Thread: Hybrid Profile for Freehand Sharpening BU Plane Blades

Hi Derek
Very similar to my own experiences with the bevel up planes. I haven't gone into a complete sharpening to create the camber, I just favour the outer edges as I sharpen so after a few sharpens it gently appears. I also put a slight back bevel on but it wouldn't be a rule thickness, just barely noticable. Another great description of the process by you

Very interesting post, Derek.
Like the Claw, I also don't camber my BU smoother. Then again, I don't camber my BD smoothers either. In each case I just clip the corners of the edge - no sign of plane tracks as far as I can see.

I also haven't found signs of backbevel wear but that's probably because I don't plane enough miles to generate it!

Originally Posted by jmk89

Very interesting post, Derek.
Like the Claw, I also don't camber my BU smoother. Then again, I don't camber my BD smoothers either. In each case I just clip the corners of the edge - no sign of plane tracks as far as I can see.

I also haven't found signs of backbevel wear but that's probably because I don't plane enough miles to generate it!

Ditto as the 2 above posters I also only touch the corners a little bit more than the centre part of the blade an am happy with the result to date.

Cheers

Cambering is preferred to simply knocking off corners. For one thing it makes it easier to plane an even shaving - the entire blade has a very fine camber, as opposed to a flat area that needs to be levelled.

An observation about the contents of this article ...

It strikes me that those who are dedicated freehand sharpeners (essentially to whom this article is aimed) are less likely to use a BU plane, either because they attempted to freehand the 25 degree primary bevel (that the plane comes with) and consequently obtained horrible results (well what do you expect with an included cutting angle of 37 degrees?!), or because they became frustrated at needing a honing guide for a specific, higher secondary bevel.

Then we have the dedicated group of honing guide users who are comfortable with their BU planes because they require the same attention to detail as their BD planes. For this group I anticipate that they are unlikely to appreciate the difficulties with freehand honing and BU plane blades. (This is not a criticism of using a honing guide).

So one group lack experience with BU planes, and the other group are short of experience with freehanding issues. As a result of this, the relevant information in the article is likely to missed by most. It's probably a small group that want to freehand their BU plane blades to a high angle and include a camber at the edge.

Regards from Perth

Derek