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I have seen the light (or lack thereof)

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I have seen the light (or lack thereof)

#1

I have seen the light (or lack thereof)

Andy in Raleigh

>One of my Christmas gifts this year was a Veritas honing guide and I have been using it quite a bit. It's like I got a whole bunch of new tools in one little package - stuff I had set aside as just "not as good as hoped" or "I just don't get it" have magically started working properly with a proper edge. I was using home made jig to grind bevels and then honeing free hand. Anyway, the most recent tool was a #5 jack plane. It's a cheap import and I had rounded the heck out of the blade, especially at the corners. It took me quite a while on my coarse stone to reshape it and then I moved up the grits and finally honed it on fine paper. I adjusted it a little at time until I could get a fine shaving. Then I put a small cherry rough cut off in a vice and worked an edge until i finally took a shaving end to end. I put my big square on it, held it up to the light and saw nothing but darkness. Sometimes I wondered if you guys were making this up to torture me and it couldn't be done. :->

I am happy to make the progress but kicking myself for not getting a guide sooner. Oh, a follow up question. A few days ago I was asking about joiner planes with intent to edge join boards that really aren't all that long. I now thing the #5 will do it. Is there a rule of thumb as to what length you can do reliably with what plane?

Re: I have seen the light (or lack thereof)

#2

Re: I have seen the light (or lack thereof)

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA, gettin' soggy

>I don't have a real rule of thumb, just a sense from experience, but I'd probably start with 1-1/2 times to twice the plane's length, for no reason I can rationally articulate at this hour of a Friday night.

I've come to the conclusion that, for most planes, a sharp edge is 60% of tuning (with cleaning off the dirt and spiderwebs and waxing all functioning surfaces at 30%). There is the rare exception, like the Craftsman plane I got rid of some years back, but most are straight enough that cleaning them up and sharpening the iron will do wonders.

Re: I have seen the light (or lack thereof)

#3

Re: I have seen the light (or lack thereof)

Todd O. Cronkhite Maine Native now in Jax Fl.

>I find that for a "mini-jointer" a #6 works quite well.

Glad to hear that you've found the "magic" pice that you've needed to get your edge tools into a satisfactory condition. Funny how it's just that one little thing that can make such a HUGE difference eh?

Todd O.

Re: I have seen the light (or lack thereof)

#4

Re: I have seen the light (or lack thereof)

ernie miller

>I'm going to go against conventinal wisdom but as long as you keep it under 4' and hold your toung just right the #5 will probably get you buy untill that longer plane at a to good to be passed up price comes along. A sharp plane will make the lights come on in you head.

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