades is: Jim Davey near Kiama Jim Davey - Planes and Sharpening - Home
Jim carries the IBC Pinnacle A-2 Cryo blades

Hi
Thanks for that. I done a google search but couldnt find anything that helped very mush so the web page you post was just what I was looking for.
I use a 1200 and 6000 grit water stone for sharpening, and if I need anything coarser I use wet and dry on glass. I actually quite enjoy sharpening...I find it quite relaxing, which is what woodwork is all about for me. Reading all the literature I think it looks like O1 will get the sharpest edge so i would probably go for that, even if you do have to sharpen them a bit more often...as I said its relaxing anyway so its not a bad thing...but I will go through the web site in a bit more detail and see if it can enlighten me a bit more about the pros and cons of various steels.
I did find Hock tools website and that directed me to the Aussie distributor, so if I order them quickly enough they should be waiting for me when I get home from work (currently in deep bush in Indonesia on an oil rig, due home in 10 days)

once again, thanks very much for your help

cheers
Rodney

Rodney - I agree with Thumbsucker that the aftermarket blades should give better performance, because of their edge-holding & the greater thickness. Depending on the fit of the cap iron, and the quality & degree of tuning of the plane itself, you will notice anything from some to a huge improvement in performance.

As an oilstone user all my woodworking life, I don't agree that the aftermarket blades mentioned are significantly more difficult to sharpen on oilstones. Perhaps they are if you are one of those masochists who likes to regrind by hand, but I have always used a combination of 'lectric grinding & stoning, with no problems. If you keep all of your stones clean (dressed) & flat, the amount of extra effort is hardly noticable, unless you sharpen 20 blades at the one time, perhaps. If you are a waterstone person, you already know about keeping stones clean & flat....

He also left out Lee Valley as suppliers of aftermarket blades, which is a bit of an oversight. Excepting the home-grown blades TS organised, they offer the best bang for buck, IMO (or did, last time I compared prices) They also give you a choice of HSS or HCS.

Let's be clear that there are many variables with plane blades, perhaps the more important being the skill of the sharpener, the plane itself and the woods you most commonly work with. All have a big impact on the quality of finish and the edge-holding of the blade. With that in mind, I have a couple of Hock HCS blades and several LV HSS blades, and can make the following general observations on them:
1. All of my aftermarket blades have better edge-holding than any of my original Stanley and Record blades (most post-WW2, a couple pre-).
2. All of the aftermarkets are thicker, and less prone to chatter when mated with well-tuned cap irons.
3. The HSS blades hold an edge marginally better than my Hock blades, on some woods, but the Hock blades are a bit easier to put a very fine edge on, quickly. The differences in both are not huge, but might be significant if you are a novice sharpener or regularly work with highly abrasive woods.
4. The manufacturer's blade in the one Clifton plane (#4) I own is an exception - it is thick & holds an edge as well as, or fractionally better than, any of my aftermarket blades except the Academy.
5. I have one Academy super-tough blade. It is certainly hard, and IS significantly more trouble to sharpen. Consequently, I tend to use it longer between sharpenings than I should, which rather defeats the purpose! I wouldn't rush to buy another.

Moral of story - The trade-off between toughness & sharpenability of both the HSS and HCS blades is pretty good for those I have tried, my Hock HCS blades are a tad easier to sharpen, while the LV HSS blades hold an edge a tad longer, so it's Tweedle-Dum & Tweedle-Dee to me.

Remember too, that as with everything else in this world, the law of diminishing returns operates. Most production planes will show a marked improvement in performance from a bit of fettling and a decent blade, but the limitations (quality) of the plane itself will have a bearing on how much.

Blades & sharpening tend to bring on passionate debate amongst woodworkers, so others may have very different opinions, of course......

Cheers,

AFAIK there are two main reasons for fitting after-market irons to your plane:
1) you want better edge holding; or
2) you want to reduce chatter.


If you're happy with the edge-holding of your existing iron, a cheaper option than replacing the cutting iron is to replace the cap-iron with a better design. This has the advantage that you don't need to worry about the length of your yoke (Y-lever), nor do you have to file open the mouth of your plane. Replacement cap-irons are made by:

• Clifton - the famous (or infamous) two-piece (England);
• Lee Valley (Canada);
• Lie-Nielsen (USA);
• Ron Hock (USA);
• Quangsheng (China);
• IBC Pinnacle (probably only available as double-irons - Canada).

Hock may also make them, and Thumbsucker may still have some available from the forum bulk order.

The biggest problem with aftermarket cap-irons is that it's the cap-iron that controls the cutting iron position. So unless your existing cap-iron is stock standard, you may need to get out the file to shorten your new cap-iron. Lie-Nielsen custom make their cap irons to suit your plane.



If you're unhappy with edge retention, or the iron is just too rust pitted, then consider a replacement cutting iron. Again, manufacturers are:

• Clifton - forged O1 steel;
• Lee Valley - O1 or A2 (Canada);
• Lie-Nielsen - O1 or A2 (USA);
• Quangsheng - T10 (China);
• IBC Pinnacle (Canada);
• Hock - A2 (USA/France)
• Ray Iles - D2 steel (England)
• Japanese laminated.

Of these, the Japanese laminated are the thinnest (around 2mm thick I believe). Lie-Nielsen, Lee Valley & Hock make theirs around 2.41 - 2..54mm thick. These are all designed to fit your existing plane without modification.

Clifton are 3.2mm thick. Quangsheng are 3.0mm. Lie-Nielsen irons designed for their own planes (not Stanley replacements) are 3.17mm thick for 2" irons & 3.55mm for 2 3/8" irons. Again TS still has some available from the forum bulk order at 3.0mm thick. For all of these you'll almost certainly need to make some modifications to your plane.

HTH.

Cheers, Vann.

thanks very much guys

A bit of info to ponder on, a bit more to this than meets the eye. I can see that over time I may get some different blade types and find out what suits me best. At this stage i am still leaning towards the O1 for the simple reason that they are the easiest to sharpen and so i can probably make a better job of it. Once I get to be confident in my sharpening abilities i will progress to some harder steel, although my sharpening has improved a whole lot since I got some decent stones. I am slowly building up a collection of better tools and accesories, and my results are improving a little bit each time as I get used to using them, and replaceing the second hand and the cheap and nastys that I started out with....although having said that some of the old second hand tools i have seem to work really well once they are cleaned up and sharpened.

Cheers
Rodney

Originally Posted by rodami

At this stage i am still leaning towards the O1...

Hi Rodney,

In that case, can I suggest you consider the Clifton O1 blades. These are the best O1 irons on the market because they're hot forge drawn at Clifton's factory. I'm not 100% sure of the theory, but the forging aligns and compacts the 'grain' of the steel, which results in very good edge retention (possibly not quite good enough for Aussie hardwoods, but excellent for our Kiwi timbers).

I've bought from both www.workshopheaven.com and www.classichandtools.com, both in the UK. The prices are high, but at least you don't end up paying the 20% VAT if they post overseas. Service has been excellent from both companies. There's no NZ distibutor that I know of.

Of course the down side of Clifton's 3.2mm thick irons is that you will most likely have to file the mouth of your plane a little larger...,

Cheers, Vann.

O/T: Good buying with those Japanese Mortise Chisels on Trademe Rodney! (Apologies for bidding against you on the 9mm - I only realised it was you just now. If you ever feel like selling it on, let me know...)

Stu

Hi Stu
thanks for letting me have them. I will hopefully put them to good use when I get home next weekend....although "the boss" has told me I have an extensive list of things that need to be done. Ive been away at work for 7 weeks. I am a bit of a novice at all this and when I was home last, I bought the book woodworking basics by Peter Korn, which has a section on mortices, so each day I would wander down to the shed and make a mortice and stick the date on it, and when you line them up there is a definate improvement. The chisels I was using were pretty cheap and nasty bench chisels...I think I paid about $25 for a set of three...so getting these will (hopefully) make things a little easier. Still need to get a decent set of bench chisel as well....actually there are a lot of tools I would like to get ....

Hi Vann
I did see a write up on one of the links posted that recommended Clifton blades, so will have a look at them.
Clifton Iron
I dont have too much of a problem with filing the mouth a little bigger...never done it before, but its not rokit siunse so i should be OK
Do you think I should get a chip breaker to match or would the ones already in the stanleys be OK

Cheers for you help

Rodney

Originally Posted by rodami

Do you think I should get a chip breaker to match or would the ones already in the stanleys be OK.

IMHO if you're upgrading to a 3.2mm thick iron, you don't need a better cap-iron (chipbreaker). The thicker the iron, the less improvement a better cap-iron will make. Save yourself the additional outlay (of course a new cap-iron will look nice...)

Cheers, Vann.

Originally Posted by rodami

Hi Stu
thanks for letting me have them. I will hopefully put them to good use when I get home next weekend....although "the boss" has told me I have an extensive list of things that need to be done. Ive been away at work for 7 weeks. I am a bit of a novice at all this and when I was home last, I bought the book woodworking basics by Peter Korn, which has a section on mortices, so each day I would wander down to the shed and make a mortice and stick the date on it, and when you line them up there is a definate improvement. The chisels I was using were pretty cheap and nasty bench chisels...I think I paid about $25 for a set of three...so getting these will (hopefully) make things a little easier. Still need to get a decent set of bench chisel as well....actually there are a lot of tools I would like to get ....


Rodney

Glad to see they went to a good home! I've decided to build up a set of Japanese Bench chisels over the next year or so, buying one at a time to avoid undue attention from the OH.

Look forward to hearing from you more on here

Stu