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@markh good to have a metallurgist opinion here 🙂 I don’t know how to distinguish “good quality” papers… I know it should be obvious but – what to look for? Any brands? Features?
Regarding the sharpening – that’s exactly what I did – got a pack of wet&dry from local store, glued to the (verified) flat piece of granite countertop and went on with flattening the soles and such. However I found out it really unpleasant for any attempts at sharpening as I’m sharpening my knives cutting edge first (as in opposition to some people trailing the edge), so that’s how I did it few times with irons (resulting in cut paper and gluing another piece of paper instead). I got a small belt grinder as a present, so I will probably use it to true up irons that are mighty out of square and then use the paper on granite for the more coarse part of the job, when leaving plates for finer jobs. But I am a curious man and I am planning to spend one weekend on testing my plates and few grits of paper and check the scratches under a microscope to see what grit they are currently are (as I don’t have much finer methods accessible). I Really thank you for your input.
@filadams
to be honest I was waiting for someone that saw a lot of abused plates to speak up here. So scratches from the heavily used “250” plate don’t feel and look like the ones from wet&dry 250. That is interesting. So I wonder what that “250” on the plate description mean – initial size of the grains?@ed I fully agree with force vs pressure, as by definition pressure is a force applied to some area 🙂 . Same force – smaller area = bigger pressure. However no one ever said what pressure/force should be applied when flattening backs of the chisels. Should I press it hard? Or just light touch and let diamonds cut?
I do indeed have small areas of different texture on the edges, they do feel totally different – more abrasive.
No I didn’t use them on waterstones as I don’t have any 🙂 Some irons and 4 chisels – that’s all I did on them.
Thanks everyone for their input. I had some spare time today and got my EZE-LAP some cleaning. Some detergents finished with isopropanol to make sure no residue is left. Then I tried a piece of glass (bottom of the glass bowl) on them (and yes, Mark – I know that the glass is hard – that’s how I wanted to see if the diamonds are still there 🙂 ). In all three cases there were marks on the glass, so diamonds are still there. However those scratches were inconsistent with the grit of the plates – scratch marks from 250 grit plate were almost similar to what you get when honing on 2000 grit. On piece of metal 250 grit plate left almost a mirror finish after few strokes. So looks like I broke the diamonds to much finer grit. Expensive lesson learned.
Regarding the flattening work – I did only about 10-15 mm of the back of the irons plus about a millimeter out of square correction. I did flatten four Aldi chisels on them, though, as I saw multiple times people on Youtube doing that routinely. Heck – a few days ago I was watching a video “Buying & Restoring Hand Tools with Ron Herman ” where he was doing exactly that – flattening the back of a chisel on diamond plate saying that this plate will last you a lifetime.
So what I learned:
– diamond plates are not made equal.
– if you are not sure how to use diamond plate, let someone show you (not on video), otherwise save yourself a lot of trouble (and money) and assume that your diamond plate is the lesser quality and will break if you increase a pressure too much
– to be on the safe side, flatten only on abrasive paper glued to flat surface and use diamond plates only for honing or final touch flattening. Don’t use too much pressure.From what I see not only me had this issue. Maybe someone can make a video how to use diamond plates properly (or maybe such video exists already?) explaining how to apply pressure, when it’s too much etc. Those plates are ranging 200 quid ((for the set of three ) and in my case survived about two and half hours of use.
PS. Can someone recommend which sandpaper to use? I remember someone mentioning how to select the one designed for work on metal, but I can’t remember what that was exactly…
Here in Ireland they were available as well. I’m writing “were”, because they disappeared as soon as shops opened. I was lucky enough to call my friend at Aldi as soon as I got the message and reserve a set for me. When I got them today I understood the hype about them – they are made from good steel, handle fits nicely in my big hand (and there is enough meat to shape them to the smaller hands if needed) and price is almost too good to be true.
I was considering sending them back to Amazon, but in the meantime my friend called with some tools and I HAD to have a working square, to cut the timber. So I went to 2Euro store, got a pack of needle files and started to fix what Stanley couldn’t make right at the first time. I drew some square lines using the divider as a reference (the best way to draw a perfect square) and closely assessed what had to be done. I selected the one iron that had a narrower slit (more about it later). The 45 degree angle faces were perfectly ok, so off we go to lap the third one. I got myself a guarantee flat granite block, so I knew I can do this. Next the ruler – again selected one that was more true and I could assess if it has parallel sides. It was close enough, so again – lapping plate, granite and some thin paper charged with chromium oxide (the one thing I know how to do right is sharpening, so took it slowly step by step). At the end of the process there was no light gaps between the ruler and the granite block itself and the ruler side got mirror finish (which was later on used to assess the squareness of the square). As the iron I used was the one where the nut was locking I took a minute to see what is going on. It occurred the place where the bolt is located had some extra iron from the casting process. Flat file and some polishing took care of that. So I now have square, working iron sole and good ruler. Time to make them work together. Checked the squareness – awful. 4mm at the end. Light, magnifying glass and few moments later I noticed that the bottom of the slit is uneven. Flat needle file, 20 or so tries later and got it flat and parallel to the face. Check for squareness shows almost good. I took the second ruler (wavy beyond repair), put some chromium oxide on the side of it and carefully started to polish the bottom of the slit, giving a little more pressure where needed. Check for squareness shows perfect match from both sides, and mirror image on the side of the ruler confirms it. So after about 3.5 hours I finally got my working combi square. My friend in meantime went to do some of his business, came back with a box. He said “you need some tools if you want to do woodworking – here, open this”. I opened the box – spokeshave! Yay! My friend says “yep, brand new #151 Stanley, good make”. I thanked for the gift and we went to cut the timber. Later on I took Paul’s book and started to adjust the spokeshave. It quickly occured – I have very limited iron movement, because the threaded rods are not parallel. REALLY, STANLEY?
I know I’m reviving very old thread. Two months ago I started my adventure with woodworking. One of the tools I bought was – yep you guessed right – a combi square made by Draper. It was an only piece in the shop, so I didn’t have much choice. Of course at home when i tried to do four face line on the piece, the line from the first and fourth faces didn’t met. So I purchased Stanley combi square from Amazon (yep, here in Irish Wild West we don’t have fancy tools in shops) – exactly . Happy that finally have a perfect tool, went back to work. The error this time was even bigger and checking the square unearthed few issues:
– faces are not flat, but concave
– ruler is not straight, it literally produces waves if you want to draw a line
– the square error at the end is a little under 5 mm.
– the second day of use, locking nut just stuck. It can be removed with excessive force
So I asked Amazon for replacement. This time the square error is just about 3 millimeters (still worse than Draper), and the slit where the ruler sits is just too wide so you cannot lock the ruler parallel to the axis of symmetry of the sole. Ruler itself is fine.
I doubt Amazon will agree to replace it the next time so my idea is to build one square from those two, but to do this – is there any manual how to do this properly? Stanleys don’t have those small nibs that Draper does, so square correction will be probably a little more difficult.
PS: Draper square after just few strokes of the file is now perfectly square. What’s going on, Stanley? -
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