There are times when I cannot figure out why a handplane is leaving nasty tracks on my boards. The iron isn’t chipped (as least as far as I can see). And the sole doesn’t have any scars or burrs (that I can feel). Even after I hone and polish the blade, the tracks persist.
I could fiddle-fart around with it, or I could hit the “hard reset” button. Though the hard reset seems like more work, it’s always faster than tinkering here and there with the tool.
Step 1: Grind the bevel as if it were chipped
Normally when I grind an iron, I’m trying to shrink the secondary bevel. During grinding, I leave a tiny bit of secondary bevel. This helps prevent me from overheating the blade by accident. A thinly ground edge can heat up in seconds.
When I do the hard reset, I assume the iron is chipped. So I grind away the secondary bevel. Then I grind a little more. I keep a cup of water on hand to cool the blade after each touch on the grinder.
This creates a big burr on the backside of the tool. So before I take another step, I remove the burr on my finest polishing stone. Start with the edge off the stone. Pull the iron onto the stone. That’s the safe way to remove a big burr.
Step 2: Round the corners of the blade
I use a cambered iron in all my bench planes. The corners are not helpful. So on my jointer and smooth plane, I remove them with my diamond flattening plate. (The camber on my jack plane blade is heavy enough that its corners don’t touch the wood.) I start with the plane iron on its side. I pull it back and rotate it up so the iron’s cutting edge almost touches the diamond stone. The rounding is small – maybe a 1/16" radius of a circle. But it helps stop tracking.
Step 3: Camber the iron
Then I hone and polish a 35° secondary bevel. I work the corners with extra pressure and strokes on my honing stone (a #1,000-grit Shapton Pro) to create a curved cutting edge. I prefer a 37-1/2' radius curve* (give or take). Honestly, just look at the photo. This is what I see when I put an aluminum straightedge on the cutting edge.
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