Re: Lie-Nielsen Hand Plane Advice Needed!
James Watriss
>My guess is he meant to say "those nasty mortise ones." IE, mortise chisels, and I'm relatively sure LN mortise chisels aren't even in the stores yet.
My guess is he meant not to pick up the l-n chisels at all, becuase they have a cetain weight, and balance to them that, well...
But look at them another day. There's actually a reason NOT to get them, and I'll explain it here.
Start with softer chisels. If you don't know how to sharpen yet, start with softer chisels that are easier to sharpen, and easier to dull down. People will go on in here about how they hate sharpening, it takes so much time, and to an extent, they're correct. It can take time, and it can be a hassle, but you really should learn how to sharpen properly. Particularly if you're going to be using Lie Nielsen planes. A plane, in the end, is a big jig meant to hold a sharpened blade, with the intent to put that sharp edge to work smoothing something out. Lie Nielsen planes are fantastic pieces of work, but if you can't get or keep one sharp, they won't do you much good.
Any woodworking tool you buy comes essentially in kit form. Lie-nielsen is closer to being completed, but any good tool you buy has to be tuned up, even if it's just a little bit. And with few exceptions, knowing how to sharpen, and sharpen well, is something you need to know to be able to properly appreciate these tools. Most reviews, and most reviewers, assume a properly tuned blade, if not a properly tuned plane. You'll get better use from a sharp stanley than you will from a dull Lie Nielsen. I personally have some old stanleys with LN replacement blades that are tuned to the point where they match the performance of my LNs. There's more to that than just sharpening, but regardless... given equal blades, the main advantage LN has is that the planes require less tuning out of the box. There's something to be said about the weight of the bronze planes, but at the end of the day, sharp is still the primary consideration for something you're going to be working with.
Start learning to sharpen with chisels. Start with cheap ones you can screw up if you need to. Irwin chisels, for all they can't hold an edge very long, are great for learning the ins and outs of sharpening. Get used to whatever grinder you have, and learn to use it well. Tormeks have a good reputation, but they're also, IMHO, a wee bit more complicated than a grinder has to be sometimes. That's neither here nor there, though. In the end, you have to learn to work with what you have. The grinder is just there to establish a bevel and a hollow grind, and then you have to hone. Have to. Maybe not all the time on chisels, since you can hammer them through whatever, but if you want to learn to sharpen, then you need to hone. Chisels are just a very easy place to learn, and if you manage to grind an irwin chisel to a nub in the process of learning, it's not the end of the world. Consider it tuition paid into the school of learning the hard way. You pay a price for learning just about anything. Sometimes the price is just effort, but usually there's money involved, so better to spend less than more. And as you use a softer chisel, since you'll have to sharpen it repeatedly, you'll get to learn and appreciate what a really sharp edge is, how much it helps, and what it takes to get an edge to be that sharp. When you know that, you're ready to step up to better chisels, so that you can start to focus more on the work than on the blade you're using.
A plane blade is another step up from sharpening a chisel. Getting a chisel to a pristine edge with 8000+ grit waterstones is overkill sometimes for something you're just going to hammer into things. It can be a case of diminishing returns. Plane blades are another matter, though. Those should be as sharp as you can get them. By which I mean, sharper than they'll come from the factory. LN blades come usably sharp. They should be made sharper. And yes, they have to be square.
Take your time, go easy on the gadgets. When it comes to honing there are always a million ideas and gizmos and widgets and whatnot. And there will always be more ideas and widgets coming out. Some of them work, some of them don't. The sharpest blades in day to day usage seem to be largely found in Japan, and they're all flat ground, and they're all hand-sharpened without jigs. You need to have stones, to sharpen your blades.That's the one thing that you indubitably need without question. Everything else is accessories. That's flame bait in here, I know, but even if honing jigs are god's gift for many people, you can still sharpen without them.
If you're using a tormek, you're hollow grinding your blades, and after that, you should be able to accurately hone by hand with a hollow ground bevel. Find a class, find a friend, or a club, or someone you can deal with IN PERSON if you're having a problem on sharpening. It may be possible to learn to do this properly on your own. But it's easier and faster to learn with someone teaching you. And then it's just practice once you know. But you need someone to look at what you're doing, and be able to inspect your blades, and critique your technique, to tell you what sharp really is, and to point out where you are and aren't getting it right.
That's why I recommend starting small with your chisels... don't rocket for the high end stuff just yet. None of it will really help you until you learn to sharpen. They may last longer between sharpenings, but until you manage to get it ingrained into you how to make something really sharp, you're better off taking the time to practice. Don't worry, those dovetail joints aren't going anywhere any time soon. But you'll have a much easier and more enjoyable time cutting them if your chisels are as sharp as you can get them.
