Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello,
Do any of you radius the corners of your bench plane?
Ronald

Indeed I do. Just about 1/8" to keep the corner from digging in.

Steve

body or blade? i do slitly on the blade

brent

Blade.
Never thought of the body edge.
But it many very well help (float).
Ronald

Well dude , with 2012 just around the corner so to speak
me cut corners every were me can...including all me planes ... with the exception of me rabbiting plane.

blessing
Padma

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Audiences and dispensations on Thursdays ~ by appointment only.


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I radius the corners of my plane blades so they don't dig in.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Like Steven I radius the edges and corners of all my planes except like the Padma my rabbbiting planes. As for the blades I only radius my smoothing plane blade. All others are straight across.
Link

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Cut to size.....Beat to fit.....Paint to match.

How do you radius the corners of the blade? (as opposed to putting a radius/chamber over the whole edge). Do you just a file?

Cheers,

Stefan

All convex surfaces now are said to be "radiused"--at least on this forum. Another good word lost. Ironically, imprecision posing as greater precision.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

If you apply more pressure to the left side, then to the right side this will result in a curve across the width of the blade. However, for joining two pieces of wood together I assume you would want the surface to be planar, not slightly concave which will result from using a blade with a slightly convex edge. So then I suppose one should sharpen the jointer plane, (or which ever plane is getting used for this job) flat across the edge.

But then if you are jointing a piece that is wider than your blade width (multiple passes, overlapping perhaps?) you get torn wood fibers as the blade cuts a very slight rabbet in the wood.

Is this the logic behind rounding corners of the blade? If rounding the corners of the blade is distinct from putting a convex edge over the whole width of the blade, how does one do it?

Cheers,

Stefan

I "knock the corners off" my irons mostly because it is how I was trained to sharpen Japanese style irons. First the corners are beveled off so that the iron does not cut where it will cause a chip to get bound up when it meets the wood of the plane body, but then a second, small bevel is made on the flat face of the iron.



When I use the secondary bevel with western style plane irons I find that the line disappears and I also don't get chatter like I do when the corners are square. I believe it is because the a "sharp" corner of the iron passing through the wood has a tendency to grab and flex ever so slightly. The "softer" corner does not seem to grab as much.

Round or beveled I think taking the sharp corners off your plane irons is a good idea.

Greg N