Lee Valley HCS blades

Re: Lee Valley HCS blades

I'm Dave Too

>Why not give them a call at 800-267-8735?

the forum knows

ydb1md

>Well, calling is a good idea but sometimes people on the forum know before customer service does.

Re: Lee Valley HCS blades

Rob Lee

>Hi Dave -

Just working 'em all out now... there's actually a bunch of new A2 blades coming first, then the O1 blades after (material is ordered)...

It's a lot of parts - and the heat treater has some new fixturing to make...we'll put them on the website as fast as we get them.

It's our intent to have a choice of A2 or O1 for:

1) all Veritas planes

2) Stanley #2-#8 bench (all blades .100" thick)

3) Both old and new style 9 1/2 and 60 1/2 planes (all blades .125" thick)

That'll be over 30 blades total....!

O1's for the bevel-up planes will be first...after we list all the A2 blades (they've been in progress awhile now).

Cheers -

Rob

Re: the forum knows

Rob Lee

>Yeah - and the forum know I check at lunchtime too.... :)

Cheers -

Rob

Re: Lee Valley HCS blades

Denis Ch�nard, Orl�ans, Ont.

>Hi Rob, what would I gain with O1 instead of A2?

DC

BTW, January is over...

Re: Lee Valley HCS blades

Rob Lee

>Hi Denis -

Some people prefer an O1 - a more traditional HCS - as it's easier and faster to sharpen than A2...

O1 will also hold up better at lower bevel angles - A2 is best at 25-30 degrees...

There'll also be a small difference in cost (O1 will be lower)...

Cheers -

Rob

Re: Lee Valley "Brown Paper Steel"

ThomD

>A lot depends on the heat treating, but if done right you get easier sharpening, great edge wear, and arguably sharper blades. So the objective is a nicer cycle. Often reviews imply that what maters is how the blade edge holds up in use. But since we have to sharpen the blade the whole process maters.

Whether an individual prefers one blade over another also depends on the woods they work, how they work them, and what sharpening gear they have. So for instance if you work only pine then you will get wonderful edge wear with almost any blade. There is another end to that spectrum. Your sharpening gear may optimize one kind of steel better than others, or make speed issues of greater relevance.

Heat treating is a very broad subject, like finishing options on wood, or joinery options. There is the industrial approach, and there is the craft/art approach. O1 is a very tractable steel as far as heat treating is concerned, and there are a lot of costly processes that can be undertaken to supercharge the heat treating. So not all O1 is going to be equal, anymore than every piece of walnut exits an industrial process looking )or working) as nice as the pieces that exit Sam Maloof's shop.

A2 is a high carbon content steel. it's the other stuff they throw in that is the problem, not the carbon content. None of this stuff exists to optimise plane blades. And the "tools" in question for "tool steel" are largely machine tools. I'm not to thrilled about grinding 5% chrome, and I don't think it does much for hand tool performance.

That last sentence....

david charlesworth

>That last sentence bothers me.

Yes A2 is harder to grind.

Yes it may be more difficult to sharpen, but waterstones work fine.

But, if you work nasty abrasive timbers, I find it will keep working at least three times longer. Which is surely a big plus?

David Charlesworth

Made a few 01 blades

Jim in Burlington On

>I've made a few 01 blades but have not had the Hardness tested. Following the direction I shoot for between 57-60. Flattening the back's of my 01 blades is only a little easier than A2 IMO. Sharpening the bevel following the David Charlesworth method both A2 and 01 are very similar. When I used to grind the bevel with a disc sander and make alot larger micro bevel (it was like a 1/4 of the bevel) A2 would drive me crazy I had a horrible time achieving the polished edge 01 was easier. I really have not been able to see the difference in my bevel down planes between the two as far as one is sharper or keener a edge. Both appear to last a very similar amount of time between sharpenings.

Re: Made a few 01 blades

ThomD

>If you power sharpen everything, one thing is pretty much as easy as the next thing. If I push a little fast into my KMG I'm going to need a new blade.

Hand sharpening I do notice a big difference in both results and feel it varies with every stone and from blade to blade. One thing I like about O1 is it fits in with the cast steel and Japanese stuff pretty well. I don't like sharpening chrome whether cheap swiss army knives or A2.

I have yet to find anything that last three times longer in a competantly prepared blade in a demanding use. Do we have a test for that? We have rope cutting with knives. I have seen that kind of performance difference there, but it comes down to HT more than materials. I have noticed in the knife business that different alloys have their day in the sun, then the pricing falls off or whatever, and before you know it they have substituted the stuff they previously decried and come up with an HT for it that makes it work pretty nice.

The "last sentence" probably was misleading in that I don't like the health aspect of grinding 5% chromium. I don't see it as an advantage either. It's not as though if we could only come up with the cash we would want tools with 10% ot 15% chromium in them. Abrasion in machine tools is a real issue I have had shavings come off blue from carbide cutters, that is 900 degrees, at about 150 RPM. HSS is really nice and makes those cuts without much coolant or heat. I just don't begin to see that kind of interaction on hand tools. It certainly plays out with wood turning tools.

arguably sharper blades

bill tindall

>Yeas ago I posted a question on Badger pond asking why M2 (jointer knife steel) was not used in woodworking tools. I was told with great authority that it can not be made sharp like carbon steels. Steve Elliot's data put to rest the "workbench legend" (to coin a new phrase) that tool steel can not be sharpened to equivalent keenness. Even a highly abrasion resistant steel like CPM 3V or M2 can be made as sharp as O-1. It is not the steel that is the limitation but the sharpening technique. It would be correct to say that O-1 can be more easily sharpened, especially with softer abrasives such as AK stones and some quick-to-dull aluminium oxide based abrasives. But it follows that a steel that is easily abraded in sharpening is more easily abraded in use. Lathe turners were quick to take advantage of this fact with tools as abrasion resistant as M2 becoming the norm.

People will buy a diamond stone for flattening their collection of water stones, a waste of the power of diamond sharpening in my opinion. Only one well chosen diamond stone is all that is needed to sharpen tools to a degree that most of us will be satisfied with. I remain astonished that no one offers an affordable cast iron plate for this task. With diamond, the abrasion resistance of the tool becomes unimportant. Even the high vanadium steels sharpen quickly. Better steels are available as well as better abrasives.

chrom and health

bill tindall

>Chromium alloys, such as the ubiqutous stainless steel, should not be confused with chromate, a proven carcinogenic chromium compound unwisely used by some finishers. There is no way to make chromate by grinding a chrom alloy or any other mechanical operation. To get chromate from chromium is a very difficult chemical transformation requiring extreme conditions.

Re: arguably sharper blades

ThomD

>Yeah, my heart isn't really in that fight either. There is an argument about whether certain particles in the steel allow a finer edge, as though we were down to a molecular level with the stones. I have also used carbide router bits that were razor sharpened. Another material where the carbide size apparently makes that "impossible".

O1 is a tool steel too.

Blue Paper Steel also has Chromium in it, 1/10 what is in the A2, and people say that stuff is harder to sharpen, not just in the efort but the lack of a key to the stone. I have plenty of blue steel tools and they are very high performance, so whither the need for a 1000% increase in the chrominm content?

"But it follows that a steel that is easily abraded in sharpening is more easily abraded in use. Lathe turners were quick to take advantage of this fact with tools as abrasion resistant as M2 becoming the norm."

I'm not sure that follows, maybe it does. Beyond my knowledge. It doesn't seem immediately obvious that what makes something hard to abrade makes it hard to wear at the edge. The argument against that, to pull on a certainly false anology, is to compare the steel to concrete, it's hard to grind down the gravel, but the cement is what gives the pieces a fine edge and they abrade at differnet rates. There probably isn't any science in that, but it describes the experience a little.

Turning is a different thing. One can easily encouter 2000 feet of cutting in a minute. Sharpening is often crude, angles obtuse. I have quite a store of HSS tools for turning. On the other hand one of my most prized skews is carbon and I don't notice a problem with edge retention there unless doing a scrape with it.

Re: chrom and health

ThomD

>I feel better knowing that, though I noted that a lot of the bad industrial effects of Chromium seemed to be relative to steel production. So somewhere someone is getting dinged by this stuff.

Re: chrom and health

bill tindall

>chromates were used in various anticorrosion treatments for steel. I am speculating, but that may be where the hazard came from.

cement analogy-right on!

bill tindall

>"The argument against that, to pull on a certainly false anology, is to compare the steel to concrete, it's hard to grind down the gravel, but the cement is what gives the pieces a fine edge and they abrade at differnet rates."

You have described a good analogy to steel. The steels we use consist of an iron matrix(cement) surrounding particles of carbides(hard rocks). The matrix determines the hardness, which is turn is a measure of the rigidity of the steel. The carbides (rocks in the cement) determine the abrasion resistance. Various carbides-chromimum, iron, vanadium- have different abrasion resistance, with vanadium being best. When trying to sharpen with a weany abrasive the rocks don't get ground down to the edge.

Lee Valley has been studying wear. Maybe one of thse discussions will tease out some of their results. See Steve Elliot and Brent Beach's web site for some fine data on wear.

Re: Lee Valley HCS blades

paul womack

>Does anyone know when Lee Valley will begin offering their HCS blades, as an option to their A2?

OK. I gotta laugh now. I remember the excitement, the drama, the sheer tool lust, the waiting, the questions...

Around 3-4 years ago the big question was:

*WHEN* will Hock offer the miracles of A2 ?!?!

BugBear (amused)

Re: Lee Valley HCS blades

paul womack

>O1 will also hold up better at lower bevel angles - A2 is best at 25-30 degrees...

Hmm. That would make 01 a better material for end grain work in a BU plane.

BugBear

:)

Rob Lee

>Hi Bill -

Not biting on that one....yet.

No early results to share... that one won't go public until fully completed.

Cheers -

Rob

Re: cement analogy-right on!

ThomD

>Cool... Every so often I trip down the right manhole...

lower cost

ydb1md

>My initial guess is they might go for 1/2 to 2/3 the cost of the A2 irons -- gauging from the current ratios on blade costs for the apron plane and scrub plane. I could be wrong though.

Re: lower cost

Rob Lee

>Nope - that cost difference is marketing, not process or material...

The manufacturing of HC (O1) actually costs more than that for A2, so the process upcharges eat into the material cost differences. Really - an O1 blade in a #5 plane will only be about $5-6 less expensive than an A2 blade...

Cheers -

Rob