Posted By eliot feldman

Date Wednesday, 11 January 2023, at 7:35 p.m.

Lately I have been restoring hand planes--both old wooden ones and several old Stanley and Bailey ones. I've gotten fairly good at it including sharpening and using the planes. My biggest problem  with the metal planes is nearly always getting a really good fit between the front edge of the cap iron (chip breaker) and the back of the plane iron.  I know what's involved, but find it tedious to get a good fit there with some of them. Aside form lots of elbow grease (or even buying new Hock stuff) is there an "algorithm" for doing it in a consistent way with less effort? To give an example of what I'm after, if someone were to ask me for something like this for sharpening the blade, I would suggest a grinder with a CBN wheel fitted with a Tormek guide. I've been doing this for some years now (even before learning that Derek does it this way) ;and I can tell you that this method is hard to beat.

 

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