of Planes and Work Benches

In the second half of last year I got a Veritas Router plane, a Pmv11 blade and chip breaker for my Stanley No 7 and I built a new work bench. I have now had time to give them serious use and so ....
1. You can pay a lot of money for a good jointer. Or you can get an old Stanley and do it up. I had the jointer for many years and I always liked it. But the addition of the new blade and chip breaker has revolutionised it. PMV11 steel stays sharp for ever (almost) and when it needs sharpening it can be done quickly and easily. I have some A2 blades and the PMV 11 is superior in edge holding and in ease of sharpening. In use, I can get paper thin shavings of the edge of boards and can flatten large panels with ease. No chatter. The new blade and chip breaker (which is a different design than the the old Stanley version) work wonders. I will be ungrading the blades in all my planes. You can purchase old Stanley's for very little. A bit of a fiddle and a new blade and you have a wonderful tool for not much money.

2. The router plane. I had a Stanley before this and it was okay. But Veritas worked out how to remove the things that annoyed me and the new tool is vastly superior to use. The depth adjustment is smooth and fine. It has a proper depth stop. Blade changes are dead easy. The fit and finish is superb.

3. The workbench. Best thing I ever made. Weighs enough that three men are required to move it. I built it on the basis that excess and no more would do. It is made out of 90x45 MGP12 construction pine. The top is 90 mm thick and the legs 120 x 90. All the joints are draw bored mortice and tenon. At the time I put some pictures in the work bench section of the forum. I was concerned that pine might be to soft for the top but this has not proved so. The mass and stiffness of the thing make it a pleasure to use. I made it so that I could clamp a board up against the front apron of the bench and (with some dogs in holes on the legs and apron) I can support a board along the full 2 metre length for planing. This has proved invaluable for jointing long boards. I put a 12 mm gap in the middle of the bench, along the length. When I work on the surface of a panel I can put a stop into the gap anywhere along the length. I use this a lot for flattening panels. I cobbled up a tail vice out of a 9 inch wood vice and though it is ugly it works fine. This points to the one error I made. I did not leave enough overhang on the right hand end to fit the end vice properly, so I have the strange device you see.

4. This is not a new plane but it works like new. I bought a no 4 BU smoother from Veritas some time ago. It was okay but I could not get the type of finish I had heard about. Then Derek Cohen suggested to me that I grind the primary bevel to 50 degrees, giving a total angle of 62 degrees. The bed of the plane being 12 degrees. This seemed very steep but when I tried it the the performance of the plane went from okay to excellent. Wish I had done it 2 years ago.

Here are some pics of the bench

Good journey, Chook. The sooner we discover how much extra pleasure a decent bench & well-fettled tools add to our woodworking, the better! After I made my first 'real' woodworking bench, I constantly asked myself why I hadn't made it 20 years sooner! The answer is simple, of course, there was no Woodies' Bulletin Board back then.... :U

Can't say the PMV11 blade I got was as big a revelation to me as yours, though. I've used after-market blades in my planes for many years & have fitted my own cap-irons to a couple of planes, so perhaps I was already getting pretty good performance from most of my planes. Despite the assurances that PMV11 is easy to sharpen, I found it very difficult on my Arkansas stones (which also struggle with A2, I might add). After much effort, I could only get the edge of that blade barely acceptable. It felt sharp and would shave my arm (albeit roughly), but it did not cut wood as sweetly as I like, & left a slightly dullish surface like a scraper. Not good enough. :no: After doing some reading & scratching around, I decided to give water stones a second chance, as they are claimed to be better at handling the new hard steels than Arkansas stones. Several sellers also claim that their stones are so much better & don't wear as quickly as the water stones of old, & what really sold me was that they don't need soaking before use - thank goodness!

I am happy to report that the water stone I got (an Ohishi from LN) does do the job, so I am now able to sharpen my PMV11 blade to the required standard. But while the Ohishi certainly doesn't wear at the ridiculous rate of the first stones I tried, it is still a comparatively soft stone and I have to be very careful with the 8,000 grit side. The 1,000 grit side is a lot firmer, and not so prone to dig-ins (& cuts like fury!). This is coming from someone who has used oilstones for more than 50 years, so if you began with water stones and are used to their ways, you will probably wonder what I'm whining about. However, you really have to change technique radically, when switching from one to the other. And while I like those fine, polished edges I get off the 8,000 grit, I still don't like the extra mess of water stones, or the fact that I'm bathing my tools in water.

Anyway, just a little warning from an old phart who is rusted-on to long-established habits. If you are an oilstone user, & contemplating replacement blades, you may have to change your ways to get the best out of the new harder steels. I'm still tossing-up whether or not I actually prefer my Hock blades & early Lee Valley blades, both of which are dead easy to put super-keen edges on, yet hold it way better than original Stanley/Record blades. After 6 or 7 months use, I can't say how much better the edge-retention of the PMV11 is, as I haven't done a head-to-head comparison under my workshop conditions, but it does seem to hang in there ok on Gidgee & some other tough woods I've been planing of late. Later in the year I will be tackling a heap of She-oak, and that should be the decider. Ain't nuthin' I've come across that can take the edge off a plane blade or chisel quite as fast as She-oak, so if the PMV11 is as good as its reputation, it should come up trumps! :U

Cheers,

I have a collection of stones.
250 and 13000 grit Sigma Ceramic stones
1000 and 6000 grit King Waterstones

With these I seem to be able to sharpen quickly and easily. The Sigma stones do dish easily but the cut so fast it is not an issue.They cut both the A2 and PMV11 okay for me.

As for the bench, I have made lots of them. But hardly any for myself and what I did make were a compromise. Until now. This one I researched and planed for 3 months. I drew endless sketches and 2 3D cad drawings. Then I spent 6 days (morning till night) having more fun than should be legal making the thing. Since then every time I go into the shed to make a mess I realize, as you so correctly said, that I should have done this years ago.

The only change I will make is to cut 45 mm from the legs. I made it a bit on the high side reasoning that I could make it shorter easier than taller. Next time 2 strong men come over I will reduce the height a little more.

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Originally Posted by chook

....The only change I will make is to cut 45 mm from the legs. I made it a bit on the high side reasoning that I could make it shorter easier than taller. Next time 2 strong men come over I will reduce the height a little more.

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Yep, seems like you planned well, Chook.

When I built my current bench, I thought I knew exactly what height to make it. The legs on this design have cross-pieces top & bottom, with the bottom piece shaped to make a foot front & back:Attachment 311182

After it was finished, I decided it was too low, so I made sets of wooden squares of different heights that I could slip neatly under each foot. I did that with various sets, using it for several weeks with each one and eventually decided which height I liked most often. It turned out to be the original height of the bench as-built! :doh:

Of course, what that exercise confirmed is that there isn't a 'perfect' height for a bench, it has to be a compromise, based on what we do. We like our benches at different levels depending on what it is we are working on & what we're doing to it. The height I chose suits me best for planing & strenuous tasks, but is too low for some jobs, like marking out. People have found various workarounds, like height-adjustable benches; or making the bench high, & having a removable platform to stand on when you want to 'lower' it. I've decided to improve matters for myself by making another smaller & higher bench. I can just squeeze it in my limited shed space. It will happen one of these days.

So my advice to you would be to sneak up slowly on your final height - you don't want to change your mind and decide you liked it higher after chopping the legs down too far. That is, as long as your friends don't stop coming round to help you lift it....... :U

Cheers,

I'ts like I just discovered garlic! I put Magpies on everything now. A juvenile Butcherbird is coming along fine.

I'm lucky enough to have room for a high and low bench. I'm waiting on a H&S iron to share in my 6 & 7.

Hmmm, looks a bit like my place, Bill. I foolishly started feeding the BBs a bit of cheese a few years back, because they were struggling to raise a couple of chicks and there was precious little to eat at the time. I now have the original family & some of their descendants who have established their own territories nearby, lining up each sunrise for their daily handout. They kick up a racket if I'm a bit sluggish about getting out to feed them. But it's one of my favourite rackets, so I don't mind too much. Our pied BBs are up there with the best bird songsters I've heard on several continents. Nightingales? Meh!, not a patch on a Pied Butcher bird in full cry.

Not much to do with planing or benches, but I often get to plane to the sound of BBs in our yard, so there is a connection there, somewhere..... :U

Cheers,

Chook; Thanks for the update on the use of your bench.

Chook, which blade and chip-breaker did you get for your Stanley no. 7?

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Originally Posted by Colin62

Chook, which blade and chip-breaker did you get for your Stanley no. 7?

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I got one from Veritas, in USA. The chip breaker and blade are a big improvement over the old original ones.

IanW, mate, please do me a great favour and go bloody easy on posting such beautiful contributions.
Away from the farm, in a Sydney nursing home, I would love to hear some caroling.
All the best to you.