Sharpening jig tip for LN #112 blades *PICS*
woodburnbob
>Anybody who's tried to maintain the 60 degree bevel on these wide blades knows it ain't straightforward. You can, with special fingers and special concentration, freehand it, but one slip sometimes leads to another hour of work.
The Eclipse jig and the Veritas I have from several years ago aren't wide enough to hold the blade. However, I've seen various contraptions that hold the #112 and are in turn themselves held by the Eclipse or Veritas. Also, if you have a Tormek, you know there are no jigs that handle this blade, again because of width...of course you can free hand it using the bar or flat thing.
Enter this guy:
At one time I thought I'd try collecting all the billy-club handled scrapers out there. I learned most of them aren't much to speak of and I got bored with it. But I did come across this exception. I now have several...actually quite a few. So if the depression ever comes, and these scapers develop a real value, I'm set for life. It's rare to not see one on Ebay at anytime, and I got most of mine for $10 or $15 plus shipping.
There are several names attached to this scraper. This is a "Pagoma". I've got one with the Zenith name and sunrise symbol (an old Marshall-Wells). I don't remember the other names and won't bother to look now. But it's clear they are all made by the same manufacturer and stamped variously by retailers of the era.
This scraper is very well built, stout, solid and great to use for scraping, even using little card scrapers. I like using sharp, high rake plane blades. Say goodbye to hot, cramping fingers.
The ultimate beauty is the ball joint handle. A twist left and the ball (and therefore the head-handle angle) rotates in any direction. A twist right and it's rock solid.
The bar with the hook functions as an eccentric axis, a cam, to tighten a floating plate against the blade. No goofy holes and screws in the middle like so many of these handled scrapers.
Oops. I almost lost my point. Because the ball handle is so easily set, the angle of the blade is easily set. A twist and it's set to the 60 angle I'm after. The handle slides on the desk top. The whole "jig" is then in effect a tripod, so the angle is pretty stable. Obviously it can serve as a sharpening jig for plane blades, chisels and anything else that will fit it.
That's it. More words than needed probably. Why didn't I mention this before? The evil and opportunistic side of me had me thinking about cornering the market, like the Hunt brothers and silver. But I never got around to it. I see now I should stop being so stingy (niggardly). I hope to go to old-tool-guy heaven some day and I'd better start acting accordingly.
