Unicorn sharpening - ? for David Weaver or anyone

Re: Failure angles

Warren in Lancaster, PA

I use a 30 degree bevel for chopping. I have no failure in hickory, persimmon, walnut and lots of other woods. I have not used 34 degrees for anything.

Cap iron—a simple reference

Wiley Horne

Once you get the hang of it, setting the cap iron is not difficult (if eyesight permits).

Here’s something very simple, for those who want a physical reference as a starting point. Only need to do this once—enough to get a.visual memory:

1. Find a Post-it note or a piece of 20-lb bond, or piece of an ordinary envelope. All of these are very close to 4 thousandths thick.

2. At your bench, take the blade/capiron pair, and loosen the screw a bit.

3. Double the post-it, to make 8 thousandths thickness. Stand the blade/capiron pair upright on the post-it. Lightly tap the blade, so it cuts through the paper and bottoms out against the bench. The capiron is still on top of the paper.

4. Tighten the screw. That’s an 8-thou setback, give or take a half-thou.

Eight-thou is a pretty good starting place, and now you have a visual memory of your starting point.

OR...

Just do what David says, and experiment .

Wiley

rule of accommodation

David Weaver

This whole thing with rolling tips and then buffing came about due to my disgust with buying expensive tools that still needed to be accommodated. If work is what's actually intended, it's easier to accommodate an average tool and work with it than it is to look for a spectacular tool (and wait and wait to get it and then wait and wait to get the next one when it's not that great).

Rule 1 of accommodation is to find out what a tool needs to function properly and do it, then.

Rule 2, examine whether or not it's tolerable to use it like that

It's tempting after learning #1 to try to solve every tool you can come across, but the reality is lots of tools are marginal on rule 2 after that.

(and once in a while, some are unhardened - I have an entire set of ten marples bevel edge chisels that are almost all unhardened - 7 or 8 are. the lighest paring rolls the edge over and not just a little, but like a giant burr. They're suddenly fine once they're rehardened. I've seen some stanley 5000 series chisels that are really soft and of three sets of blue marples, two sets had an individual chisel that was way off....interesting thing about those and the 5000 series chisels is the soft ones often show up a little bent).

Thanks, Wiley

Joe shelton

I'm going try that, compare what I get to what I have set up in other planes.

Or ...

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

In setting the chipbreaker, some experimentation is needed for the plane and the wood used, however start with the following ...

1. the first step is to hone a 50 degree secondary bevel at the leading edge of the chipbreaker.

2. set the chipbreaker roughly 0.4 - 0.5mm from the back of the blade ...

Lyrics and music ?

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: Failure angles

Jack Dover

That makes them good chisels. I have a few chisels like that, but on quite a few occasions respected brand names chisels (Footprint, Marples, etc.) happened to be soft. I'd be happy to own a full set of properly hardened chisels that could be set up at 30˚ (among other things), but it's like winning a lottery apparently. There's a set of Sorby's I've been saving for better times and I just dread trying using them.

The point is though is that hight angles can offset this problem somewhat. Probably there's an amateur somewhere spending yet more money right now just because a brand name set doesn't perform at recommended 25˚- 27˚. What also interesting is that most texts recommend this very specific angle, but they don't tell what to do if an edge doesn't hold.

A useful tip!

Jack Dover

Thanks!

Have already tried it today just for giggles and the offset came quite close to what I have figured myself and set by feel and eye. In theory this should be a more consistent way of setting and there's adjustability in it.

Re: Or ...

Wiley Horne

Hi Derek,

Good direct method! Works out to 16-20 thousandths—does that work for you?

Wiley

Re: Or ...

Joe shelton

No, but if you'll hum a few bars of it, I'll work it out.

Don't you mean the front of the blade?