Charlesworth ruler? Alf?

Re: Better than Charlesworth ruler

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Thanks, Kevin. Brent's ideas aren't underappreciated here; however, I now use waterstones free hand rather than scary sharp with jig.

Pam

Re: Charlesworth ruler? Alf?

John Weber - GO BUCKS!

>Pam,

I took David's class at the Marc Adams school. The ruler is a thin stainless steel flexible 6" rule. HTC use to send you one when you registered a mobile base, so that is what I used. He uses it to put the back bevel on the iron. His books and videos are also very good.

John

Re: Charlesworth ruler? Alf?

paul womack

>To avoid tha labour of completely flattening and polishing the back of a plane blade, Charlesworth uses a small shim set on one edge of his stone. This raises the blade VERY slightly, and allows the polishing of the back to be more localised to the edge (which is the only place that matters).

Virtually any shim would do, but stainless steel 6" rulers are convenient, comon and cheap, so that's what he uses.

Of course, having created a "micro back bevel", you have to use this "ruler trick" in perpetuity when taking of the honing burr.

For this reason I choose to go to the effort of fully flattnening plane blade backs, so that for the subsequent life of the blade I can remove the burr by simply placing the blade flat.

Using my preferred Eclipse style jig, this can be done without removing the blade from the jig. On my finest abrasive I normally finish by alternating a few strokes on the bevel with a few strokes on the back.

There are many approaches to sharpening, most of which will give good edges. Which approach you choose is affected by many factors.

BugBear

Thanks, Paul. All is clear.

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

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Re: Charlesworth ruler? Alf?

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Thanks, John. I've had a long moratorium on book and video purchases until I can process the backlog, with the exception of something highly recommended here to solve a particular problem; but Charlesworth is on the future list.

Pam

Re: Charlesworth ruler? Alf?

Alice Frampton, UK

>Pam,

BB's got there first - again! Although in reality the back bevel is so tiny it takes no time at all to remove in my experience. I don't use the technique that often, mainly because of an unreasonably guilty feeling that it isn't quite the "proper thing", but I have no qualms using it for bevel up planes. I probably should have included a footnote to explain it, but as it was written with a UK forum in mind it seemed unnecessary at the time. Worth getting his books, btw. I think you'd find them interesting.

Cheers, Alf

Re: Charlesworth ruler? Alf?

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Thanks, Alice. I don't do back bevels, not sure exactly why, certainly nothing to be religious about. Maybe it's because of the expensive Japanese blades? The thought of back bevelling and then flattening seems wasteful, like conspicuous consumption, almost sinful. It doesn't matter that this takes no time.

And then there's the question of why the manufacturers I buy from go to all the trouble of making the flat parts flat. Why do they do that if it doesn't matter? That's a real question, not rhetorical. It does seem important to have a flat surface reference.

Another basic reason is that if I wanted to use a knife, I'd use a knife, and save a pile of dollars. But this may all be the result of some misunderstanding on my part.

And no, I'm not a big microbevel fan either. :)

As I said before, Charlesworth is on my futures list; but I don't want you to think I'm slighting you Brits. I've got Blackburn and British Planemakers.

Pam

Re: Charlesworth ruler? Alf?

Jim in Burlington Ontario

>Pam I saw a presentation by Rob Cosman who had just come back from spending time with David and heard what he had to say and watched the technique. You can use any style of thin pocket ruler as long as it's the same ruler everytime that's what gives you the conistancy. I counted as he did it and came up with 16 light strokes moving the plane side to side about 3/4". I still can't bring myself to try it after spending so many hours flattening the back.

Re: Charlesworth ruler? Alf?

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Thanks, Jim. I wouldn't be able to convince myself to try it either.

Pam

Re: Charlesworth ruler? Alf?

Alan Hamilton

>Alf, Pam and Jim,

At last! Others who don't eagerly embrace Charlesworth's "ruler" method.

I guess not being "comfortable" doing it is part of my reasons; and Jim's not wanting to render wasted the considerable effort in flattening the backs is another. When I first read this in one of Charlesworth's books, I reported to all of you that it made me cringe.

It still makes me cringe, though I'm not certain why.

When I use hand tools I somehow feel my presence in that long, uninterupted line of wood workers stretching back so many centuries. It seems that using the ruler somehow offends all those who passed down to us their hard-won wisdom.

There I go again--getting all mushy. You shouldn't have gotten me started; you know how I am!

Alan

Re: Cringing

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Yes, makes me cringe, too; but I'm not at all sure that we should. I'd like to more fully understand what those who do this think they're getting vs what they are getting. I know they're getting a shortened back flattening time; but are they really? What does it mean to use a two-sided knife bevel rather than a single plane bevel? Long term and short term?

And how big a job is back flattening, anyhow? I only need do it once per blade as a rule. Now, every time one sharpens there's the removal of the burr of the raised edge. Is this technique a way to remove the burr without wasting the rest of the steel on the back? It would do that. But so does simply knocking it off by driving the blade into some wood. I'd assume the edge will be more ragged by this latter operation; but maybe not, don't really know.

Pam

Re: Cringing

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>In this thread you have used the term "knife bevel"

Pam the wood can't know if the back of the plane blade is "coplanar" with the rest of the back. It just sees the angle of attack and the clearance angle. Look at this as another way to achieve a back bevel. File this technique away and be able to use it if the requirement arrises so you can do what is necessary to provide results. JR

Re: Cringing

William R. Duffield on the Cohansey

>I cringe too, not because this technique will never work, but because there are many tools on which it is just wrong to do it this way, and on those tools it will ruin them. To look at it another way, if your discipline always leads you to flatten the whole back of every cutting tool, you just don't ever have to worry about doing it wrong. The small additional up front expense (time=money, however you want to look at it), you more than make up for in the long run, as your sharpening regimen becomes automatic, and consistent, and of consistently high quality.

Re: Cringing

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>I think there is a pretty significant difference between the way a knife behaves in grain that the way a plane and/or chisel behaves. A knife bevel is often used on a carving chisel or two for different purposes than the others with incanel or outcanel bevels.

I honestly don't have any idea what this would buy me in a plane or chisel. Maybe it's because I use so many Japanese tools. I hardly ever even use a microbevel chisels, just on one large chisel to strengthen it for cutting dai.

Pam

Re: Charlesworth ruler? Alf?

Chris Knight

>For all of you who can't bring yourselves to try it - why not use an old blade (if you are like me, you have probably got a couple of old Stanley blades you replaced with Hock or whatever) and try it on that?

It does work!

Re: Charlesworth ruler? Alf?

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>At the risk of seeming too argumentative, even if I had an old Stanley blade, what would trying it tell me? I do have some old coffin smoothers with blades on which it probably wouldn't hurt to try a couple of things; but even at that, the comparison would be with the standard blade sharpening for that particular blade/plane. It wouldn't tell me much about the plane blades I do use.

Granted, if one does use a lot of Stanleys, substituting an old blade would be a useful thing to try.

Pam

At least one good application

Bob Hackett

>I could see where doing this to revive a blade that has pitting down to the edge would be a time saver and would work better than my current approach which is to burnish a hook onto the edge and then then hone the hook and the pits off.

I can remember seeing a joiner at one of the local boatyards using this technique.He used a strip from an old credit card as the plastic was gripped by the stone and didn`t slide like a metal shim would.

Mainely,Bob

Re: Cringing

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>Sir Will and Pam...I still think the wood don't care! This reference to a knife edge is not an issue here. I agree that you may disagree with the whole issue of back beveling the iron. I have no problem with your technique choice. However in a fixed cutter tool(read plane) the wood reacts to the angle of attack of the arris and the requirement for a clearance angle. Period. Anyway you get there is ok by me if you can live with it. Evidently David C. can.JR

Re: Cringing

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Maybe the wood doesn't care; but I'd bet that the plane does. Less of the blade will be fully supported by the bed (bevel up) or chipbreaker/wedge (bevel down).

Pam

If you think about it...

Bob Hackett

>A perfectly flat and supported back doesn`t seem to matter on japanese planes.I know that you are well aware of the performance capabilities of these planes.

Why do you feel that such a small unsupported area would be a problem on a western plane?

Mainely,Bob

Re: If you think about it...

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>A perfectly flat back doesn't matter on Japanese plane blades because the bed is sculpted to fit the blade precisely. So a fully supported bed is important.

As to western planes, I'm not sure I know enough to try to explain; but into the void I'll go. All the blade part that's unsupported will probably tend to vibrate. I think this is not good. For example, we're often told to place the chipbreaker an infinitesimally distance from the edge.

Pam

Re: If you think about it...

Bob Hackett

>If the bed is shaped to fit the hollow in the back of japanese planes then how can you adjust the iron out for a deeper cut?For that matter,how can you advance the iron after resharpening more than afew times?Both the beds on the planes I own are dead flat,just like the frog on a western plane.One of the planes(a smoother)is a fairly old tool,so I`m told.

Mainely,Bob

Re: If you think about it...

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>With a hammer. Remember, the hollow extends above the formation in the bed, which is usually only 35mm high. After a while, all this breaks down, you need a new dai. A temporary fix for when the bed has become too big is to insert paper, in both the blade side abutements and on the bed.

I can't speak to the planes you have. This is the way I was taught to make dai. If a plane is very old and bed flat, I'd think about replacing the dai, assuming you still have a hollow on the blade.

Pam