Plane iron run, any interest ?

Re: Plane iron run, any interest ?

Moses Yoder


>I am very interested. I will probably buy my own steel and send you the irons ready to heat treat. Where do you buy your steel?

Re: Plane iron run, any interest ?

Link Van Cleave


>Hey Moses,

Long time no talk. I get mine from MSC. Starrett O1. Are you going to mill it yourself ? I would suggest using a cold saw to cut a 30� or 25� angle on one end and then blunt the end. I would not use a abrasive saw. You could mill the slots or whatever and mark where you wanted them cut and I could cut them for you.

Link

Re: Plane iron run, any interest ?

Joel


>Just a suggestion - the traditional way of making irons and edge tools is first cutting them square and then hardening them.

The steel will warp a little on hardening - it always does. That's actually a good thing.

Then grind a bevel on the CONVEX side of the hardened blade.

This way when you sharpen the tool the flatteing the back will be on the concave side which will make it very easy to flatten and as you use the iron in future sharpenings the back will continue to wear flat.

If you put the bevel on before hardening you might end up with a blade with a convex back - which is really hard to deal with.

Re: Plane iron run, any interest ?

Link Van Cleave


>Joel, Thanks for the sugguestion and I am aware of the issues. This isn't the first time I have done this. Your are right there is a slight amount of warping and I used to leave the blanks square and then select the concave side for the back. However after talking with Ron Hock one time, he told me that he puts the bevel on first and the warping for some reason always comes out right. He does a lot more irons than I do so I said ok. Also as I said the warping is not very much and I usually flatten the front of my irons anyway because I don't want the blade to rock on the ramp. The heat treaters are very good. Same people Ron uses and most anyone in the greater S.F. bay area. The blanks are pretty thick and the widest iron I use is 2". Again the warpage is very slight to almost none and it is less work to flatten the iron than to grind a bevel in that thick steel. That is to grind it carefully enough not to compromise the steel. I am a firm believer that it is almost impossible to not overheat O-1 unless you water cool the grinding process. Dry grinding is not a problem in the begining but as the bevel gets bigger and the edge thinner it becomes a problem. So, I pre- bevel my irons with less grinding later. I use a cold saw, takes less than 20 seconds. Then I will blunt the end to keep that thin edge from over cooking. I have them take it to Rc. 62. I have had them push it to 64 and it seemed to work fine but not really any real difference. I am a big fan of O-1 and much prefer it to A2 unless I am planing bamboo.

Link

Re: a few questions

Moses Yoder in White Pigeon, MI


>A friend of mine in this area has a hobby machine shop and I would probably mill them there. In the heat treating process, does all the steel in one batch need to be the same thickness? So far as time goes, it would probably be about a month or at least three weeks before I have the irons ready, due to me being gone all of next week. When were you planning on sending stuff in to the heat treater? I have this chunk of ebony that is going to be a Krenov style plane, and it would be kind of neat to make the iron for it. And if I make one, I might as well make 3 or 4.

Re: a few questions

Link Van Cleave


>Moses,

Thickness makes no difference. They will do about 30lbs. of plane irons for $67. That is a lot of irons ! If we could get enough people interested we could have our irons for $6 a piece.

Anyone.

Link

Re: a few answers

thomd


>O1 tool steel comes pre-ground so there isn't any advantage to milling it. You could mill the bevel but it would be overkill unless that is the only means you have to do it.

The O1 stock is a lot cheaper if you buy wide pieces, odly it is not sold by the square inch, it is sold by the piece, and pieces that are twice the width of other pieces are not much more expensive. If you really wanted to make this cheap you could get one person to buy and profile the steel. I would gladly do it for a dozen or so blades, except the problem is that I am in Canada, and nothing about that is going to make it cheap for you.

If any of you have a recip saw with a hack saw blade, that makes short work of O1 held in a vise. Then you need a belt sander to profile it, best case.

Perhaps part of the secret of the Hock luck with straight pieces is that he drills a 3/32" hole on top, and they hang the blade by that. Perhaps one should check to see if that is required, since this is the same HTer. I know Ron required it for any outside work he took in. Also makes it simpler to stack blades in the oven. Presumably they quench vertical which should reduce warping.

Re: a few answers

Link Van Cleave


>The milling isn't redundant as it is done to create a slot for the cap screw not surface or dimension the plane iron. I am well aware of how O-1 comes and have bought it many times and that is why I think it is easier to just buy the widths you want and cut the irons to length. With a cold saw it takes seconds.

You are right about hanging the irons which is why I drill a 1/8" hole near the top of the irons.

This is really very simple. I have done it before. It is not a big deal. What will bring the cost down the most is not cheaper stock but more people to bring the price of the heat treating down. I feel all this discussion is making this seem complicated and might shy people off. Again, this is as simple as buying the stock, cutting to length and sending it off to the treater. I am willing to facilitate the process. I know how to do this and I have done it before. With all due respect I don't need advice, I am not asking for advise, I need people interested in doing this to bring the costs down.

Thanks,

Link

Depends on heat treater

bill tindall


>The irons we have done have come back flat. Sawing the bevel is a whole lot easier than grinding it after hardening.

Re: Depends on heat treater

Joel


>maybe, but having an iron with a very slight concavity will make sharpening much easier for years to come. D. Charlesworth just released a DVD that amonth other things sow how to put a hollow into a flat chisel - he doesn't do that with plane irons but I don't like his ruler trick so a concave plane iron is the way to go for me.

Re: a few answers

thomd


>I wasn't answwering your post, but Moses who mentioned the mill. I'm sure you're right that he means to put a slot in, very sensible.

I wish you luck with getting everyone to buy a cold saw.

Last time I checked Ron was doing the thing for 10 bucks so if the tone isn't pleasant the savings don't seem on the whole worth it.

Very interesting

Frank D. in Montreal


>Thanks guys for some food for thought. I have very limited experience, 25 blades or so, but the ones that did warp (smaller chisels or cutters mostly) came out with the backs concave. I never actually saw this as desirable until now, even though it has not caused me any problems in use. Hmm, I never saw it as a variation on the ruler trick.

Re: Plane iron run, any interest ?

ark40


>Link, would these blades be for wooden planes or can these be milled for stanley type planes as well. I would be interested if someone can help me with the milling process to make them compatible with Stanleys. I have no metal work tools, except a hack saw and a few files.

Re: Plane iron run, any interest ?

Link Van Cleave


>Yes you could do them for stanley type planes. I have made them for them but you need a milling machine to cut the small slots that catch the adjuster. If you can get someone to mill them we can add them to the batch.

Link

Milling your own slots

Link Van Cleave


>There seems to be a bit of interest so this might fly. Anyway some people have been asking about milling the slots. The first batch of irons I did I milled them with a drill and a file. It was not that hard and if you are only doing a few irons (3 or 4) it can be done.

What you can do is deside on the length, width and position of your slot. Take a black marker, or blue, and color the area you are going to mill the slot. With a scribe (there are scribes in the bottom of the heads of a lot of combo squares) mark or scratch through the marker. You will have a very visable line. Set up a drill press with a fence and drill a series of holes to remove most of the slot material. Take your iron and clamp it in a vise. File to the lines. Remember to file in one direction only, no back and forth, ruins flies. I did 20 this way the first time. Good exercise in filing.

You could get the stock in a 18" bar, mark out your irons, cut and file the slots but leave the bar complete and I could cut the irons to length for you.

Link

Another thing to consider with Stanley type planes

Link Van Cleave


>In a bevel down plane the thickness of the iron will determine the mouth opening. Make sure you have enough room for the thickness iron you want to use. If you have a adjustable frog put the frog in the middle position and check what thickness iron will close the mouth. You want a iron about 3/16". I know Ron Hock does them 1/8" but thicker would be better if you can do it, up to a point. One can always do a bit of filing on the mouth if necessary.

If someone is maching them for you give them the old iron so they can copy the spacing and depth of the adjuster slots.

Link

Re: Some numbers

thomd


>I'm not getting it yet. Can someone lay out exactly what curve in what orientation, and what this helps and how it provides a curve at the edge that is equivalent to the ruler trick? My grinder has 1.5 HP so I'm not all that concerned with flatening, but if there is something else one can pop out of the hat, I'm all ears.

I don't get much warpage because I only harden the end of the blade. It's quite a bit, like 2 inches, but it doesn't seem to distort much. I have to admit that I have split a tip off one blade but other than that they seem to come out OK.

I have some Hock blades a few Krenovs and 2 customs that have yet to be made into planes. Bad stock, you never know what people will want. I couldn't find my granite block, but I did a quick set-up with a dial indicator on a magnetic base on a jointer sole. I passed the Hock blade under this, right side up, upside down, and side to side. Zero needle movement where about 1/32" coresponds to a .001" over 3.5 inches of blade length. Dead nuts. The other interesting thing about this test was I got varying degrees of longi curve off various rules. A plastic one by my computer read 1/32", which sent me out to the shop for a Starret. On it I could see light from one end when I held it up to a light source, but there is enough junk on the edge from pencils and such that I went looking for the granite. Goes to show, one has to be careful about what one sees.

Re: Some numbers

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia


>Thom the ruler trick is to provide a very small angle back bevel on the blade. This won't add a camber or curve to the edge.Compliments of David Charlesworth. This is accomplished by slipping a small rule under the back at the furtherest (is that a word?) edge of the stone away from the cutters edge,lifting most of the back off the stone. The object is to reduce the time spent flattening the back as the metal honed is small in area.JR

Re: Some numbers

joel -( tools for working wood)


>If you have a tool with a slightly concave back, and by concave I mean only a few thou hollow in the center, with the sides and ends coming up. when you touch that tool to a stone or reasonable flatness you will immedietly contact the cutting edge and flatten at the cutting edge. Job done. Over time, as you use a tool you get a wear bevel on the back and you also chase the burr, therefore you end up flattening the back more - slightly but it removes metal. With a concave back each time you flatten you trivially are touching just the actual cutting edge to the stone. No need for any fancy ruler trick, no need for super flat stones, it just works.

Japanese tools have a pronounced hollow for this reason, western tools used to have a very very slight hollow, but in either case it makes sharpening go much much faster. After WW11 and the hand forging was replaced with machine forging and grinding steps like putting the bevel on the convex side were ignored and suddenly everyone complained about the dificualy of conditioning a new tool back. With modern surface grinding any heating warp can be greatly minimized so it is easier to end up with a flat back but the magnetic chucks used for grinding can pull a thinner warped blade flat so grinding won't actually flatten the iron after the chuck is released but overall most modern manufactures are great at making a truly flat iron - at the expense of a traditional feature that saved a lot of hassle.

Re: Some numbers

thomd


>Thanks, both, for the explanation. I got the ruler trick confused with the way he cambers the blades, and started reading all too much into it. Comceptually if you had transverse curvature and then toped it off you would get curve in the edge, but it didn't seem very sustainable...

I think I would rather have everything dead nuts flat and not worry about the bedding though it all works for somebody.

Re: Some numbers

Joel


>don't worry about bedding. With a cap iron the cap iron will pull the iron flat no sweat and with a BU plane gurentteeing contact at the lip of the frog will be much better than wearing the iron convex over time.

For chisels the slight amount of hollow means nothing one way or another - just makes maitanence easier.

Re: Some numbers

Chris Scholz


>Are the Starrett bars forged?

I thought most modern blades are milled out of rolled (?) and ground bar steel (with the exception of Clifton blades and maybe a few other small manufacturers). Obviously forging has advantages with respect to material strength and grain structure; as far as I know cranks shafts are still forged. So why do we mill chisels and blase out of bar stock?

I also thought that (from the manufacturer's perspective) the primary motivation for the switch from O1 (high carbon steel, etc. ) to A2 was lower warp after heat treatment (low differential in material cost, large savings in labor cost (i.e. grinding and recently lapping), plus higher average sales prices).

Chris, Atlanta, GA

Re: Some numbers

Joel


>rolling bar stock has some of the properties of forged stock and can be quite good. How chisels are made now has very little to do how they were made 70 years ago and a lot of the techniques of traditional manufacture have been lost (carving tools being an exception).

Warping???

jimreed@tallahassee


>I am surprised to hear about your experience with warping. I have sent out thousands of blades for heat treating and have only had trouble with 1/8" plow blades. My experience is that the small blades can be dicy, but the large ones always come out great. Either I am a lucky guy or your heat treater has fat fingers. What gives???