Plane iron run, any interest ?

Re: Warping???

Chris Scholz


>Jim,

I probably used the wrong term. What I wanted to say is that you give a blad with a prettyflat surface to the heat treater and you get a blade with a less flat surface back. The steel manufacturers always point out that this difference between "pretty flat" and "less flat" is lower for air hardening steel than for oil hardening steel. What's the term for this difference? Maybe this difference is not significant, too hard to measure, etc. I have absolutely no first hand experience except spending two weeks in the heat treatment department of a very large European machine tool manufacturer. The only thing that I remember is they had all sorts of water, oil, salt solution and who-knows-what baths. Wish I had known about hand tools at that time...

Re: Warping???

Frank D. in Montreal


>The warping I got was on small blades less than 3/8" wide or less, 4 of them IIRC. Most of the time it was only a few thou, but noticeable without measuring. What is surprising, and I had never thought about it until reading this thread, is that it always happened on beveled blades (my thin mortise chisels did not warp sideways at all) and the backs were always concave. Reading Ron Hocks comment (his reported comment about blades warping the right way) made a light bulb go on. My heat treaters have a good reputation, they are a big industrial place that do all kinds of metal treatments. Of course it's hard to say whether my batch was done on a Friday afternoon or what.

I do however have a #7 replacement blade that I bought from a small manufacturer, and it is warped the wrong way (I did not even use it and didn't bother returning it). But now I know what to do with it: regrind the bevel on the other side of the blade, and bingo, the back will be concave instead of having a belly.

Perfect

jim reed @ tallahassee


>I love the your idea of regrinding the bevel on the other side. Don't know if I would have thought outside the box enough to get that one. Verrrry clever!

my experience too

bill tindall

more on heat treating

bill tindall


>When I told the heat treater what we were using the steel for he said "we will flatten it". I didn't think to ask at the time what this means in terms of an operation, other than the obvious that the tools come back flat.

It became a moot point anyway. We found flattening backs by hand to be tedious. Any more, the heat treated things are sent off to local machine shop for surface grinding. Some amount of metal needs to be removed anyway to be rid of damage from heat treating. Our steel supplier suggested about 0.003" removal.

Re: more on heat treating

Frank D. in Montreal


>Bill,

Do you mean he flattened the blades after heat treating? I didn't think that was possible, other than by grinding.

BTW I found some raw sheep's wool after all! All I had to do was ask...the farmer was intrigued what I wanted it for, and gave it to me for free.

steel and wool

bill tindall


>I presumed the flattening was something done while the metal was hot, but I don't know. When it became obvious what we were making needed to be flat they said they would "flatten it". Maybe it just means they would keep it flat.

Before you think the sheep farmer was being way generous, we got about 25 cents a pound for wool this year.

Re: Plane iron run, any interest ?

Rick R


>Link,

Is there any room left in your heat treating batch? If so, when is the deadline? I would like to throw in a few blades.

Rick

Or use a milling machine

jimreed@tallahassee


>DP seems to be a hard way to go. I use a milling machine.

Re: Plane iron run, any interest ?

Link Van Cleave


>Rick,

Lots of room. I would like to send off in about 2 1/2 Weeks.

Link

Re: Plane iron run, any interest ?

steve knight


>might as well get the made in us stuff I never foudn a difference but in the price.

Re: Plane iron run, any interest ?

steve knight


>I have found with 1/4" irons that you end up with a convex back only slight but it is always that way.

Re: Plane iron run, any interest ?

Kerry in FortSask, Alberta

>I just wanted to say thanks to Link for arranging this. It's refreshing to come across someone who still has enough faith in people to do something like this, knowing that they'll be reimbursed by those participating.

I recieved my blades this week and am looking forward anxiously to spending some of my time off next week making my first wooden plane.

Merry Christmas folks,

Kerry

Re: Plane iron run, any interest ?

VTAndy3

>Hi Kerry,

I got my irons too -- and totally agree, kudos to Link for his trust and efforts that made this happen. I think it would be fun if we had a thread in a couple of months where we could all post pics of the planes we're making. The irons I got are massive and I can't wait to build planes around them! My only regret is that I didn't also get some narrow irons for future moulding planes.

-Andy