I recently noted that we had a decent quality e.c.e primus plane.
A number of our metal planes have issues so I decided to get the primus plane working.
As usual this process starts by repairing the blade and chip breaker. I took the blade and plane home as I have been doing each time a blade has needed repairing, for almost as long as I have been a member.
I tried to sharpen the jointer plane for another member recently. In ten minutes of sharpening I went nowhere near the point of the tool. Of the four bevels on the blade the secondary bevel was enormous as was the radius on the tip, hence ten minutes of sharpening was totally futile. The jointer plane was in that state for at least six months. I took that blade home and reground that too. It requires about 30 seconds to get a sharp edge now.
We don’t have a grinder suitable for woodworking blades, so obviously our blades get damaged and stay that way until I take them home. It’s inconvenient taking blades home to regrind them.
Setting up the plane would be pointless without first repairing the blade. Are you noticing a theme here?
I repaired a couple of chips in the sole of the plane, flattened the heavily dished sole, flattened the chip breaker, de-rusted the chip breaker, adjusted the wedge and reground the blade. You can see in the photos the only shaving the plane took prior to my work was a thick shaving down the dished portion of the sole. The plane now takes a shaving which is thin enough to read through, from the identical piece of wood.
I could improve this plane further by regrinding the chip breaker to 70 degrees. This would allow the plane to take tear out free shavings against the grain. The chip breaker is the Japanese style which can be set up to allow tear out free cuts, against the grain, if they are reground to lean forward over the cut.
Adjusting the blade is done with a hammer blow to the front of the plane if you want a heavier cut, and to the rear of the plane if you want a lighter cut. Lateral adjustment is made with a hammer tap. There is a small pot of micro crystalline wax beside the lathe. Wiping this on the sole will further improve the function.
Setting up and maintaining tools is the easiest win in woodworking, if you have the right tools.
Wooden plane functional
This is a great job, thank you for the effort (on this and other planes).
Regarding the chip breaker, what’s the current angle? How much would we need to take off in order to achieve 70°?
Right. I am glad you asked. First off I should say this absolutely works. I had known about this for about 4 years and had even reground my two Japanese style chip breakers to the appropriate angles. I simply forgot. I can now plane figured wood in the wrong direction and get zero tear out. This is based upon research, done by two Japanese professors, they filmed the whole experiment, the results are self evident.
The chip breaker in question is messed up.
I can guarantee that I can set it to the correct angle. I can’t guarantee it will look pretty.
It will work, it may not look pretty, who cares if it produces a blade which doesn’t tear out, regardless of direction.
The blade is bedded at 50 degrees, so the chip breaker will need to be set to 65 degrees. Meaning the chip breaker will be angled forward over the cut by 25 degrees. It can be set at 70 degrees also, either will work.
My Japanese style chip breaker is set to 70 degrees, on a blade bedded at 45 degrees, so that gives a 25 degree forward slant to the chip breaker.
This works. I just planed some curly red oak, with reversing figure, against the predominant grain direction with absolutely zero tear out.
The chip breaker needs to be set approximately 0.3mm from the edge.
I think it’s worth doing, I don’t care what it looks like and it’s entirely possible I can get it looking OK. This is not at all difficult to do, it is easy to do and it is a game changer.
You can see the results of planing against the grain using my conventional chip breaker, loads of tear out. Then the Japanese chip breaker set up as I propose, planing against the grain of curly red oak, zero tear out. Crazy. I think it’s worth doing.
Currently the angle is about 30 degrees, this does virtually nothing to inhibit tear out.
Even a standard Japanese chip breaker would be set at 50 degrees, with a 40 degree bedded blade. Meaning the chip breaker is at 90 degrees in relation to the surface of the cut. Even at this angle the chip breaker isn’t particularly effective. Less than this angle ie 30 degrees, you effectively have a wedge. Completely useless against tear out. This style of chip breaker is supposed to be set at a minimum of 50 degrees, with a 40 degree bedded blade. Our plane is bedded at 50 degrees so the chip breaker would need to be 40 degrees, minimum, before it stops being a wedge.
It simply needs to be angled forward over the cut, by 25 degrees and then all the good stuff happens.