Let's be sensible....
Derek Cohen (in Perth Australia)
>Hi Stephen
A couple of points in response to your question.
Firstly, as pointed out before, a bevel up plane's cutting angle is determined by the angle of the iron's bevel. As a rule, the lower the cutting angle, the easier it is to cut end grain. A 25 degree bevel (= 37 degree cutting angle when you add the 12 degree bed angle) consititutes a low angle. You may get away using this cutting angle on the face grain of soft- or non-demanding hard woods, but it is very susceptible to causing tearout and a more moderate ("standard") cutting angle is indicated. The traditional standard cutting angle is 45 degrees. On a BU plane this translates to a 33 degree bevel.
A high cutting angle (50 and above) is only needed on difficult grain. If you don't work with such material, then you can ignore such bevel angles.
Secondly, overall a standard angle cuts end grain more successfully than a low angle cuts face grain. So if you were to choose just one cutting angle for all tasks (if you have only one blade), then I would go for a standard angle.
If you are only going to work with uncritical wood, then the cutting angle is not that critical that you need to get stressed about it. A few degress here-or-there is inconsequential. It is only at the extremes of the range, together with critical grain, that attention must be given to the bevel angle (If you spend much of your time working with hard and gnarly woods, as we get in Australia, then you pay special attention to bevel angles).
Thirdly, the idea of honing a microbevel is simply to save time and effort in honing a hard and thick blade, such as the A2 irons that come with the LA Jack. You certainly can continue to use a flat bevel, but you will make more work for yourself.
Lastly, you already have all the tools at your fingertips you need to hone a microbevel. Your Mk I will reset the honing angle by 1 or 2 degrees (i.e. two settings) with a turn of the roller wheel knob. Re-read your instruction manual. So what you do is set your blade up for (say) a 25 degree bevel. If this now hones the whole face, stop. You only want to hone the very edge of the bevel. Honing the whole face is, as I said before, self-defeating. Now add a microbevel of 1 degree (turn the setting to the 3 O'Clock position) and hone a 1 mm wide bevel with a 1200 waterstone. Then add another 1 degree to the microbevel angle (turn the setting to the 6 O'Clock position) and hone a 0.5mm bevel on either a 6000 or 8000 waterstone. You know when each honing is ready when you can feel a fine wire edge. Hone off the final wire edge and you are done.
This process should take minutes only.
Regards from Perth
Derek