Reply To: One of my plane blades no longer get sharp
Welcome! / Forums / General Woodworking Discussions / Tools and Tool Maintenance/Restoration / One of my plane blades no longer get sharp / Reply To: One of my plane blades no longer get sharp
Well, I figured it out, I apparently just needed to write out the situation to get my gears turning. The key bit was how the blade would tag the edge of a piece and then run over the surface of the material, not cutting. I remembered something Paul said in one of the Q&A Youtube videos (I think) about a mistake novice freehand sharpeners often make: they will put a round on the bottom of the blade, so that the round contacts the material before the cutting edge. My blade was exhibiting the same behavior. After 3 hours of re-grinding with sandpaper this morning (as measured by two and a half Fine Woodworking podcasts), I ended with a nice burr on the back, finally. I stepped back through the grits, and four strokes with the 8,000 stone put a burr on the back, in the end. It cuts like it should now. (Which meant I could spend seven hours in the shop working on Christmas presents, just in time.)
I use a honing guide, so I’m trying to think of how I messed up the blade so badly. The plane went south while I was milling up the reclaimed material I used on the workbench. Much of it is very old, hard pine from homes built ~60 years ago and it was tough on the plane. My hypothesis is, at some point it got dull and stopped cutting, and started running over the surface of that very hard, undulating pine. I think I basically rubbed a rounded edge into the bottom of the blade somehow.
Lesson learned – I needed to sharpen up much more often (I remember powering through when I knew I should sharpen, because of how often I was doing it while working that old pine).
Not my finest moment to announce myself into the forum with a decidedly rookie mistake (then again, I am a rookie), but I thought I’d explain how I fixed it in case anyone else does this.