Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Blade upgrade

A quick one. 

The end result:


 As you can see the edge is a bit slanted. I didn't want to grind too much of the steel since still need to make the ura nice and flat I rather have some room to spare.


The small contraption for thicknessing filing. Tape helps to keep the bastard in place. On the background is another handle model, just wax and oil tho, larger than the previous but still a tad too small for that monstrous file. The best was to draw file it to get a nice even texture on teh back:


There you can see the slant. And the lamination, and the wrought iron.

Before you scream for me butchering a japanese blade into fitting a lie nielsen, let me show you the mirror side. (Still need to work a bit on it, but will be done in subsequent sharpenings.)


I had to grind pretty much 5mm on each side of the blade, it was left on the body and rust ate all the hagane where it was making contact with the wood, and on other places, still didn't manage to take away all the pit. The good thing of working with a japanese blade is that you can grind only the hagane holding the blade at 45 degrees from the stone and then simply file or saw the wrought iron, making for a faster job. 

I still need to make the groove where the adjuster fits, but I'm thinking that maybe that's a job for a milling machine. At the moment I just retreat the adjuster and push the blade if I need to. This is plane that mostly works in one setting only though.

That's it. 5 usd rusty blade turned into state of the art upgrade for western planes. (You may wonder why I own a brass plane? Well, small japanese planes are a tad too light for my taste, so in contrast to bench planes, here I do want metal in the body.)

 

5 comments:

  1. Each to their own but that is pretty sweet the way that if they don't make it you make your own.Kudos.

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    1. a certain freedom, I like to think. And a better edge, of course.

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  2. You could just make friends with a good smid like I did with Bernard. He's helping me with all my blacksmithing needs.

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    1. we don't have smids here in the country, at least not the ones that make tools. I heard somewhere because the spaniards that came here didn't have trees so never learnt to make axes like the vikings. or the japanese. I may get myself an anvil I can arrange someone to pick it up for me and then start my own smid at my dad's, we have the forge and bellows already. I'd also like to get a milling machine, you will see why on the next post.

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  3. Swords from the Spanish city of Toledo had a high reputation. It might be that Spain prefered to export or it might have been considered as a military secret about which indians (and others) should not learn. ( just speculation)
    England had to steal the gun manufacturing secret from Austria to be able to fight the Spanish Armada.
    Sylvain

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