Sharpening
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26 January 2016 at 1:45 am #134191
I just started working in oak. In America, the only available oak, at least for me, is red oak. One of my smoothing planes was gliding across an oak board I was flattening. I switched to a piece of pine and the blade cut without a problem. I resharpened the blade with a bigger bur then I normally create and went back to the oak. The blade cut like it should. Planing oak takes a different kind of sharp that I learned tonight.
26 January 2016 at 1:58 am #134192I must admit this is the first I’ve heard of this. Can you please clarify what you mean with a bigger burr, I suspect you mean you a bigger burr on the backside of the blade. A sharp blade regardless of the burr you create on the backside will plane any board regardless, it should not skip if the board is flat which is the point of planing to bring that board into flat.
The only issue I have ever come across in regards to skip planing is shooting the end grain of some timbers which I resolved by adding some mineral spirits to it to soften the grain.
26 January 2016 at 2:19 am #134193[quote quote=134192]adding some mineral spirits to it to soften the grain.[/quote]
Interesting! I had never thought of that. I’ll keep that trick in my back pocket for sure 🙂
26 January 2016 at 2:23 am #134194You can add as much as you want as it dries quickly and will not affect the gluing properties nor finishing.
26 January 2016 at 3:56 am #134195It can help if you have reverse or wild grain but use it lite on the flat of a board…
Frankj26 January 2016 at 10:38 pm #134227Yea…bigger bur on the blade. I sharpen by hand every day on diamond plates. I definitely notice a difference when the bur is bigger compared to a smaller bur when I plane red oak. In other words, if I sharpen my Stanley jack plane blade for lets say 30 pulls on the 3 diamond plates I use (10 pulls for each plate), I can plane pine with no problem. It cuts like butter. However, if I take that same blade with 10 pulls on the 3 diamond plates (30 total) and try to plane red oak, the plane will glide and cut a little. Therefore, I have found that pulling the blade 30 times on each of the 3 diamond plates (90 total) the blade is sharper with a bigger bur. I also finish all of my sharpening on a piece of medium hard leather with honing compound on it.
26 January 2016 at 11:47 pm #134228Thanks for that clarification but I have never experienced what you have, I also don’t count my number of strokes I just sharpen until I’m certain it will slice through a piece of paper without exertion or use any slicing action to get it started. Maybe that’s why I’ve never experienced what you have. Thanks for teaching me something new.
27 January 2016 at 1:57 am #134231I don’t count mine either. I was using the numbers for clarification. I use to use the paper method but realized my plane blades and chisels don’t cut paper, they cut wood. May the grain be with you.
Just to be sure, after raising the burr you are finishing with 1-2 light pulls on the flat side to remove that burr, correct? I like to raise a progressively finer burr as I switch stones, removing it after each. I haven’t seen what you are describing either, but I do feel that undue pressure on the strop with honing compound at the finish puts a slightly convex finished edge on my blades. Probably a good thing but I think that edge means there is slightly more steel to remove when its next time to sharpen on the diamond stones.
Even if you didn’t remove the burr I suspect it would break off on the first planing strokes but my OCD would never allow me to do that 🙂
I’ve found that for me at least it greatly improves the quality of the edge if after the initial stropping and removing the burr, alternate one or two strokes each on the bevel and the back on the strop about four times. For me at least it does improve the quality of the edge.
30 January 2016 at 3:38 am #134325Wayne…yes I pull the flat side of the blade on my finest diamond plate. Can’t really describe it any better then I did in regards to the thicker bur versus a thinner one. I can feel the difference and it definitely leads to a sharper edge when planning, at least for me.
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