Sharpening
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A thin layer of contact adhesive – the stuff you use for shoe repairs. You can virtually use it as a strop straight away after you lay the leather onto the plywood substrate (or what ever you have used for the backing plate). Just follow the instructions, and spread it out carefully with a scrap of wood or an ice cream stick.
Cheers
Mark HI’m looking for a technique to sharpen the blades on my Stanley No 71 Hand Router and found this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6xav7GUPyg
Is that basically how you do it?
I did look for a video from Paul but couldn’t find one. He has written an article about them but I’m much more comfortable with a ‘show me’ don’t ‘tell me’ mode of learning.
Also, does anyone know what those little palm sized files Paul uses to get a finer bevel on saw teeth are called? See 25m 30s:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA5DixEaaUo&list=PLqyeNiM0BJuUxO2ljEAiFSNvT07FixkB2
I tried searching but all I get are diamond paddle files for upwards of £20
5 September 2018 at 2:30 pm #550922I’ve got a 71 I use also Mark, and I use Veritas cutters with mine as I only have one of the old “vee” cutters that’s original. My 1/2″ Veritas cutter blade screws onto the post and they sell a jig for sharpening it I think, but I usually take that one off the post, flip it upside down and then I can hold the post and sharpen the bevel without having to overhang the side of the stone. On smaller one-piece cutters, there is little choice except to do it like the guy in the video does.
I’m pretty sure Paul was using diamond paddles in that saw sharpening episode. Maybe Phil could confirm that, but if I were to want to do that trick I would use my coarse diamond paddle. Those paddles are good to have. Perfect for knife sharpening and you can use the fine paddle to touch up the edge on your router blade in between actual sharpenings.
That’s pretty much how I do it, but I just put the abrasive at the edge of my benchtop and hang the iron over the edge rather than getting a block of wood. I’m as likely to do an in/out movement as to do the long strokes shown in the video. Depends upon my mood and whether it feels like the cutter wants to tilt over on that day. I find, with long strokes, as the honing reaches the edge, there’s a tendency to grab and tip over. The rotation in the video does help a lot. Still, I’ll often do in/out strokes especially on the underside of the blade.
What the video didn’t show is, after you raise a burr, you need to flip over and take a few passes on the sole of the cutter to remove the burr. You might need to go back and forth between the two faces to work the burr off. Since this never goes on the strop for me, I’ll take the burr off at each grit. Often, I just need to do fine and superfine and it’s good to go.
At this point, I find it faster to do this than to remove the blade from the post for my Veritas router.
The critical thing on this tool is to keep the sole of the blade parallel to the sole of the router. The next priority is to be sharp all the way to the corners.
5 September 2018 at 6:11 pm #550925“The critical thing on this tool is to keep the sole of the blade parallel to the sole of the router.”
The sole of the blade cannot be parallel to the sole of the router. It won’t cut if it is. There has to be a slight inclination of the blade to keep the heel of the blade off the work surface and insure that the cutting edge can engage.
5 September 2018 at 7:56 pm #550927If you’re talking about holding the cutting edge (the sole of the blade across the width of the blade) parallel to the sole of the plane, I would really like to know how you can measure that unless the blade is installed in the plane and even then that would seem tricky at best and hard if not impossible to duplicate given the fairly crude nature of the mount. Secondly, if it isn’t parallel, what is the procedure to correct it? Sorry, but I’ve never heard anyone mention this before or highlight it as a possible problem. It seems like you’re taking a relatively simple sharpening task and trying to find ways to make it sound more complex than it is.
5 September 2018 at 11:43 pm #550929Secondly, if it isn’t parallel, what is the procedure to correct it?
The easiest method is to use the router itself to register the edge.
Install the cutter into the router, then position two blocks of wood of the same height on either side of a diamond plate but higher than it.
Place your router on the blocks and lower the cutter until it just kisses the diamond stone. Slightly Lower it, and use the plate to get the parallel edge on the cutter. If you us a fine stone, you are also sharpening. When you have a continuous straight edge, you can remove the cutter from the router and grind/hone back the relief face. You don’t really have to go back to the cutting edge in this step. A very slight parallel facet at the edge won’t matter much, but try to get as close as you can without disturbing the edge.
What you end up with is a cutting edge that is perfectly parallel to the sole of your router.
Normally, you can rely on the machining of the foot of the cutter and then, being aware that staying parallel is important, always do minimal work on the foot of the cutter. That was why I pointed it out to Mark- To make sure he didn’t, like some, get carried away grinding and polishing the underside of the cutter. You just don’t need to fret that much about a router plane blade. Work the topside, then remove the burr on the bottom. If you start to notice that the bottom isn’t parallel to the sole, then use some body pressure while the error is tiny to correct things. But if it is really a mess, then Larry’s description says how to get out of trouble. Some people describe being taught to always sharpen that way, or to guide with the back edge of the router base rather than use blocks, to ensure parallel, but I’ve not found it necessary. I just hang the blade upside down, work the topside, flip to remove the burr and move on. Simple.
6 September 2018 at 1:43 am #550931What you’re describing is grinding a back bevel and yes, absolutely you can take no end of elaborate steps to guarantee the cutting edge is perfectly parallel to the work surface by doing that. I have a 1/2″ Veritas cutter that due to manufacturing tolerances, doesn’t register perpendicular to the x-axis of the router. If the cutter axis is twisted (as mine is), the relief angle, by definition, results in one side being slightly lower than the other if the cutting edge is ground perfectly perpendicular to the y-axis of the cutter. Does that matter? Not at all! Go from both sides and the lowest point on the cutter will win 100% of the time. We can chase this goat around the long side of the barn as long as you would like and it still won’t matter. It’s a router plane! Sharpen the blade and get on with it.
A simple question was asked and that was if a YouTube video showing how to sharpen a router blade was accurate. The simple answer was yes. There is no need to demonstrate how intelligent we are with complicated or obtuse responses. Give that simple answer to that simple question! No mention was made of any of this codswallow regarding the cutting edge being parallel to the plane sole in that video. Ed brought that up and it serves no purpose other than to confuse people that are new to this (maybe some of us that thought we had it figured out as well). I think it would be helpful if we tried to keep in mind the experience level of the folks we’re talking too and much better if we avoid injecting superfluous and confusing information for purely self-serving purposes.
That’s odd. I recall quite a few happy, harmonious years of discussions here on WWMC before you came along to police us, Harry, and to deliver unto us the one true answer to each and every topic. In many discussion threads, we had multiple answers, multiple opinions, multiple experiences and enjoyed hearing a diverse set of views from diverse levels of experience and diverse application domains. You seem unable to understand that discussion threads are shared experiences, that they are often multiple little discussions in parallel. You seem unable to understand that once you, Harry, post to a thread, subsequent responses are not necessarily responses to you. What you perceive the thread to be about is not necessarily what others perceive or choose to pursue. WWMC is no different from any other forum: When one person posts a question, there are 50 other people who wanted to post a similar question but didn’t because they are reluctant to post to public forums. They benefit from the diverse posts but are harmed by personal, critical posts like yours (and like this one) because such posts make participating here seem risky. I’ve dealt with people like you my entire professional career, people who turn things personal when they cannot control them, people who cannot be in a group discussion without thinking that all things in some way tie to what they tried to offer the group, people who do not understand that diversity of opinion is not personal criticism. I am not intimidated. I shall post whatever I wish, whenever I wish, wherever I wish, as long as it is consistent with the group charter. Do not ever presume to think you know why I or any other person is posting any given thing. If you wish to continue with personal comments and to control the discussions, then my opinion is that the door is over there. Close it on your way out.
I would just like to say that I appreciate both Harry’s and Ed’s knowledge and the help both have given me. You (and others) have helped me so much. You’ve all been patient and understanding, and I hope we can continue to get along and share our experiences.
I’d be lost without this forum.
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