Doing actual things - planing

Re: Doing actual things - planing

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

David, I am curious to know whether you are planing with a finely cambered blade?

While I have no difficulty using buffed/unicorned chisels or square block plane blades, cambered plane blades are another story. It may be that the buffing wheel is too vigorous, but I seem to generate a slightly wavy edge, or the camber is exaggerated (ends up greater than it started).

The other comment I might add, looking at your streamers (shavings): these seem to be a feature when planing Hard Maple or Pine. It is fun. But when I plane one of the local eucalypts, they do not hold together like this. Not as much fun

Regards from Perth

Derek

light camber, yes

David Weaver

I use light camber. One of the things about unicorning is getting the feel for how much is enough on a plane iron and then that's it.

I like a 1/2" wide wheel because if it gets wider, then it's hard to keep account of what's going on and how evenly. Sort of like trying to grind a small area of a blade when using a wide CBN wheel.

After that, a matter of even feeding, and at least to me, the easiest way to manage that is to split the buffing over several passes rather than a lot of back and forth. If one of the passes gets a small catch, and it's not perfect, no big deal, it'll be evened out on the next passes. I guess this is part of the nuance of nailing the plane iron sharpening, which I put up a very boring video about on youtube (just to suggest, complete success is right around the corner from puzzling small problems).

I'm using a very strong abrasive, but not loaded too heavily into the wheel - just a buzz on the wheel once in a while.

As to the shavings, yes, different behavior with different woods. This shaving feature is probably another one of the reasons that the double iron planes so quickly eliminated single iron planes. In middle work, there is no clogging unless the wood is absolute junk, because even discontinuous shavings will have some strength and blast the chippy mess up out of the plane whereas a single iron plane may not have enough shaving continuity to do it. The common wisdom from someone who shall remain unnamed was that all of the points inside the double iron planes were catch points whereas a single iron plane may clog but could build enough pressure to push the clog out. ick.

We become area experts in what we work a lot. I can tell the quality of the wood by how it flows out. Hard maple is uncanny at the far end of woods for the shaving keeping together - it could be woven into a strong rope (I like a leaf blower to vacuum and crush shavings, but literally burned one out in short order on maple. This pine has shaving behavior like weak maple - i'll find out later today if it binds the impeller on the blower, but will be smart enough to turn the thing off right away this time if it does.

Interesting all of the little things one notices. When Rob Cosman does his whiz bang thin shaving demos, he never uses figured bubinga. He uses something like maple or some abnormally straight piece of white-ish wood that comes off in a thin neat sail-like sheet rather than something that comes off in a lattice or worse (broken up easily, or dusty). "wood show" shavings. maple is great at it.

Cherry, sometimes. yellow pine, sometimes, but the thicker shavings on a quartered edge can come off in a whole bunch of irregular pieces (fracturing of the chip instead of a neat flow).

separate question...

David Weaver

you mentioned the feather razor on another channel. I'm assuming the one you're talking about is an AS-D2?

As far as I can tell looking at that razor, it's similar to a gillette tech, or some of the very early gillette razors - those have a full casted support that bends the razor into a very stiff position.

The world of DE shaving is strange, I consider those things squeegees and none of them feel that aggressive if you shave only in motions that wouldn't cause trouble with a straight razor (i have a fatboy that can be opened all the way to see what "Aggressive" feels like).

I saw strange criticism of the tech copies because "they're too mild". I kind of like the mild DEs (the super speed is a trap door design with less support, but is considered to be mild). The mild feeling of the razor, to my understanding, is based on the fact that the skin bar is not far from the razor (so the skin is stretched a short distance and can't billow back up and hit the blade at a more aggressive angle. I have no idea why people think that's desirable - it invites razor burn).

Long story short, I'm inclined to try the feather AS-D2 as the fatboy prices are apparently a lateral move now and the gizmocity of the fatboy is fun at first but pointless when you don't fiddle with it.

(camber management)

David Weaver

I know people do things different ways, but I always manage the camber on a plane iron on the medium stone - one of the reasons I didn't like the BU system as promoted was the idea of maintaining camber on a 50 degree blade made no sense. It had to be a lot of camber at 12 degrees and that was only manageable on the 25 degree iron.

At any rate, I use a gradual camber and not clipped corners and just as a matter of habit and routine now, I adjust it a little at a time with each use if it seems to get too flat or too narrow. But always on the middle stone since that's the easiest place to do it.

I just attempt to follow what's there on the buffer in a robotic sense.

Re: separate question...

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

David, the brushed stainless steel Feather razor is a two-piece construction, which means that it locked the blade very firmly and rigidly. It shaves, as I mentioned before, without "chatter".

By contrast, the Gillette SS, which is the classic Gillette DE razor, is a twist-to-open style. This is a great razor but not in the same class with regards locking the blade. It gives a decent shave, but once you try a Feather, you will not go back.

Regards from Perth

Derek

right....

David Weaver

..I have the super speed, but it doesn't support the blade. It's a trap door type that I would suppose was an "improvement" back then because the blue steel blades did much better if they were taken out of a razor and allowed to dry vs. sitting covered with soap and filth.

but it compromised the holding.

I also had what I think was called a merkur 1904. It did what your razor does, which is what I've read the tech does - it screws on and flexes the blade into a fixed position, supported through the whole bow. But that razor wasn't made as accurately as a feather.

I'm not inclined to get a gillette tech - it's probably cast brass with a nickel plate, and i just don't need another one like that, but if a razor is made sort of like the 1904, but a century later and done so it's just so - that's the kind of thing I'm into. I'm going to buy an as-d2 and give it a try.

The devil is in the details with this stuff, right?

The reality is, too, we're using less tough razor blades than were around when those gillette razors were made - I could easily see a blue steel blade being hardened higher and less susceptible to edge damage, but more to rusting. Now these flimsy soft blades are stuffed into the trap door razors with poor support and they get pushed all around by the hairs.

The fascination with the kamisori as I hone them is that they are bumping up against feather sharpness but with a lot of rigidity. The way they can follow the hair down the face and make it hard to even feel stubbing rubbing your finger back up against the grain is novel.