Popular Mechanics (South Africa)
BENCH CHISEL PRIMARY BEVELS
20.00°
(fore plane)
#62, #62½, #5, #5½, #6
Straight arris with fractionally eased corners.
Heavy shavings at between 45° and 90° to the grain.
Medium to fine shavings at 45° and with the grain.
Scrub plane
Jointer plane
Smoothing plane
Producing accurate bevels on plane blades is exactly the same process that’s used on your chisels (refer to part 2 in the April issue). You’ll want to create mirrorflat backs, sensible primary bevel angles and small secondary bevels. The difference begins, though, when you need to ease the corners of the arris for smoothing planes or when creating a curved arris, as in the case of a scrub plane.
Scrub planes function best with a curved arris, which is part of a three-inch (76 mm) radius. The blade is intended to take heavy cup-like shavings at angles that aren’t parallel to the grain of the wood. The best way to achieve a great arris on a scrub plane is to sharpen the blade in a figure-eight pattern entirely by hand (using no honing guide) through the varying whetstone grits. With a little practise, you can also easily sharpen across the arris by hand, using a side-to-side action.
All rebate (rabbet) planes and shoulder planes are easily sharpened and honed via a honing guide. They are the simplest to sharpen and require nothing more than a perfectly straight arris at 90° to the length of the blade, with either no secondary bevel or an exceptionally minute one.
Smoothing planes should feature an almost microscopic curvature to the arris, with the corners rounded off gently to eliminate ‘plane tracks’ that occur, usually caused by hand-pressure differentials during the planing action.
Jointer planes and jack planes only need to have the corners of the blades gently rounded, unless they are low-angle bevelup models, which allow you to have extra blades with associated smoothing profiles.
On router planes, the blades are very small and narrow, so great care and control should be used. Some router-plane blades can be removed from their vertical shafts and attached to a special jig for hand
sharpening using whetstones. Otherwise, the sharpening process is exactly the same as with plane blades and chisels.
Spokeshaves are available in the same two formats as hand planes: standardangle and low-angle. In the standard-angle type, the bed angle is at 45° and it should be sharpened with a primary bevel of around 25° and a small secondary bevel. This applies to standard-concave-, convexand flat shaves.
Low-angle spokeshaves are wonderful, user-friendly tools. In this format, the bevel faces up and the back of the blade serves as part of the sole of the shave. I build my own and usually sharpen them at a primary bevel of 25° only. I’ve found that it’s unnecessary to use a secondary bevel on them.
If you follow the advice of this three-part tool-sharpening series, you should now be able to get the best out of your hand chisels, planes and spokeshaves. Sharpening really shouldn’t be regarded as a chore … rather look at it as a meditative process. For me, sharpening and honing in my workshop is an absolute pleasure. There are few things more rewarding in woodwork than achieving a great arris, reassembling and setting up the tool, and then taking the first sweet shavings from a favourite timber. If you devote patience and attention to your sharpening processes, it will pay you back a thousand fold over the years.