How To Sharpen A Scrub Plane ▪ Restoration Tricks You May Not Know

[Bang] I am restoring a set of historic tools and now it's time for the scrub plane. A scrub plane is used to remove lots of material in a short amount of time and I may show you some maintenance tricks you don't know yet. [Music: District Four by Kevin MacLeod] This one actually isn't in bad shape but nevertheless needs some love. The maker's mark is from Oskar Reumschüssel whose heirs still seem to run the company in a different way though. A few taps on the back make it easy to remove the blade. Whenever I have to sand flat surfaces I use a piece of table top with 80, 120 and 240 grit sanding paper glued to it. The handle was pretty loose and so I removed it because that also makes sanding the top a lot easier. Then I started on 80 grit and use a folded piece of sanding paper for the grooves. In the following I went over 120 grit to 240 grit. Wedge and handle got the same treatment. I use soaking wet cloth to wipe off sanding dust. While the wood dries I can take care of the iron. It's actually in pretty okay shape and made by Prym - a company that still produces plane irons. To remove some of the patina I fastened it in a vise and worked on it with a steel brush bit. Make sure to wear eye protection if you also do so. After the wood has dried you will notice that the surface is now rough from loose fibre ends that stand up. This is actually a good thing because when you now sand them off with 400 grit the wood will be absolutely slick. I use another plane to flatten the sole. If you don't have a plane yet that's a catch 22. So you can watch my jack plane restoration video for an alternative method. I used a piece of scrap wood to check if the depth was set really shallow. After I fastened the body in a vise upside down I could carefully plane the sole. You can use a pencil to make marks. This helps to identify high and low spots. Breaking the edges helps the plane not to leave dents. To glue the handle back in place I mixed the same amount of two epoxy components. I then put it on handle and plane body. All excess needs to be wiped off. I clamped both parts together and let the glue harden over night. This gave me time to take care of the iron's back where you can still see the factory marks. Usually you need to get the back really flat once in a tool's life time if you want to have a really sharp edge. If you are using sharpening stones you could use a wet towel but a special holder works best to keep my diamond stones in place for me. As such an initial flattening can get pretty messy you may want to wear gloves. Water with a bit of dish detergent works fine as grinding fluid on diamond stones. I first put the back of the iron on a 400 grit sharpening stone and started grinding it down. This can take up to a few hours if you do it by hand. So you may want to cheat here and use a power tool instead. As you can see I had a big low spot at the tip and another one further back. If you have difficulties identifying such areas you can use a sharpy or pencil to draw a pattern. All of it needs to be removed. I realized that the 400 grit stone would not take off material quickly enough and switched back to 140 grit. There was still a low spot further back but the important thing is to have everything flat at the tip. Now I could switch to the next finer 400 grit stone again. If you have water stones like my next finer 1000 grit stone you need to let them soak in water for about ten minutes before you use them. You also should level them before each major sharpening as only a flat stone creates a flat surface. Mine had a big low spot in the center which is quite typical. You can notice how the surface gets slicker with every stone. I continued on 3000 grit. It's arguable if this is too fine for a rough tool like a scrub plane but my experience is that you need less power when you work with a tool that is sharpened this way. In the meantime the epoxy had set and I could get back to the plane's body. There was still some excess I needed to get off to be able to apply some finish. Now I could rub on some kettle boiled linseed oil. It makes the colours of the wood pop nicely. Remember that rags with kettle boiled linseed oil can self-ignite. So it's good practice to put them into water after use. I usually let each coat dry over night. After the first one had dried I gave the wood a final sanding with 600 grit. Some may call this over the top but the result just feels so nice. Furthermore the mouth needed a bit of re-shaping. I then applied a second coat and let it dry again. This gave me time to take care of the blade that was treated with a really rough stone. When you put the tip on the stone you can feel the angle when you tilt it up and down. A speed square became handy for me when I checked if I was at the 35° I was aiming for. There are different methods to sharpen the iron. One is to move it in a figure eight pattern. Another option is move it forth and back while tilting it a bit with each stroke. The method I prefer is to turn the stone by 90° and move the blade to the sides while tilting it. This gives me the best control and allows me to use the stone's surface the most evenly. Again you can use a pencil or sharpy to help you identify low spots. You need to remove all marks. Passing over to 400 grit I needed to get rid of the burr that started to build up. Usually one gentle pull on the back is enough to remove it. This works the same for 1000 and 3000 grit. Additionally I like to polish my blade on a strob. This is a piece of leather on a board. I rubbed abbresive material on the top. Then I pulled back the blade with firm pressure while tilting it a bit on each stroke. This makes it shiny like a mirror. The burr is removed just like on the sharpening stones before. As a result the blade is ridicously sharp especially for a scrub plane. To prevent the steel from rusting I treated it with an oily rag. It's stored in a closed glass. That way I only need to add a few drops of oil whenever I use it. Before inserting the iron I placed my finger below the plane's mouth to control the depth. I then let it slide in having the flat side point to the front. Next the wedge needed to be inserted. Finally I fixed everything with a few taps of my mallet. The plane went easily through the wood while removing lots of material. It left very clean deep cuts that can be flattened with a jack plane later on. I am really happy about the way this restoration turned out. Before I start building a proper work bench I will restore my bench plane. Tell me if you would like to see a video about this project or if you have tips for it down in the comments. If you enjoyed watching T cube click the like button to let us know you want more videos about free video editing. Get cubed to get notified about the latest news and uploads and subscribe or follow us on your favorite social media and spread the word to help us improve. Thank you for any support it really helps.

Channel: T³ Tips Tricks Tests

Views: 5,922

Rating: 4.9006209 out of 5

Keywords: How to sharpen a plane, historic wooden scrub plane Makeover, Schrubbhobel schärfen, No Honing Guide Tutorial, Guide Without Sharpening Jig, scrub plane Sharpening Instructions, traditional grind, How to make a plane sharp, Upcycling GDR Heritage Tool, Vintage Tool Handle Restoration, DDR Werkzeug Restauration, Woodworking Maintenance, Historic, Historisch, plane blade, Water Stones, Diamond Stones, Kettle Boiled Linseed Oil, XXLRay, T³ Tips Tricks Tests

Id: dIZQjnrYGek

Length: 7min 26sec (446 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 30 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Awesome accent. Really good walkthrough for restoration.