Unicorn-Lite on the back side

Re: Clearance

David Weaver

Wiley, I hope you'll pardon me mentioning larry by name one more time, but I have to give credit where it's due.

The first round and hollow plane I ever made worked like a treat. It did because I bought larry's video, watched it twice, took notes and made planes based on it.

It's apparent that the followers on didn't do a whole lot more than that either, which is a shame, as their planes actually look like larry's (there's a whole nice menu of aesthetics from the mid 1700s to mid 1800s for moulding planes).

I have to also admit I'm not even using my own H&Rs due to a (Todd Hughes would say, I sort of collect these) set of later skew griffths H&Rs that I can't bear to part with. refitting them is a walk in the park once you can make planes, though. Not all was lost making them. I can refit a pair of decent shaped planes in half an hour.

I can't comment on what Warren saw, but I understand larry to use oilstones and to often abrade the surface of his finish stone to keep it fast cutting.

My picture in another post above about washitas shows why I don't like that, but I cannot subject everyone to my sharpening trials, especially when most of what I've seen is failure for people to finish the backs of their tools. I have no objection to people slurrying oilstones - it's something one may come to if they are often making tools more than using them (the desire for speed is magnified x 10 if you're removing surface grinder marks and not just wear).

I've also seen larry advocate 25 degrees as written on a stanley block plane instruction set. I've found edge quality issues at that, but they are maybe the type that nobody would care about if they sand surfaces.

The moulding plane video is wonderfully made, and like David Charlesworth's plane blade sharpening video, told me what I needed to know to make the first one a good one. That's the point.

This and that

Wiley Horne

David,

Yes, I have seen Larry refresh at least his starting stone, using a diamond stone. I have to say, I admire you and all who get oilstones to work. I’ve had exactly two—a HandAmerican black, and more recently a Dan’s transparent. I never got the black to do anything, and Dan’s stone cuts but in my hands takes the edge off everything I try it on. It’s NOT the stone’s fault. It’s me.

Which reminds me, I ain’t got anything left to regrind and resharpen in the unicorn manner. It’s addictive! Thanks for your diligence in finding and bringing this procedure to us!

Wiley

Re: Clearance *LINK*

Warren in Lancaster, PA

I think that the grinding is probably pretty good. It is the honing on the Arkansas stone that seems like way too high an angle for a strike block plane bedded at 40 degrees. Here is the video I watched, honing at 6:02:

I have used the same five bench planes since 1983. All double iron. Cutting angles 45, 45, 43, 43, 42. The suggestion that they do not work because they lack 20 degrees of clearance is preposterous.


Honing

restoring kasumi finish?

David Weaver

A little while before I posted anything about buffers, I buffed a japanese chisel to cut the tiny facets at the non-business end of a pencil (6 little triangles). Since they're incense cedar, if a tool isn't really sharp, they look terrible (the surface isn't crisp).

I've never had a brightly polished full bevel before (kasumi on japanese tools or hollow ground scattering the light on others) and flashing light can trigger a migraine for me. A couple of reflection slicing off bits from the top of a pencil and I was stunned like a deer in the headlights.

I've noticed that once the unicorn is applied to a japanese chisel with a flat bevel, kasumi can be restored on a washita stone (or a suita, I just don't have one out) very quickly and only close viewers will be the wiser. The round over is a couple of thousandths in total at most, but it's enough that restoring kasumi doesn't affect it. Even though the rest of the bevel is buffed at a varying level, it's a teeny fraction of flatness and unnoticeable.

There is some vanity in that finish, too, because it doesn't look garish like a bright face on a japanese chisel or a hollow grind (which I'd personally have to resort to instead of a light signaling full bevel).

I don't think we'll get a discovery show..

David Weaver

Despite the fiery brief return of clearance discussion, something I've also had no issue with (and my try and jack planes are probably close to the 43 degrees that you mention as I lay them out at 45 but leave a little something at the bottom of the mouth when cutting and scraping the bed to finish).

Larry is right that clearance is more critical for softwoods, but he's bound by the fact that a single iron plane can't keep itself in the cut very well as it's dulling, and a double iron plane does it very well. Compounded by the fact that our double iron planes can take a much larger shaving (for the same amount of work) on each pass without threatening damage.

Or to put it more clearly, he's seen a problem with types of planes he's familiar with at a higher pitch and then just assumed they apply elsewhere. That's the kind of assumption that will get anyone in trouble if the counter to their point is provable.

But I don't think the level of intrigue will ever allow us to get a discovery channel show called "clearance wars". The production team would tell us the word is too associated with bargain shoppers and a dramatic scene of "my plane just won't cut!" ending with burning planes in a 55 gallon drum ....just wouldn't have great appeal.