>James, I really enjoyed you, sharing your experience. I too, am a fan of japanese tools, but good ones can be expensive. To date, my best smoothing plane (and I have ones from LN, HNT, Stanleys, etc) is Steve Knights japanese smoother. I have the one with the hand forged blade before Steve was unable to offer them anymore. Wish you could find another blacksmith, Steve.
I use shapton stones for sharpening and have reasonable edge durability, depending on what I'm planing. For me, the Knight plane surpasses the LN's in getting a finished surface on my work. There really is a lot about japanese iron that makes a difference. Thanks for sharing, James.
>Yeah James, I'm with Doug, I've got a Japanese jointer and a block plane sitting on the shelf that I'm feeling inclined to give a whirl now. Between you and Pam we all just might crack eh?
I have nothing against Japanese plane/tools, just no experiance. I'm open minded enough to give them a chance once I get around to it.
I sort of agree with you regarding the Shaptons as I find I get a better edge with King stones because the 8000 grit stone particles wear down and act like 12000 grit particles. However, I still use my Shaptons day in and day out cause they stay flat.
I disagree with your comments regarding a LN or LV plane blade costing 10% of the plane and beign the most important part of the blade. I agree the blade is the most important part and that is why many people upgrade chipbreakers and blades. However, I have seen some pretty expensive woodies where the blades are chump change compared to the price of the plane such as C & W. I don;t have a C & W plane and i know they use top quality beech to make the planes and they are made with precision but the steel is still a small part of the final price.
>Hi. I'm James, not John, but that's neither here nor there.
The 10% was just a figure thrown around to point out that the cost of the blade really isn't that much compared to the rest of the piece, and that John thought that was part of the problem. He thought more should go into the blade. That's what I was trying to express... so I think you and I are on the same page, if I read your comment right.
I apologize for calling you John rather then James.
We agree but I think the same goes for allot of woodies when you compare the high price as with metal body planes. I have no problems with the LN blades I do own however I have never tried a Japanese blade so it is unfair for me to compare them.
I believe that the performance in any plane relies on the user and how well he can sharpen a blade and read the grain.
Sounds like a pretty cool course and I can undrestand your excitement as I was the same after seeing Rob Cosman do a plane demo at a local woodshow. Not only were the shavings thin and floated through the air but the finished surface on the highly figured eastern maple was smooth as a babies bottom and showed a reflective surface. Got myseef in trouble posting on the forum after talking about it as some were offended as well.
Take Care and I appreciate your commentary on the course you just finished.
Flatness: rubbing two of anything together is a way to achieve a certain degree of flatness. However the tendency of this routine is to produce two surfaces of equal but opposite curvature.
If, however, you really want to get something in the direction of the quasi mystical level of flatness in vogue nowadays, about the only cost effective way to get there is to rub three things together. You could, for example, use a 1500gr, a 5000gr. stone, and an 8000 grit stone in the routine a to b to c and then c to a. Note that for this to work all three stones must be wearable. Won't work if one is a DMT stone or non-wearing lapping plate.
In response to a sharpening problem, someone once told me that how FLAT the stone is doesn't matter as much as all stone have the SAME SHAPE. Given that, it's much easier to get three or four stones a specific degree out of flat (nothing is ever flat), than three or four stones equally curved.
Stone fracture/hardness and edge durability. Interesting thesis, and very testable. Two ways I'd suggest, using the "all shapton" blade as a reference. First, you could try "buttering up" an 8000gr. shapton stone with a nagura stone. The softer chalk particles should have the effect you describe. Second, use all shaptons up to your final polish stone. Less time flattening, but same benefits of kings stones all the way through, if that benefit exists.
>I may very well get aroudn to testing this myself at some point. It was somethign mentioned by John in the class. Apparently he knows the guy who distributes for Shapton, and was given a set of stones to test for a while, and found that the final polished edge just doesn't hold up for him. Granted, he's very finicky about edges, as I think I've established already, but it might also go some length towards explaining why shapton feels the need to go as high with their grit numbers as they do. John does use the Shapton 1000 for rough work still, since it's a very aggressive stone, but he doesn't like to finish with it.
That said, having had time to come down a little from the initial excitement after the class, It's John's opinion, not my own. I trust his judgment, having seen examples of work on display at the school up there, and having seen him work with the tools for demonstration purposes... but that doesn't give me leeway to preach his word as gospel. For myself, I've had less luck since I switched from Norton to Shapton, but John hates Norton even more, because their 1000 is so much more course than Shapton, so... go figure. Maybe it's a western steel thing, I dunno. John's got his own opinions, most certainly shaped over a long period of time, and by a lot of experience. And he does admit that since he came up on softer man made and natural waterstones, maybe his touch isn't what it should be on these stones.
At the end of the day, though, since it essentially is the end of the day for me, I'll say that this topic has gotten me in enough trouble in here for one week, so I'm putting it to bed until or unless someone really has something truly extraordinary that would change "everything."