I ordered Sharpening Profiled Hand Tools DVD from Larry Williams of Clark and Williams Plane Makers the other day. Even though it’s produced by Lie-Nielsen I ordered it direct from Larry since I prefer to give my money direct whenever possible. I figured it would take 7- 10 days for the DVD to arrive. Nope, took three days!
The DVD is very well written with easy to follow step by step instructions on how to properly sharpen all types of molding planes. I’ve learned several new things watching the DVD that I hadn’t even thought of before when sharpening my molding planes. I was especially surprised on the chapter of how to properly sharpen a V gouge chisel. I have tried to sharpen a couple of mine in the past with total failure. Now I know the trick!
If anyone is interested in expanding your skill set and learn how to tune up wooden molding planes, this DVD is a no brainer.
Replies
The DVD is very well written with easy to follow step by step instructions on how to properly sharpen all types of molding planes.
I cant "read" a DVD... the folks on Knots Amaze me more and more...
(Sorry couldn't resist!) I am glad you enjoyed and found something you felt worth a mention!
Rich
Being a native Ozark-American (although I haven't lived there for 40 years), I am always eager to hear what Larry has to say about woodworking. Sounds like I may have to order to the DVD also. I need the info on sharpening a corner chisel. Picked up a good one inch corner chisel at an auction and hadn't figured out how to sharpen it.
Alan - planesaw
Mike,
I read Larry's DVD on sharpening profile hand tools before you did, and I agree with you fully. It is excellent. I too am a big fan of Larry. He and I have traded a number of emails in which he helped me on this subject before the DVD came out. I'd vote for him as one of the three most helpful folks in Knotsville.
Mel
Hi Mel,
I have Larry's other DVD Making Traditional Side Escapement Planes which is also an excellent video. I'd really love to make my own molding planes since I have a few missing in my set of hollows and rounds but unfortunately I can't afford the floats.
Mike
Mike - you can make the floats out of precision ground O1 steel and do quite well with them.
I made one edge float, and then got lazy and bought the rest, but I could very easily have made them all. My suggestion is to get O1 steel in 1/8th thickness and an inch or inch and a quarter width.
A bastard flat file and a couple of triangular files, and a decent hacksaw with an HSS blade and you can make your own.
I heat treated the one I made, I didn't quite nail it because I didn't have a broad enough source of heat when I did it, but it's plenty hard to use and still files. I think you could probably use them easily unhardened, too, but I haven't tried.
Biggest thing people without larry's video would need is to know the arc/angle of the wedge to be able to make a float that would be able to go down the cheek of the plane like the side floats, and fit like the cheek floats, but you have all of that info now that you have the video, so you could make them sized appropriately.
Figuring you already have a hacksaw, $20 in files, $5 for some decent hack saw blades and $25 in 1/8" by 1 1/2 inch by 36 inch O-1 steel and you could easily make four floats and decide later if you want to harden them (or at least the business end) with the setup you'll use to harden irons.
Perfect teeth in terms of looks aren't that important as long as they are all the same height.
Start with the edge float and cheek floats and see if you don't mind making them, and then move on to the side floats if you find you don't mind filing the teeth.
handle can be something as simple as glued (epoxy) on scrap pine and sand the harsh edges off.
Another option is to run the temper out of some old files (probably W1) and cut teeth in them and then reharden them. I'd bet a lot of the original ones were made from files. they're a little harder to heat treat (at least in my opinion) because there is a learning curve about how fast they cool and what hardness they end up.
Wow Thanks!
Really?! I didn't think about making my own floats. I already have bastard files, I'll just have to go buy some steel stock and give it a try.
Thanks David!!!
Only things I'd worry about making them are:
* no rake on the teeth
* all teeth the same height (like a saw without breasting, obvious reasons))
* start at the first tooth and then work back toward the handle (though if you end up with a part of a first tooth, you could just saw it off)
Takes a little while to cut the teeth in one, but it's doable in a half hour for the edge floats, and then go from there.
On a bed float, if you make one, I think you could get away with a lot fewer teeth as long as you have 10 or 15 good ones at the end, but that's just my opinion. Some people tune a bed with a blunted and hardened chisel without tempering the chisel, especially if the bed of the plane in question endgrain of an exotic.
Actually, I believe the floats from Lie-Nielsen have slight rake. It's been a lot of years since I made them regularly and I can't remember the exact angles. The edge floats have less rake than the side floats if my memory serves right. This is the opposite of saws but floats don't have fleam angles. We experimented with different rake angles when we first started making floats. There were certain properties we were learning to look for. We found that edge floats tended towards grabby when used for their ripping type of cut if the angle was was more than just a slightly raked tooth but that side floats, which work across the grain more like a plane traversing the wood, benefited from more rake.
I did file my first floats by hand using taper files. Even with a coarse tooth pattern of few teeth, I felt life was too short to do that again. When we first started milling the teeth it still took over an hour to mill 60 teeth into a side float. We eventually bought and modified a different mill to speed that up. I could gang half a dozen edge floats at the same time so edge floats were less labor intensive. There are, I believe 48 teeth in an 8 tpi side or edge float from Lie-Nielsen. That's a lot of hand filing.
I'd definately suggest the floats be hardened and tempered to about RC 50 so they can be filed for sharpening. As mentioned this takes a bit of equipment. I'm not sure it'd be easy to do accurately with a torch, even a big one, and we always used a furnace. Tempering was done by taking the floats to 800º for an hour. To accurately temper the floats, you'll need some type of furnace.
That said, I do have a financial interest in the floats available from LN. Because those floats are based on the designs we worked out, we get a royalty. It doesn't amount to much but it is nonetheless a financial interest .
Larry - thanks for the additional details. I should've probably clarified that I meant no negative rake (like an RAS blade, etc), but I get confused sometimes with what people think is negative rake and what is positive rake to the point that I don't like to put the qualifier on. And after I typed that, I recall staring at the first tooth on the LN side float and it clearly has some rake as you're trying to file the face of it without shortening it or changing its geometry.
The side float I made with no rake at all cuts well, though it is not as good of a tool as the LN. It works. As I mentioned, I could only get probably the first 20 teeth close to hot enough to get the job done with the heat setup I had I have endless scraps of 1/8 o-1, so for me, the cost of making more of them is just the cost of a file and the time to do it.
You're right also that it was a lot of filing to cut the teeth in, even to a 1/8" edge float, and I didn't make it quite as big as the LN float - time well tell if it's long enough, it has been so far, but the extra length of the LN version wouldn't hurt.
I was trying to think of other things someone could do to make a float, things I haven't done, and the only other thing that comes to mind is using spring steel from mcmaster carr that is already hardened about where you want it to be. Filing teeth in that would be no party, either, but if you're on a budget, sometimes you have to grin and bear it and maybe spread the filing out over several sessions in the shop, only adding teeth to the float farther back from the edge as you need them (and, of course, the teeth aren't going to come out looking perfect like the ones on the LNs). Spring steel 1/8" thick isn't cheap, either.
I am not sorry I spent the money on the LN versions - like every LN tool you see online without being able to see in person before buying, sometimes they "seem" a little expensive, but once you get them, you appreciate how well they're made and they're pleasant to use.
The other point to buying them and just sucking it up would be that I haven't yet seen an LN tool that really does poorly in resale. It's likely that just skipping the drama of trying to make the floats and getting right to making all of the planes you want would leave you with a set of floats that you could probably get most of your money back out of when you are done. Yet another of the benefits of buying LN tools. I won't sell mine unless the economy catches up with me, though.
Reading DVDs
"I read Larry's DVD on sharpening profile hand tools before you did, and I agree with you fully. It is excellent."
If you thought the DVD was a good read, you should try putting it in the machine and watching it!
Chris, '
You can watch DVDs if you want to. I read them. It is an Italian thing.
Mel
Thanks for the heads-up on the DVD. Sounds like a good one.
The other night I dreamt that I won the lottery and ordered a complete set of Clark and Williams planes. I'll be sure to include the DVD in the order. ;-)
Seriously, I'm greatly pleased that such tools are still available from manufacturers who care. Hats off to Larry and the other folks in his company.
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