Re: tuning moving fillister
Larry Williams
>Bob,
Coat the face of the iron with layout fluid and put the iron in the plane in the position you plan to use it. Then scribe the iron to match the sole. Grind by first establishing your cutting edge--grind at 90� to the face of the iron to the scribe line. Coat the flat you've created at the cutting edge with layout fluid and grind to remove the flat. If you lap the face after coating the edge, you'll have just a marked area at the edge to watch. I prefer red brush-on layout fluid because it's easier to see. Grind until your marked flat is just a hair line and go slowly when the steel starts getting thin at the edge. Use a coarse well dressed grinding wheel and a good tool rest is important.
Old nickers are usually softer than plane irons for ease of maintenance. You should be able to file the profile and the sides of the nicker as needed. I would guess your nicker no longer matches the dovetailed housing in the body, if it is even original to the plane. You should be able to fit it visually and it probably won't require much work. The type of nicker in your plane, as opposed to wedged nickers, are made with the expectation the user will have to maintain the tapered and dovetailed fit as they sharpen.
A few months ago I answered a question about grinding and tool rests on another forum. I'll just copy that below but, because I was showing grinding an outside curve, I did it on a belt grinder. Basically all grinding is the rough shaping operation where location of the cutting edge is established. The steps are basically the same for all plane irons and chisels except I prefer to hollow grind straight edges with a wheel.
You're smart to be looking at tool rests but I also suggest you look at an inexpensive wheel dresser and, just as important, technique. Because you mentioned an inexpensive grinder, I also included a $60 Grizzly we purchased and modified a month or so ago. It is proving to be a decent grinder after a little work.
I suggest either a star wheel dresser or a single point diamond dresser of 3/4 carrot or so. I prefer a 3450 rpm grinder and coarse wheels. Remember that grinding is a roughing operation and not final sharpening, though some turners might disagree.
You can get good tool rests on a few more expensive grinders like the Baldor Deluxe Model but most don't come with them. Here's the Grizzly we recently got from one of their sale flyers. We had to stand the belt section more vertical by relocating its mounting screw holes and added two-piece tool rests made from steel angle iron.
The rest for the belt isn't as deep as the one for the grinding wheel. To keep paraphernalia to a minimum, use the same bolt sizes for all the adjustable parts. The tool rest for the belt is shown below but both rests required adding a mounting plate to the grinder. Make your rests from steel and avoid aluminum or other soft metals. Soft metal tool rests end up with grinding grit imbedded in them and become very difficult to use smoothly.
The rests have to accommodate a critical but often overlooked part of the grinding process. Because the rests need to work for and provide for absolute control over all grinding, I decided to reshape a big socket bench gouge for these photos.
The first thing you should do is establish your cutting edge and profile. For most chisels and plane irons, the profile is a single straight line. Grind to where the cutting edge will be at 90� to the back of the iron or chisel. On the gouge, I want the profile to stand at 90� to the work when held for use so I angled the rest a little.
This important step shows you just what you need to grind away to get exactly where you want. Here I'm using a grinder that costs nearly 10 times as much as the Grizzly but it didn't come with usable tool rests either. I also made the rests on this grinder.
You can see the flat I've created on the gouge. The inside edge will be where my cutting edge will be. I also set a "V-parting tool" next to the gouge. The "V" tool is probably the most difficult of all woodworking tools to properly shape and sharpen. Using the same technique I'm showing here, shaping and sharpening the "V" tool becomes a straight forward and manageable job.
For visibility, I like to coat the flat with machinist's layout fluid. I also use the fluid to scribe the profile of molding plane irons as a guide to establishing the edge location for the 90� grinding step. Here the flash helps by reflecting off the coated flat on the end of the gouge.
With what needs to be ground away clearly marked you can now go to the step most people start with. You have the advantage of knowing what you're going to remove and knowing exactly where it is. It is also remarkably easy to see.
When grinding, use very little pressure on the wheel or belt. Let them do the work. A diamond dresser requires even less pressure so be careful with one if you buy one.
As your red marked flat gets smaller use more care and even less pressure. The process is still quick and easy so take your time. If I hadn't had to mess around with camera batteries and photos I would probably have completed the shaping and grinding of this gouge in less than five minutes.
Here's the freshly ground gouge ready for honing. It'll only take a few strokes on the stones to remove the remaining flat. Like the earlier photo of the flat, the flash reflected off the edge helping to make it visible but it also looks bigger than it is. It is and should be only a few thousandths of an inch.
I machined these rests on a milling machine but, with a little patience, it's possible to make similar ones with the factory rests of a belt sander and grinder. You'll need some files, taps and a way to drill some holes.
Don't forget that technique in grinding is as important as the grinder and the way it's equipped. What I've pointed out here isn't new but it works and makes grinding and subsequent sharpening pretty easy.
