How to get a STUPIDLY SHARP edge on a PLANE blade

hello there in this video I'm going to be showing you how I sharpen one of these app let wealth not one of it hang on hang on hold your horses hold your horses a plane blade what is the difference between this and a chisel well you're out to find out let's go [Music] right firstly disassembling the plane so in you can write so ignore the ghastly rust on this I think I left it in the tool box for a bit too long I need to put some oil on it but in a future video I'll show you how to get rid of all that actually good video I did it so sorry I just went along with that then so I'm here you've got a cap iron so that just works on a can look like this it's all you do lift up that top bit that comes off like so and in here you have got a adjustable screw and that basically adjust the tightness of that so if I loosen it off like so and snap this down it's really easy it's a bit wobbly so what you don't want to be doing when you take the blade out is loosening this you should just be able to have it all on a quick release of that so to adjust that quick release just change this until it's at a suitable setting so tighten that up like that snaps down all in there rock-solid let's get out and then here you have got your blade and your chip breaker so blade is underneath chip breaker there's your screw that holds it all together so I'll show you how to disassemble that right so to take off the chip breaker as you'd expect just a massive screw there this is where a little plain screwdriver like this comes in handy because when you've got a massive one on here it's just a bit cumbersome so all do is take that off and when you take off the chip breaker what is good practice is to not just rip it off like just any direction like I just did there best thing to do is slide it back twist it round and then off like that the reason is if you slide it forward and you get into the practice of doing that after you sharpen your plane blades you'll likely slide it forward and just smash up this front edge that you've just sharpened and so that's not ideal so when it comes off slide it back around 90 degrees and then slide it forwards so that this screw is able to come out the hole on the plane like so so then you have safely disassembled your chip break up from your blade the next thing to do especially with low Nielsen and hawk chip breakers is establish which one you want to sharpen I've seen it a few times where people accidentally sharpen the chip breaker instead of the blade because they do look quite similar so chip breaker goes on the top and the blade is the bigger one do not sharpen this this has a very important function in the plane and if you start messing around with this edge on it then you're gonna have some trouble with it so leave that alone we're focusing on the blade much the same with chisels I work with a 25-degree primary bevel and a 30-degree secondary bevel on plane blades there are a few occasions where I'll sharpen a 50 degree angle on the secondary bevel and instances that would be when I'm trying to reduce terror I will be covering that in a future video so for now we're going to do 25 degrees primary bevel 30 degrees secondary so to start with you can see that the secondary bevel is getting quite big and like I said in the chisel video when that starts getting a third to a half of the way up this primary bevel that's usually where I will start regrinding the primary bevel because it becomes more efficient that way to stuff and fresh rather than sharp and all this metal again so with that in mind let's take it so that's all mech right so firstly grinding this 25 4 degree primary bevel so I'm going to pop that in the square edge jig now like I said in the chisel video I'm using the tormek because I have access to one and yes I know I'm fortunate too but you can do this with a bench grinder if you are extremely careful at not overheating the blade take a little bit off quench it in water a little bit off quench it in water until you get the result you need I would always advise using a jig for that to get it spot-on 25 degrees instead of free handing it also you could do it on a coarse diamond stone or water stone as long as you keep it flat obviously but like I say I'm using the tormek because I have one available to me so firstly I am just going to grade four stone on this to get it to a nice coarse grit also get the water trough up we go so this is the difference between a tormek and a high-speed grinder in that it's water called and it's slow running so you can't overheat your tool there we go lovely and coarse now let's get grind into the 25 degree primary devil here we go almost here now taking about 4 to 5 minutes because this is a very very hard steel a - so yeah pretty solid stuff there we go so that's all freshly ground - 25 degrees now now like I said in the previous video on chisel sharpening what tormek recommends do a lot at the time is then to take this stone to a 1,000 grit by rubbing this stone grater on it and then taking its the honing wheel and sharpening it like that but you just end up grinding away so much metal despite this being a slow speed machine I find it much more controlled to do the secondary bevel on a sharpening stone so that's what we're going to go next ok so onto the sharpening stones now now I've got my water stones soaking here and I'm gonna start off by flattening the 6000 grit on my diamond flattening plate a few strokes back and forth that's all good that's flat and then I'll switch it to the 1000 grit and again like I said in the chisel video the reason I do it this way around is so that I don't contaminate the 6000 grit with the 1000 grit stone so just wash that slurry off there we go flat water stone I'm just gonna wash that off as well cover my workbench in water well good job it's finished in Osmo product placement right so we're going to get the blade out of the square shape and the tall neck and pop it in the low Neilson Honi guard with the long jaws already fitted now if you want to know why I'm using the line also how you guide with the long jewels be sure to watch my toning guide video I did at the start of this series so nip that up I'm gonna sharpen the thirty degree bevel on here on my stop block if you're up a little bit more there's the thing there it is yeah so 30 degrees ready to go in there so what is the difference between sharpening a plane blade and a chisel well on plane blades what I like to do is put a camber on them now it's basically a very very shallow curve and one of the main benefits about putting a camber on a blade is that you can actually focus exactly where you want to take away shaving so say if you were edging a bit of wood for example and this side was a little bit higher than this side what you could do is focus the plane on there and the camber would take out more this side than it would there without you having to mess with the blade angle or anything like that you can just send to the plane on that section you want to take off material and do it like that there's a few other benefits as well but that's the main one for me that's where I find it makes useful so to get that camber onto the blade what I will do is start off on the 1,000 grit stone just going to give it a little bit more juice right so 1,000 grit all I'm going to do hold the plane on there drag it back 1 2 3 and this is with even pressure and all I've done there is started the secondary bevel so on the end of this there is a tiny tiny secondary bevel that is almost too small to see and that is what we need for the 1000 grit stone so before I switch it to the 6,000 again I'm just going to clean off the roller because that's going to have a little bit of grip from the 1,000 grit stone and just dab this edge to get rid of any remaining water flip it over and there we go run the 6000 grit so let's go with that now it'll be a juice on there right so we've got a straight secondary bevel at the moment and again I'm just going to give that 1 2 3 and there we go so that I started polishing that secondary bevel now to get the camber in it what I'm going to do is pick five points on the blade so I'm gonna get the outer points the middle one and then two intermediate points on there as well and all I'm going to do on the two outer points I'm going to do ten strokes forward and back 10 straight forward and back then on the intermediate ones here I'm gonna do five and then in the central one I'm gonna do two or three probably so I'm not going to put the pressure right on the edge because as you can see that tips the honing guide we don't want that because that just creates a horrible round over on the edge of the blade and I mean it doesn't really affect it that much but for an aesthetic point of view I don't like it so right so pressure on the edge of the plate so one two three four five six ten on this side now one two three four five six seven eight nine ten you might be have to see whether you can actually see where the metal is being taken off more heavily so on the outer edges there was a lot of swarf on the central part not a lot so ten strokes either side we've done that now we're going to do five and the intermediate points one two three four five one two three four five and then in the central one one two three and what I like to do here is on a microscopic level I suppose it's probably just me being anal again that's created lots of different facets on that camber so to get rid of those what I'm going to do is start dragging the plane back but transfer the pressure from this left side to the right hand side as I drag it back so pressure on the left hand side as I drag it back I'm transferring it to the right hand side before the plane falls off the edge obviously well I'm gonna do the same right to left on the right there we go on a cleaned water stone you can actually try and draw a cross in it as you do it there's the David charlesworth video where you did that it was quite impressive now on the edge of this plane blade there is now a camber on it very shallow do not worry about this creating u-shaped grooves in all of your work when you're playing them because the difference that it makes is so minuscule it's mainly just for your edge jointing and also something i forgot to mention earlier it takes the corners out of the cut as well so when you do planing you don't start leaving tracks in the wood where the corners start digging in instead they're lifted out of the cut and you're only taking small scoops out here and there so now let's get rid of the berth left over on the back of this blade so take it out the honing guide and to do this like I said before do not drop the blade straight on the stone like that because it has the potential to sort of ruin that burr you do want to get rid of it but you want to do it gently so I tend to do this by starting with the blade off the edge of the stone and bring it on with very light pressure drag it back there we go so you actually see the track that left there as it was removing that burr few of its back and forth there we go that is for that another little nifty trick that you may have seen on sharpening stones is actually putting a six-inch ruler on the edge of the stone and then putting the plane blade on it and polishing the bevel like that so you're actually slightly elevating the blade and polishing the very edge of it this isn't an issue of plane blades it's quite a good way of doing it it polishes the edge really nicely and focuses all of the attention there but do not do this with chisels because it ruins their functionality a chisel needs a flat back a plane doesn't because it's mounted like this so it doesn't really affect it that's all really so I usually do this with my plane blades but I have somehow misplaced a five six inch rule so I won't do it this one that's still sharp enough on there so next thing we're going to do is take it to my strop which is this nice whole leather thing here again a little bit of the good stuff on there this super fine paste and much the same as a chisel all I'm going to do is pop the blade on there elevate it until I see the shadow on the end disappear and in this case you see all the paste squeeze out the end and just drag it back then after you've worked a few times on the bevel I'm gonna do it on the flat on the back drag it back go on the bevel again and once more on the back well laughs there we go right so let's just get all this crap off and that is a stupidly sharp plane blade stupidly stupidly sharp so there we go that is how you produce the camber on a plane blade now before you go off and do it one thing you really need to know about this is when that blade gets blunt after a few minutes or hours of use whatever when you take it back to sharpen on here well so you're going to get this on your thirty degrees stop get that angle spot-on again when you take it back to your diamond stand what you do not want to be doing is that exact same process again where you do ten strokes on either corner and five strokes at intermediate point and three in the middle the reason for this is you end up putting a massive curve on the end of your blade if you think of it like this after ten sharpens you have done 100 strokes on either corner you have done 50 on the intermediate points and you have only done 30 in the middle the difference between 100 strokes and 30 in the middle they're massive so instead what you want to be doing is remember the five points but only do five strokes on each of them this time so I'm going to go on here one two three four five one two three four five intermediate points one two three four five one two three four five one two three four five in the middle and that is keeping the curve on the edge of your blade but maintaining it at a constant radius you do not want to be changing your bench plane blades into scrap paint days because that would just make an absolute mess of it but there we go as you can see nice and easy to sharpen plane blades a little bit more complicated than a chisel but overall really not much to worry about so the same rules for that apply on water stones on Diamond stones and oil stones on scary sharp sandpaper whatever exactly the same rules but that is how I sharpen most of my plane blades exceptions to this would be if I had a designated shooting board plane where I wanted the blade to be perfectly square then I wouldn't bother putting a camber on it because there's no need to it's a little bitter effort but otherwise pretty much on every single one of my planes including my block plane I have a camber because I find it so incredibly useful so in a future video I'm going to show you how I set up my planes and how I get them taking those silky smooth shavings and yeah I hope you find that video useful again Chuck any I really shouldn't be waving this around Chuck any questions in the comments start over fights you won I'll get involved in yeah give you something yeah I've got a sharp blade watch yourself yeah see you next time

Channel: Matt Estlea

Views: 528,746

Rating: 4.6692691 out of 5

Keywords: How to sharpen a plane blade, How to sharpen a plane, How to put a camber on a plane blade, how to sharpen tools, how to use a honing guide, how to regrind a blade, difference between primary and secondary bevel, what angle to grind chisels to, what angle to sharpen chisels to, what angle secondary bevel to use, how to take apart a plane, woodworking, woodwork, sharpening, chisel, plane, blade, tutorial, sharpening tutorial, lie-nielsen, waterstone, tormek, dmt, diaflat

Id: vtCAbP_B4as

Length: 15min 38sec (938 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 18 2017