LV Honing Guide Mk II: cambering scrub plane blade
Derek Cohen (in Perth Australia)
>The new LV Honing Guide Mk II excels at honing square bevels on blades. One of the areas in which a modification or accessory is being evaluated that of honing a camber on a blade. Below I am offering my strategy for honing the camber on scrub plane blades using this guide. I have no idea if LV will take this seriously – you are more likely to laugh when you first read my description – but it is a serious recommendation. I have used it successfully on a number of occasions, and will demonstrate this below.
I might add that there might be potential here for adding other forms of camber, such as to jack or smoother blades, but this is not its intended use at present since I am still evaluating it in that regard.
For scrub blade use, the only modification to the Honing Guide is the addition of a washer under the Blade Carrier Locking Knob (see Picture #1). This is to raise the height of the knob.
Set the Registration Jig for a 30 degree bevel angle (see Picture #2), lock it to the Guide, and then insert the blade upside down (i.e. as if you were going to hone the back of the blade – see Picture #3).
I hone on waterstones, and depicted here is my King 8000. The scrub blade has already been ground to 30 degrees (in this case on my belt sander jig, but alternately you could either use the existing factory grind if using the LV Scrub plane, or you could first hone a camber on a blade on lower grit waterstones).
Onto the waterstone I place a steel card scraper, and then onto this I place the Honing Guide upside-down so that it is riding on the Blade Carrier Locking Knob. This scraper blade raises the angle enough to hone a 1 degree micro bevel (see Picture #5).
I pull the blade towards myself since pushing it is likely to cause it to dig in. It requires only a few strokes to create a full micro-bevelled edge (see Picture #6 – you can see the glint of the micro-bevel).
Stroke off the wire edge (or use David Charlesworth’s Ruler Trick to do so), and you are ready to go.
Regards from Perth
Derek
