sharp/dull blade drawing ECE small map
Finest abrasives.
Microbevels front and back.
Use a jig.
Copyright (c) 2002-15, Brent Beach

Test Summary

This blade looks much like modern production blades from Stanley and Record. The literature with the plane says that it is "made of extra-tough chromium vanadium steel".

E.C.E.

E.C.E is a German based maker of wooden planes. This blade came with a plane of relatively recent production.

The Test

April 30, 2002.

As with all my other tests, I honed three front and back bevels using 15, 5, and 0.5 micron 3M micro abrasive paper.

The front bevel, 200 X magnification, after the 0.5 micron paper.

In this sharpening, I twisted the jig to the direction of travel differently on each grit. In this lighting, the 15 micron scratches go up from right to left, the 5 micron scratches go up from left to right, and as usual the 0.5 micron scratches are not visible.

sharp
The front bevel, 200 X magnification, after 50 passes along 4 foot douglas-fir board. The wear bevel is about 8 pixels wide.

This picture shows the wear bevel, but it looks like the 5 micron scratches are no longer present. The exact placement of the external lighting source makes a big difference in which scratches are visible. In this case, the light position required to get the wear bevel to show up leaves the 5 micron scratches so poorly lit as to disappear.

50 passes
The front bevel, 200 X magnification, after 100 passes. The wear bevel is about 10 pixels wide. 100 passes

LINKS

Check out my jig page for a simple jig you can make in your shop, along with a sharpening set up using sheet abrasives, that reliably produces excellent edges, for all types of irons.

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