New Plane or upgrade to Hock blade?

Blade, blade, blade

Jim Reed @ Tallahassee

>The quality of the shaving is directly related to the quality of the blade. Low cost Stanley blade means low performance. Inexpensive to replace and easy to sharpen on the job site. Not exactly the performance profile for success in the cabinetshop. If you put a Hock blade in your plane, you could tell the difference blindfolded. In my opinion, anyone who uses a Stanley plane blade is not serious about plane work.

Re: Blade, blade, blade

Todd O. Cronkhite Maine Native, Presently Away

>anyone who uses a Stanley plane blade is not serious about plane work.

WOW!! that's a pretty stiff statement there Jim. With that said, how do you account for all the fine woodworking that was done in their heyday? Not trying to start a quarrel mind you, but that was such a strong statement I just have to ask.

Now, this is in no way meant to say that the replacement blades that are available are not worth their salt.

Todd O.

Complicated but the journey is fun

Jim in Bulington On

>After you get the plane tuned up it has alot to do with the blade. Figuring out how to tune a plane up might take you a while but once you know how to fix all (or most) problems with the plane then comes the perfection of sharpening. Then the short commings of the adjustment mechanisim of older block planes. My advice is to replace the #5 blade with a Jim Reed, Hock, LV, or ... brand. I'd buy a new block plane the adjuster's on a new LV or LN are a big improvment. Then make a few blades yourself. Should tie you up for a good year or three. Oh it's a slippery slope good luck.

Re: Complicated but the journey is fun

Pete

>That's what I was thinking Jim. Time for a new block...now LV or LN. And new Hock blades for the rest. I'm thinking of going with high carbon as opposed to A2 unless someone can talk me out of it.

thanks for your reply.

A2 in my book

Denis Ch�nard, Orl�ans, Ont.

>"Wisdom" says that you get a sharper edge with O1. Sure, but that "edge" in sharpness will last you a couple swipes, after which the A2 will show its superiority by lasting a lot longer with a useable edge.

Most of my planes use A2, for a change I tried O1 on some of them, and will not buy O1 anymore.

I don't fear sharpening, actually I'm getting pretty good results doing it freehand, but sharpening is downtime, and I'd rather spend time using tools than maintaining them...

DC

New plane, of course!

woodburnbob

>Buy the LN. Try it for awhile. Take the blade out and put it in your #5 and see how much better the #5 works, if it does. Try that for awhile. If you aren't convinced the plane is better than the blade, sell the plane here or on Ebay. Your cost for all this will be about $15-$25 or so if you put it on Ebay.

In my opinion, your Baileys will never perform like an LN because the Bailey frog abuttment to the plane body is impossible to make firm and rock solid...in effect it is a 4 legged stool with 2 adjacent legs shorter than the other two legs --- image a stool designed to rest on two different steps on a staircase and not wobble. A Bedrock frog or the LN frog (I assume you are talking about bench planes) are possible to fit precisely, if they aren't...no legs, just 2 flat surfaces. I'm talking spotting and scraping here.

Putting a thicker, replacement blade (and thicker/stiffer chip breaker) in a Bailey or poor fitting Bedrock, improves things by having less bending in the blade assembly during a planing stroke.

These are the two things that are hard to overcome in a stock Bailey: flex of the blade/breaker and wobble/flex of the frog-to-body joint.

There's also the matter of the fit between the bevel side of the blade and the frog bedding surface. If you spot the blade or the frog surface, you'll see about a 2% contact. This should actually make you laugh at the idea of "good bedding of a plane blade to it's frog". Depending on where that contact is, your blade may also wobble on the bed under stress and bend.

All this matters because the front lip of the mouth of the sole needs to be rock solid with respect to the cutting edge. There's a lot of opportunity for wiggle and bend along the path of the connections: from front lip, up the cheeks, down to the frog abuttment joint, up through the frog-blade assembly and then down the wiggly blade.

Don't forget, I said, my opinion is... . Probably no one will agree with my mental picture of why a Bedrock is better than a Bailey and why thick blades make up for sloppy fettling or poor construction/plane design.

Incidentally, if you can get an old Bailey blade sharp, I don't see how you can get a thick replacement blade any sharper. It's just that the replacement should be stiffer, and it might resist wear longer. What I suspect you experienced when you tried out the LN was the effect of solid and rigid connections and stiffness.

Re: New plane, of course!

Denis Ch�nard, Orl�ans, Ont.

>About Bedrocks being "better" than the Baileys, here's what one pretty well informed person has to say on the subject:

http://www.supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan15.htm

I am not saying that the LN planes are bad by any means, but I wonder if the "superiority" of LNs over vintage Bedrock and Baileys have something to do with the blade and chipbreaker only. David Charlesworth wrote a very good article in FWW a couple years ago on how to tune a plane, frog seating and contact to the blade and all. What's left IMHO is the blade/chipbreaker...

Just to test this theory (sure...), I bought a Stanley Bailey #8 Type 11, and will be fitting it with a replacement LN blade and improved chipbreaker (the blade is backordered). I know someone around here who owns a LN #8, and once my plane is ready to go I will try to set up a meeting so that we can compare both planes. I tried the LN #8 last year and was mighty impressed, but the price gave me stomach aches... My spruced up Stanley will come out at about a third of the price of a new LN, we'll see if there's that much difference in performancce once the Stanley is fully fettled...

Will keep you posted...

DC

Re: New Plane or upgrade to Hock blade?

Dan Clermont in Burnaby

>Hi Pete

I did similar tests

The LN outperformed my highly tuned Bedrock 604 1/2 even with the blade Rob Cosman used in his LN planes.

Spend the money and be done with it.

Dan Clermont

Consider sole flatness too

Jim in N.Va.

>Have you checked the sole on your #5? If it's not flat, you can lap it, but that can be work (even more so on bigger plans like a #8). The LN's I have checked have all needed no or minimal lapping. And if they do, you just send them back.

Re: Blade, blade, blade

Moses Yoder in White Pigeon, MI

>If I put a Hock iron in every stanley plane I own I would have several thousand dollars invested just in irons. The Stanley irons can be sharpened up and used without any problems so far as my experience goes. They just don't cut as well, but there are a lot of instances where you don't need a really fine cut. I still remember my first Hock iron, and the difference it made. If I had a limited number of planes and the money to buy that LN #5, I would go for it. LN and LV both make very good quality tools.

Re: New plane, of course!

Jim Shaver Oakville, Ont.

>Hi Denis,

That is interesting! At the recent plane contest at Anderson Indiana I used a Bedrock 604 and came in second. The only changes I made to the plane were other than flattening the sole and tuning the frog were to replace the iron and the chip breaker. I can tell you that since I made those changes that the plane has been a greater pleasure to use with more predictable control and results, even in my novice hands. I will agree that once the plane body is flattened and the adjustements have been tuned, changing the iron and chip breaker had a very positive effect for me.

Take care,

Jim

Actually

Jim Reed @ Tallahassee

>Stanley plane blades were made for carpenters and they perform well for that task. A house trim carpenter needs to plane moulding and doors and other softwoods. He needs a plane that is affordable and portable with a blade that is easy to sharpen on the job site.

Fast forward to the 21st century when most Stanley bench planes have been *repurposed* for cabinetmaking. To work well in that envirnment, they need to have a blade that is harder and thicker. Harder means longer edge retention and thicker means less chatter. Yes, the old blades will work, but they chatter and dull quickly. Can you joint with them? Sure, the surface will be invisible after glue-up. Can you finish plane a curly cherry tabletop with a Stanley blade? Probably not to your level of satisfaction.

Re: Actually

Warren in Lancaster, PA

>Actually I have been planing curly cherry and quartersawn cherry using Stanley irons for over 30 years without tearout or chatter. Curly cherry was once my favorite wood. I don't know what kinds of problems you are encountering. In my experience chatter occurs as a result of poor bedding of the iron, not necessarily from a thin iron.

New Plane AND a Hock blade

Donald Pierson

>Without even knowning you I am sure you deserve both and probably more.

By all means, prove it to yourself

woodburnbob

>Denis, let me dispassionately reply to your rebuttal of my analysis.

I have high regard for Patrick Leach, a.k.a. Mr. Peabody. He's a brilliant, entertaining and very informed guy. I particular like him for his humorous, witty, disdainful, snide, sarcastic and often cynical comments about Stanley, and just about anybody and anything he finds out of kilter. He's much more famous in tool circles than me. He's an expert; I'm a rube*.

I first read Mr. Leach's piece on Baileys and Bedrock several years ago, when I was actively, compulsively, needlessly accumulating rusty iron planes from any place I could find them. It was a glorious few years of reverie and nearly autistic preoccupation with restoration and fettling. I'd show you pictures of all my Baileys, but it would only display how truly psychotic I got. Have you seen all my posts and pics over the years that include spotting, flattening, scraping, machine tools and so on infinitum? All that was in the service of hand plane rehab and high test tuning.

Thank the gods, I came to my senses when I was off searching for a used Moore jig grinder to precision grind those little frog abuttments.

Actually, my dear wife, Rita, had me taken to a Rusthunter's Detox and Rehab Facility, where I and my kind were put in Benjamin Rush chairs and placed before large picture windows to gaze quietly for hours upon the pacific asylum gardens.

Through all this, I had in the back of my mind, the tiny little goal of fitting a Bailey so well that in use it would be indistinguishable from a vintage Bedrock. Think Cervantes and Don Quixote.

I wonder if any human has spent as much time and effort as I trying to prove Mr. Leach right. Alas, as heretical and blasphemous as it must seem, I now think Mr. Leach is simply wrong. Just in this tiny area of the true relevance of the Bailey to Bedrock frog change. Everything else from him I consider divine enlightenment. Of course, if you said, "But Bob, how can you really know without a Moore Jig Grinder?", I suppose I could ask Rita. No. I can't spend another Christmas at the Rust Spa; I just can't.

So friend, Denis, be careful how far you take this issue.

* The word �rube� (from Reuben) was originally used by carnival people to identify the farmers, yokels, and assorted rural types. -- from Roger Price, The Great Roob Revolution.