Thread: Iv'e caught the Plane bug

Lignum

He was a bloke of prodigious talent. I would have loved to have spent a year or several with him in his workshop.

Regards

Did you guys have to pay any import duty / taxes on the planes you bought from America?

Originally Posted by Vann

TS is right - you can leave the No.1 size off your list. Every other plane from No.2 to No.9 you DO need .

a #9 seems a bit exotic and perhaps a bit hard to come by to be recommending to a new user... a 9-1/2 might be more to the point....

Originally Posted by groeneaj

Is the no.6 a jointer aswell?

the #6 is an in between size. you can set it up as a short jointer or as a long jack. I use mine more as a short jointer.

Originally Posted by BTman

Did you guys have to pay any import duty / taxes on the planes you bought from America?

I just bought 10 planes and no import tax was charged.

Though it may also apply after a certain amount of $ value, worth checking out with customs.


Cheers

Steve

Originally Posted by toolbagsPLUS

I just bought 10 planes and no import tax was charged.

Though it may also apply after a certain amount of $ value, worth checking out with customs.


Cheers

Steve

Thanks for the reply although I don't intend on buying 10 planes.
All I want is 1 maybe 2 spokeshaves, some of the collins spring clamps and a TurnLock offset router base from Lee Valley. Although I can't decide if I like the Lie Nielsen or Veritas spokeshaves better. I have been secretly looking at the planes as well and this thread has been great for advice, but will see how much I have left over as I am about to put and order in at Routerbits.com for some whiteside bits. Love the exchange rate at the moment.
Cheers,
Sean

Originally Posted by bridger

a #9 seems a bit exotic and perhaps a bit hard to come by to be recommending to a new user... a 9-1/2 might be more to the point....

Dang, I forgot the 9 1/2 . So I'll revise what I wrote: you can leave the No.1 size off your list. Every other plane from No.2 to No.9, plus the 9 1/2, you DO need.

Lets face it, with all us slope greasers pushing, your new user will get there eventually.... .

Cheers, Vann.

I just ordered a LV LA Jack with two extra blades from Lee Valley, and I just paid for the items plus postage which was $66AU.

I'm not sure if i'll get a letter in the mail to pay some sort of extra tax, but if I do i'll let you know

I would suggest you don't use a 25 deg primary bevel with a 50 deg microbevel as a regular thing. Just looking at the geometry, if you have a microbevel that's only 1 or 2 deg different from your primary bevel, it reduces the amount of metal that you need to remove each time you hone it - a good thing, and the reason for doing it. If you use a secondary bevel that's much different from your primary bevel though, by the time you hone it a few times you will have deviated quite a bit from the line of the primary bevel and worn away a large amount of your blade. If you then reset the primary bevel to 25deg, you will have lost a significant amount of metal.

For example, in the primitive pic below, the thick black lines are the initial blade set at about a 25 deg bevel (all done by eye, but it illustrates the point). If you set the microbevel angle at about 50deg as per the red lines, after some wear the blade edge will have moved back to the second red line. To reestablish the primary bevel at 25 deg you would need to grind down to the blue line primary2, wasting a heap of blade metal and abrasive in the process. If you stick to a microbevel angle that's only 1 or 2 deg more than the primary angle as per the green line, you won't need to remove nearly as much metal to reestablish your primary angle primary1, even if you hone to the full width of the bevel. The metal between primary1 and primary2 is wasted, even if you hone to full width at a shallow bevel and about half width for the steeper bevel. If you hone to full width at the 50deg angle you would waste a lot more.

Attachment 151024

Purely from a wastage perspective, stick with a microbevel angle that's close to the primary angle. If you wanted to change some 25deg blades to 38 or 50deg, you could even use this to migrate them over time. The angle at the tip of the blade is what makes the difference (BU anyway), so there's no real need to grind them at the new angle initially when you could migrate them via a microbevel. Start using them at 25deg with a 38 or 50deg microbevel, and when the microbevel is becoming tedious to hone grind them to the 38 and 50 deg angles. From that point, use a microbevel of 40 and 52 deg so you don't waste too much metal - not to mention time, effort and abrasive! It'd be a good idea to mark the blades you're migrating to a different angle though, cause it would take some time and the microbevel angle wouldn't be as obvious as a primary bevel angle.

Last time I checked on the Aust gov customs web site, as long as the full value of what you are importing does not exceed $1000, duty is not normally payable. Some categories of goods are excepted from that rule. If you import over that value and don't get charged customs then you've just been lucky.