Thread: HSS plane blades - Academy Saw Works?

That sort of duffing of the edges is pretty common, it only takes a momentary lapse of concentration when grinding the primary bevel to knock several thou off a corner.

But out of interest, what bevel angle do you have on that blade? It may be a trompe l'oeil causd by the camera, but it looks like about 40 degrees in your pics. If that's really the case, it is in dire need of a grind, 'cos it'll never work like that!

You have a few choices, you could just leave the duffed corner for now & it will eventually come into line in subsequent sharpenings. Or, call it a cambered blade - folks are split 50/50 on cambering Jointer-plane blades, so it depends which camp you follow. I'm probably a lazy old coot, but I'm definitely a straight-blade person for jointer blades, but I wouldn't waste my precious elbow-grease trying to fix it by hand, I'd be off to the grinder post-haste.....

Cheers,

it's between 25 and 30. I didn't really measure - just estimate it to be close to stock angle and try to keep it consistent. Definitely not 40

I spent all evening grinding it on the diamond plate and it is finally all flat and true. It took an hour to get true, and then I kept sharpening and one corner just wouldn't get a burr! So I kept going until it did, which took at least another half hour.

Once I got a burr across the whole edge on the 400 diamond plate, I switched to the 1k and kept going until I got a burr, which was only a few strokes since I ground it on the diamond plate so much the diamond dust was probably 1k anyway. Then I took it to the 5k plate until I got a burr, which again, only took a few strokes.

Still doesn't feel all that sharp to me! But the edge looks good, and I kept going until i got a burr, so unless I kept going too far, this is as sharp as I can get it. I'll only know when I put it in the tool, I suppose.

20190924_231548.jpg

OK, I guess we all know the camera does lie - I'm probably used to looking at the bevels on my Hock & Veritas blades that are around 20% thicker than the older blades, so the bevels are a bit longer, & it's just my eye being fooled, as I suggested. Something the camera is showing in your last post, though, is what looks like multiple facets on your bevel. You can get that effect all too easily freehanding thin blades, due to slight rocking as you hone. It's very difficult not to introduce some rotation, thanks to the way our arms are constructed. The best we can do is minimise it, & honing with very short strokes helps.

I always use the 'shave test' these days. My finger tips are becoming progressively less sensitive as I get more ancient, but if a blade is proper sharp it can slice hairs off without touching skin. Of course, as you say, the ultimate test of a blade is putting it to work.....

Cheers,

Those multiple bevels are due to me dicking around with an angle guide. I got rid of that pretty quickly.

Your working with HSS. Put aside the notion of trying to work a full flat primary bevel on your diamond stones.

A more efficient option would be to form a hollow primary bevel on your bench grinder at 25 degrees, followed by a 30 degree secondary bevel on your honing stones.

A CBN wheel on a slow speed grinder is your friend......

Or even just a white wheel on a normal grinder; one of the great things about HSS is that it doesn't lose its hardness when hot, any bluing is just cosmetic