Thread: Hand planes, time to bite the bullet.

How about:

King 1000 stone
King 6000 stone (together $110 including shipping from Stu).

Piece of thick glass - for flattening waterstones and lapping plane irons, chisels and the plane soles - $0 if you find a nice glazier.

Silicon carbide grit (to use on the glass) - $5 plus postage from online lapidary supplier, e.g. gemcuts.com.au

Piece of scrap MDF, or hardwood, or cereal packet (for strop): $0

Veritas honing compound (for strop): $12.


There are certainly faster, less messy sharpening methods, but they're also much more expensive (including sandpaper on glass, eugh).

You might want to make the glass last longer by using overhead projection sheets. Good ones cost $20 at Officeworks.

Total: around $130, $150 if you use the overhead sheets.

Also, those diamond films look excellent and cheap.

Whatever you do, don't try the SiC on glass route. It's a false economy.

Just finished sending Jim Davey an query as you suggested Scribbly, i'll let you know when he replys.
Eddie thats very much how i am leaning. Couple of grades of stone & a sheet of glass, nice n simple.

Originally Posted by snafuspyramid

Silicon carbide grit (to use on the glass) - $5 plus postage from online lapidary supplier, e.g. gemcuts.com.au

Whatever you do, don't try the SiC on glass route. It's a false economy.

Eddie, I'm a bit confused, as these two statements seem to contradict each other. Could you clarify please? Like the suggestion of lapidary supplier for the grits.

One thing I don't understand is if SiC grits eat steel, what happens the plastic sheets? Surely they couldn't last very long?

Edit: see here if you want to share some SiC grits from Gemcuts. Thanks Snafu!

Sorry, I meant to say "don't use SiC sandpaper sheets on glass".

As for your other question, because the plastic sheets are soft relative to the abrasive and the waterstones, the silicon carbide grains bed into the surface, and don't roll around too much - hence not cutting up the surface very much.

The sheets will only tear if you use very course grits, or if there's something underneath them.

If you're going to use courser grit stones, I'd recommend finding a small piece of sacrificial glass and using that. It still ought to last around six months before it goes out of flat, because it tends to wear down extremely slowly, and quite evenly.

With that said, I'm not really in a position to give sweeping recommendations; I'm a beginner, and I'm really just describing the sharpening setup I've put together over the last six months. There are lots and lots of different ways to get to the same place, but this seems like the cheapest.

Just got a reply from Jim Davey, very nice of him to reply on a weekend!

"
Thank you for your enquiry.

It is true that the Frog is not “keyed” to the Base as in the original Stanley Bed Rock planes – there is a little movement but it is restricted by the Frog Adjuster Tab and Screw.
Before despatching any of the WR Bench Planes, I check them, face and hone the Blade and set the Mouth at 10 thou. (0.010”). When doing this I don’t find the movement to be a problem, I just make sure I check both sides with the Feeler gauge and tweak if necessary.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions."

Hi Rattrap
that three plane set from Jim Davey is a pretty good starter set. with the bonus that Jim will set them up to work straight out of the box, so when it comes time for sharpening you will know what you are aiming for.

Down the track you would probably add a low angle Jack -- for use with a shooting board or for difficult grain. I don't think Wood River make one, so you would be looking at either the Lee Valley or Lie Nielsen. Derek raves about the Lee Valley.

Sharpening has been covered pretty extensively, and can such big bickies -- but you won't go far wrong if you work on having a coarse, a medium and a fine stone. Besides you need to be able to sharpen your chisels.

another benefit of the bed rock frog that Scribbly didn't mention is you can adjust the frog without removing the blade

I have both the LN and LV LAJs. I like them both but they are very different planes. I couldn't make my mind up for a while which one I liked the most so just kept using them until it became clear. For general purpose flattening and smoothing I always go for the LN, so rather than sell my LV I have it set up with the 50deg blade permanently. It is bigger and heavier so with the 50deg blade I use it on harder cranky stuff. I love the LN.

Originally Posted by ian

I don't think Wood River make one...

I don't think Wood River make any planes - they get Quangsheng to make them to their specification. But I'm being pedantic...

I believe Workshop Heaven (in UK) now have a Quangsheng LA Jack, so I'd imagine Wood River will have one (or one in the pipeline).

Originally Posted by ian

...you won't go far wrong if you work on having a coarse, a medium and a fine stone.

Agreed. I have 1200g and 6000g waterstones for medium and fine (8000g cost 3 times as much as the 6000g, so I settled for the 6000g). I've heard that waterstones below 1000g dish far too fast, so I've keep my old oilstones for coarse for the time being, but I'll move to something faster cutting one day.

Cheers, Vann.

Well the bullet has been bit, least as far as the set of 3 Woodriver planes go.
I'm not quite settled on a brand of stone yet, but defiantly either 2 or 3 stones plus a flattening surface.

You can have my king 1200 and 4000 (it might be 6000 but I can't tell the difference) if you like. PM if interested.

Andy