ebay stanley scrub plane blade woes

Re: ebay stanley scrub plane blade woes

mikew

>Frank, if it is a regular plane blade that came with it, put it in a drawer and purchase a replacement, thick scrub blade from Hock, LN or probably LV.

If it is a thick scrub blade, just use a belt sander to define the radius--it doesn't need to be perfect--and just keep honing the radius.

Mike

Re: ebay stanley scrub plane blade woes

frank_shic (walnut ck, ca)

>the blade's 1/4" thick and on further inspection has a K on the reverse side. will this work?

i don't have a belt sander, but i do have an angle grinder. is it possible to use the angle grinder to work the edge?

Sears

Jim in Burlington On

>I have a couple of Sears grinder bought them on super sat sale. Once you true up the wheels they vibrate much. Do you own a belt sander? It's possible to clamp it into a vise and file it down.

Re: ebay stanley scrub plane blade woes

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>Of course, you can use an angle grinder, but it takes some finesse to get an even radius with one of those. Also, it can be tricky to do it without overheating the blade. For safety, clamp the blade in a vise, and keep both hands on the grinder.

I have the 8" low speed grinder from WoodCraft. It works just fine for all the power grinding tasks in my shop. I got it on sale, so the price was reasonable. I don't have a belt sander, either.

Since your blade is 1/4" thick, it could well be original. My scrub plane also came with an original blade that someone had ground straight across. There's lots of ignorance out there in the world, and all kinds of tool abuse and misuse doesn't surprise me at all. You have to realize that many very old, and once useful tools have fallen into the hands of subsequent owners who just haven't got a clue.

tool abuse

frank_shic (walnut ck, ca)

>bill, that's exactly what i suspected! the blade otherwise looks just like all the other scrub plane blades that i've seen. i'm just trying to understand the mentality involved in grinding out the camber!?! i think i'll have to invest in the bench grinder if i'm going to salvage this one.... thanks!

Grinding a scrub plane blade. *LINK*

Derek Cohen (in Perth Australia)

>There are two ways to grind a curve onto a blade. The first is just do it freehand at a grinder. Since the surface is going to be chewed up (although this can be chewed up neatly!), the blade shape is less critical. So just get as close a curve as you can. The grind angle is ideally around 30 degrees.

The second method is the one I prefer since it produces a clean, smooth curve. Cut a piece of hardwood the same size as the blade. At the end of this piece, shape the curve you want to grind. The typical radius is 3". Now clamp the blade to the hardwood. (This is pictured below).

What you are going to do is use the curve on the hardwood as a template for the blade. The curve runs up against the edge of the grinder rest, and the blade (bolted to the top) is extended until it contacts the grinder wheel at the 30 degrees preferred angle. You then turn the blade against the wheel using the curve of the hardwood template as a guide.

A while back I upgraded the grinder to a belt sander and custom made a blade holder along the lines of a Tormek. The same principle remains for grinding. This machine is pictured below.

Once you have ground the curve (either fashion), it is necessary to hone the blade (sandpaper, waterstones, etc). It is not necessary to hone as high a grit as other plane blades as you are not trying for a smooth finish. A 1200 waterstone is adequate, although I would prefer to go to at least 8000 myself since this makes a difference with hardwood.

There is an article on file in the Articles Section that deals with using the LV Honing Guide to hone a fine edge on a scrub plane blade (my "upside down" guide).

Regards from Perth

Derek




Advanced Angles on the LV Honing Guide

Re: Grinding a scrub plane blade.

Alan Bierbaum, near Denver, CO

>Following derek's example; I did the same thing for use on my LV powered platter system. It works great.

If you do not have a belt sander or grinder; get one, you will need it for rough sharpening (shaping and nick removal) of tools.

Alan

Frank, Lowes sells

Doug Littlejohn

>a slow speed 8" grinder under their Kobalt name for only $30.00. It's not perfect but I have found it to be quite usable for grinding plane blades, chisels, etc. You just need to follow up with a good and accurate honig afterward.

Sherwood

Re: tool abuse

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>Bill Houghton posted a tip on sharpening scrub blades with a typical grinder and toolrest. He attached a rare earth magnet to the back of the blade, and used that as a guide to pivot the blade to the radius you want.

Re: ebay stanley scrub plane blade woes

mikew

>Hi Frank...was out in the shop. I see you have a bunch of responses now. The blade is most likely original or at least thick enough it's a who cares if it is.

As Mr. Duffield wrote, just be mindful using your grinder for both safety and not to overheat the blade. Work on one side, then the other a little at a time. Quench after it has cooled a little.

You'll be fine.

Mike

knew i could really on all of you!

frank_shic (walnut ck, ca)

>thanks everyone for your responses - especially doug! the replacement blades that i found on the net ran for around $18-25 so why not invest it in a cheap bench grinder so that i can rehabilitate other abused tools! come to think of it, it'll probably also come in handy for putting a real camber on my stanley jack...

Grinding

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>It's REALLY easy when you're first learning to grind tools on a bench grinder to burn the steel, usually just as you're finishing. This is not because the fates are playing with you (well, a little), but because the steel burns more easily as it gets thinner. Find something junky (like a $1 plastic-handled Great Neck chisel) and practice on it. Grind lightly, dunk in water frequently, buy a stone dresser of some kind and use it often.

Another dog into the fight

Jim Reed@Tallahassee

>Send me the blade and I will grind it for you free and pay the return postage. I grind these things all the time. They are pretty easy now but I don't want to tell you how many I went thru learning.

Re: Another dog into the fight

frank_shic (walnut ck, ca)

>jim, are you SERIOUS?!? that's quite an offer but i INSIST on paying at least return postage! please email me your address.

clever idea

frank_shic (walnut ck, ca)

>BTW, nice table. where's that review of the bevel up jointer you promised? ;)

Now there's an offer!

Neal (San Jose)

>I was just getting ready to suggest you drive the 50 miles or so to San Jose so I could show you how on my grinder. Seriously, if you are ever in the neighborhood... You going to the Wood show this weekend in San Mateo? I'll be working the Bay Area Woodworkers booth Sunday morning; stop by.

Re: MASSIVE!

paul womack

>the blade's 1/4" thick and on further inspection has a K on the reverse side. will this work?

As I understand the history, most metallic scrubs had 3/16" blades.

So your 1/4" may not be original.

But it may well be better...

The current Veritas and Lie Nielsen models also use 3/16".

BTW, when marking out your blade for a camber, you may like to know that Lie Nielsen and Vertias both use a 3" radius.

I suspect this is very close to the Stanley radius:

Historial evidence

You may be interested in (at least) the blade grinding aspects of a recent project I enjoyed

BugBear

Re: Grinding a scrub plane blade.

paul womack

>Derek;

although your "template" looks at first glance like a perfect solution, on reflection I'm not sure.

Even with a curved template, it would be perfectly possible to grind any part of the blade "straight", simply by dwelling for too long at any angular position.

From this, it follows that the only thing maintaining a smooth curve on the blade is the dilligence of the operator (and from your other projects, I do not doubt your dilligence or skill one iota).

Howevere, if this is the case, equivalent results could be obtained using a simple pivot instead of a carefully shaped template.

The only benefit I can see of the accurate template is that the bevel angle will be perfectly uniform, although for most cambers I suspect the bevel errors induced by a point pivot would not be significant.

BugBear

Re: Heat capacity

paul womack

>but because the steel burns more easily as it gets thinner.

The reason is simple (although the consequence is DAMN inconvenient).

We can assume that the grinding process is producing heat at a more or less constant rate.

But as the blade gets thinner this constant amount of heat is going into a smaller and smaller item. As a result, the heat translates into a higher and higher temperature (*)

For the same reason (Todd?) it's really easy to burn or even melt the tip of a piece of metal when you're forging the tip down to a narrow section.

BugBear

(*) For those that care, it's actually even worse than this; as the tip gets narrow, the section of metal connecting the tip to the rest of the blade also get thinner, reducing its thermal condoctivity. This conductivity is normally helpful in transferring heat from the end of the blade to the nice big "heatsink" that is the main bulk of the blade.

Re: Grinding a scrub plane blade.

Derek Cohen (in Perth Australia)

>Hi Bugbear

You wrote, "Even with a curved template, it would be perfectly possible to grind any part of the blade "straight", simply by dwelling for too long at any angular position".

My maths may be way off (well, it has been a very long time since I studied geometry), but I conceptualise a radiused template maintaining the bevel edge equidistant from the template edge no matter at what point you are on the circumference. Consequently the bevel edge must always follow the radiused shape. No Straight lines - unless you conceptualise a curve to be made up of a multitude of straight lines.

What do you think?

Incidentally, I have ground a goodly number of scrub blades, many from scratch, and they have all turned out with exactly the same radius as the template, and all with a smooth bevel.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Below: templates with various radii for the Stanley #40 and LV Scrub planes

Re: Grinding a scrub plane blade.

paul womack

>

My maths may be way off (well, it has been a very long time since I studied geometry), but I conceptualise a radiused template maintaining the bevel edge equidistant from the template edge no matter at what point you are on the circumference. Consequently the bevel edge must always follow the radiused shape. No Straight lines - unless you conceptualise a curve to be made up of a multitude of straight lines.

Think simpler!

What would happen if you just held the template-blade assembly "inline" with the belt, and....

...left it there for a coupla' minutes?

Surely (?) you'd get a flat, straight across the end. As more and more blade ground away, the bevel would get steeper.

BugBear

Re: Grinding a scrub plane blade.

paul womack

>Incidentally, I have ground a goodly number of scrub blades, many from scratch, and they have all turned out with exactly the same radius as the template, and all with a smooth bevel.

I have no doubt at all about that :-)

What I'm saying is, there is a substantial "control" input from you (the operator) when you're doing it.

BugBear

Re: Grinding a scrub plane blade.

Derek Cohen (in Perth Australia)

>"What would happen if you just held the template-blade assembly "inline" with the belt, and....

...left it there for a coupla' minutes? "

Well, yes .... in theory. You could do this as well just freehanding on a grinder. However, the idea in grinding is to Keep Moving (or you'll Burn). If you keep moving along a curved template, you'll end up with a curved bevel .... in practice. :)

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: Grinding a scrub plane blade.

Derek Cohen (in Perth Australia)

>"What I'm saying is, there is a substantial "control" input from you (the operator) when you're doing it."

I quite agree with you. The ideal template would have a built in set of fixed pivots so that the blade cannot move out of the desired (lateral and vertical) orbit. My jig is just a couple of steps up from freehanding the blade. It provides bevel angle (the vertical orbit) but a non-fixed (lateral) pivot point. The hand must hold it steady at the pivot point. While the result is not guarenteed, fortunately it is quite easy to do.

Regards from Perth

Derek