Reply To: Stanley No. 4 – what am I doing wrong?
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Kirsty,
After a sharp edge, the chip breaker is the most important part of the plane and can, if not fitted correctly, lead to some of the problems that you describe.
First, you have not mentioned the back of the blade. It too needs attention. It needs to be dead flat and ideally shiny. It forms one half of the cutting edge. The chip breaker is the plate with the curved nose and deflects shavings as they emerge from the mouth. It is the back of the blade that the chip breaker engages. It is this mating edge that is crucial to a working plane.
When you loosen the centre screw, remove it all very gently and look for any minute strands of wood between it and the blade. If you have any, there is work to be done because this fouling will always give a bad cut.
When all is clean, put it back with about 1 – 2 mm distance from the front of the nose to the edge of the blade. With the screw tight, hold it up and look through the gap between the breaker and the back of the blade against light. It must be a clean fit for the entire width of the blade with absolutely no gaps. It is this mating point that we ‘sharpen’.
If you look at the section of the removed chip breaker plate sideways on, you’ll see that it forms a curve, the ‘nose’ and the edge of the part turned over that is in contact with the blade should be bevelled backwards so that it only makes contact along a narrow section at the front. It is this that needs to be dead straight and a clean contact all along.
The turned over section should be flat and coming from the factory will probably have grind marks. It’s normal to rub this surface on a flat stone to get a clean edge. It’s hard to describe the technique in words, you need to see it done, but if you search you tube or even some of Paul Seller’s vids you may find something that describes how it is done. Generally you only do it once, get it right and then just keep it clean.
Good luck.
I have just found this rather lengthy video from Paul Sellers on restoring planes. He refers to the Chip Breaker as a ‘cap-iron’…. same thing. The relevant section begins at about 52 minutes in and explains in pictures what I outlined above.
Regards