I recently purchased a jointer plane and very unsatisfied with the blade that came with the plane. When I attach the chip breaker to the blade it will flex and not seat properly on the frog. Initially, I thought that I would need to work on the frog, but the blade is easily bent. Should a blade be this pliable? I guess my real question is should I complain to the very reputable retailer that I bought it from or just go get a Hock? Thanks in advance.
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Replies
I have an 1880s Bailey jointer plane. The Hock iron and chip breaker i put in it made it much better. The iron is thicker than the old one, and the chip breaker supports the iron better because it's thicker and flat, rather than hooked (?). Somewhere on FWW there is a comparison of replacement irons, and Hock is not listed as the best one, altho the Hock was not expensive and was a great improvement in my case. I also found it surprisingly easy to lap and hone the new iron on wet stones, with no jig. What is the make of your plane, by the way. I'm no expert, but hope this helps.
Tom
I recently bought a Hock plane and chip breaker with the A2 steel and found them very nice and really added alot of horsepower to my smoothing plane. I didn't want to do that again for my jointer though. Anyway, thanks for the post and look at my post to John.
Edited 2/19/2008 6:37 pm ET by FredWhite
It is possible that the chip breaker has too much of a bend to it forcing the blade to bend. A chip breaker is always a bit concave so that the nose of the breaker will bear tightly just above the the edge of the blade but I've never noticed a blade taking on a bow that interfered with the seating of the blade in the plane.
Good steel for blades costs money, if you have bought a plane from a cost conscious maker they may have gotten carried away with reducing the amount of steel in the blade. I'm curious, who made the plane?
John White
I am almost ashamed to admit it now that I am a little bit more aware of the various attributes of the various planes. I bought Anant's Kamal No. 7 handplane from Highland Hardware here in Atlanta, Georgia. It was supposedly the best of the cheaper planes. Now I wish I had spent the big bucks for a quality jointer. I am trying to flatten my new hard maple bench top and this poor seating is giving me a few fits. Regarding the blade and chip breaker issue. Let me state that I was very surprised to see what the real problem was myself. Initially, I purchased some cheap planes and became proficient at "truing them up" for me to use until I could purchase some more expensive ones without the wife knowing of it. When I purchased the Kamal I seated the blade on the frog just fine but noticed when everything went together I was seeing a rather large gap between the blade and the frog. I pulled the blade and chip breaker out and notice that it was indeed "bowed out". I put the blade in a vice and bent it backwards to try to offset the chipbreaker's effect and met with some success. That seems rather cheesy and was wondering whether I should go back to Highland and talk to them about this. The blade seems to me to be of a rather poor quality for stiffness given its size. I do not believe that the chip breaker is the source of the problem. I even tried to not tighten the chip breaker as much which led it moving instead of the blade.
The Anant planes are definitely "low end," so I'm not surprised to hear of your plight. While you can certainly return the plane to the dealer, don't expect another Anant to be any better. Replacing the stock blade with a Hock should certainly solve the problem.
-Steve
Yeah, I am starting to get that feeling, but I have lapped the sole and so I guess that I am stuck with the plane. But I didn't think that the blade should be that cheap. Thanks anyway.
Fred,I bought a #5 Anant (not Kemal) for myself two years ago and immediately replaced the iron with a Hock iron. The sole was flat and the sides were square to the sole. The length of the set screw is just barely long enough to attach the chipbreaker to the Hock iron. It cuts very well. It is my only #5 and I use it all the time.I bought another Anant #5 for my son. After I sharpened the blade that came with it, it cut very well also.I would definitely discuss the issue with Highland Woodworking. I have found them great to work with. I'll bet they will find a way to make this right for you.Hope this helps.
Yeah, I'll probably take the blade back to HH and see what they say with enough money should I not get the right answers. Anyway, thanks for the post and letting me know that I wasn't totally crazy for buying this plane. Now, after lapping the sole, adjusting the frog, and using the plane, I can see why people pay a lot of money for a plane that is set up perfect with several adjustments that are easily made. I say perfect, but I guess I don't until I buy one, huh?
Hi, FredNo, you aren't crazy, at least based on my two purchases. I have to say that my Lee Valley Veritas planes are much nicer than my Anants and older Stanleys. Given that you can buy about 3-4 Anants for the price of one LV or Lie-Nielsen, are they 3-4 times nicer??Anyway, to me, making the tools I have work well is a major source of the satisfaction I get from woodworking. If I had all A-1 perfect everything then I would have nobody to blame but myself!Best regards
Good point. I guess that all the trueing up of the substandard planes is getting a little old on me because I am just getting started and I am anxious to cut wood not steel. Nevertheless, I do agree that I have gotten a lot of satisfaction and understanding about planes by getting the substandard ones to work on first. Its like my workbench, now that I am putting it together I have realized I should have paid better attention to the quality of the wood in making the benchtop. I have alot of wood in it with reversing grain which is a little challenging to plane all by itself. Anyway thanks for the post.
Wanted to know your thoughts on the steel in my blade, is that kinda unusual or something that I should have expected from that caliber of plane. Thanks in advance.
Good tool steel is technically difficult and therefore expensive to make and once you get the raw steel it needs to be carefully machined and heat treated to turn it into a good cutter. Anant tools are, I believe, made in India where they are presumably taking advantage of lower cost and lower tech manufacturing for the plane casting, machine work, and assembly. Unfortunately the only way they can cut the cost of the blade is to use a lower quality steel and to make it thinner. That combined with possibly less than perfect heat treating can lead to the problems you are having. In some cases you get what you pay for.John W.
Thanks for the info. I am going to go back to HH and see what they think. But the way thanks for the help and I really enjoyed the discussion from everyone. I was a rookie and did not know what to expect. I am really happy to have this intellectual tool to add to my workshop. I'll let you know what I find out.
I went back to HH and was pleasantly surprised at their response. First, they told me that the problem was not the steel in the blade but rather the stiffness of the chip breaker which is very stout. They suggested that I bend it a little, but not the blade to take out the flexing of the steel blade. They also gave me a used chip breaker that was thinner and not as stout which I thought was very nice. They pointed out that the steel that I was using was of a very good quality. So I went back and tried to make the adjustments and was surprised to say the least. I was able to get the blade to set on the frog properly and finished planning my bench top last evening with very little chatter or tear out. I thought that was great considering all the reversing grain that I had in the hard maple I selected to make the top. Anyway thanks again for your posts.
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