Best selling wood projects - A Damaged Plane Blade Bringing It Back to Life

Best selling wood projects

I received in the mail a much abused Turner handplane blade from Dylans newly acquired number 5 jack.
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Turner Hand Planes

Here it is as he received it:

The blade is near full and shows signs that it has been sharpened in the past.

Sadly someone has abused the cutting edge over its life, so that it now looks like this:

One corner is missing and there is a chunky chip out of the edge near the other corner.  The bevel has become rounded chipped and jagged.

 It is easier to see the damage up close .........

The back shows that a previous owner tried to flatten as part of the sharpening process, but that is such a while back that rust has started to appear.

First step will be to square off the blade by grinding back the old bevel to remove all the chips and jagged points - leaving the blade straight from one corner to the other.
Bench grinder to the rescue.

Care must be taken to keep the edge cool so that the steel doesnt "burn" and lose its temper.

The edge, ground square from corner to corner.  Grinding a new bevel comes next.  Most handplane blades like this one use a bevel of 30 degrees so thats what I will use.

Once the new bevel is ground, it needs honing to remove the coarse grinding marks and to begin to form the cutting edge.

This bevel is well formed but there is a dag of wired edge on the left corner that will hone off on the oilstones as a secondary bevel appears.
This will be honed at 35 degrees along the front edge of the bevel.

Ill use coarse, then fine oilstones, and then finally a hard white arkansas stone for polishing.
This is so similar to the chisel sharpening that I showed back in April 2012 that I will use an image from there:

Just think of this chisel as the Turner plane blade OK.
Sadly, I packaged the blade up and posted it off before getting a shot of the finished bevelled and sharpened edge - rats!

When it arrives  it will go back in Dylans number 5 Turner plane just like this one:

Happy shavings to all.
Best selling wood projects