I see at Highland that Veritas have a skew jig for the MK11:
A long time ago, back when I first bought the Veritas MK11, I also bought the Veritas "Small Blade" holding jig. I did not do any research, Veritas had a special on so I read the spiel about it being "Ideal for holding those difficult to handle small blades you find in spoke shaves, and small instrument maker's planes" and that was enough for me, cause I thought if nothing else it would be just the ticket to help out when honing those little Ibex plane blades by hand.
Well the small blade holding jig arrived and I soon realised that it should have been called "The 'SHORT WIDE' blade holding jig" because with it's two rare earth magnets and limited travel of the back stop for the blade, it was about as useful for anything narrower or longer than a spoke shave blade as a turd on a stick and to top it off, it was only compatible with the MK1 jig and not the MK11 it had arrived with.
Well I threw it in the clutter draw where it could be put down to experience and mix with the rest of the bad choices in there and I let the years go by. Then one day I came across a good deal on the Veritas MK1 with the angle jig thingy included, I did not need the tool but bought it anyhow just to throw in the draw and keep the other useless bits like the blade holder company (as we do
).
Anyhow recently I noticed that the clutter draw was getting harder to open so decided that I had to either sell some of this stuff off, or put it to use, and being the kind of guy who hates to sell off anything, I was inspired to take to that useless Veritas small blade holder with and end mill bit. I ended up cutting two longitudinal slots into the small alloy plate that normally acts as the blade depth stop of the jig, each centred to one of the rare earth magnets in the main body of the jig. I made these rebates wide enough to accommodate the Ibex plane blade but a close enough fit to prevent side ways movement, and just shy of deep enough so that once in place, the backing plate would clamp down and lock two blades in position and in line with the rare earth magnets.
This modification works very well and I can now use the small blade holder as intended and in the MK1 jig. I can also use the angle gauge to repeat the bevel at will and because I bought a spare blade when I purchased the Ibex plane, I can work them both until dull and then sharpen both simultaneously with the same amount of effort and set up it would take to do just one.
Cheers
Kim
Login
Register
FAQ
