Reply To: Sharpening plane iron: several newbie questions
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Hi all,
first of all, I have attached some pictures to this message, in order to show you the progress. You can see a picture of the flat face before polishing (I really thought I had polished it, but on the picture it looks horrible).
[attachment file=”142713″]
After that, one picture of the polished flat face. Still not perfect, but I hope it is fine now.
[attachment file=”Flat_face_before_polishing.JPG”]
Then, pictures of the guide I made to sharpen. The guide is extremely simple and took me less than ten minutes to create (two wheels, a block of wood and two screws).
[attachment file=142715]
Finally, a picture of the bevel after hand sharpening. I believe it is much better now for, though I am certain I have a long way before it is perfect.
[attachment file=142716]
I checked the flatness of my sole, and it was indeed not flat. I think the corner where the plane once fell was creating a heavy spot on the sole. I tried to flatten it but could not obtain a perfect result. Nevertheless, it looked close enough to what Paul obtained in his bench plane restoration video.
@bossyrangs, thanks for your comments about the workbench. My workbench moving is a huge issue I think. I had already put two large stones on the bottom shelf of the bench, because before that, when i tried to plane, the bench would often start to fall aside. It was a great improvement, but it still moves a lot. I suspect this is because the legs are full of insect holes: I got this workbench from my grandfather, it had not been used in years (more than 15-20 years I think) and insects had claimed it. I tried to restore it, but there are hundreds of holes in each leg, so the wood structure must be really weakened.
Since it seems to be important, I think I will as a next step screw some wood/plywood on the back and side faces, in order to rigidify the structure.
I am longing to make my own workbench (I have watched all the videos of Paul Sellers about making a workbench), but I am so afraid to not be good enough to plane it properly that I am just waiting to be confident about it.
- This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by farewell.
- This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by farewell.