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2008-tool-plane-tune-up

Hand Plane Tune-Up

I now have a small collection of 4 planes, which consist of two bench planes one from China (Harbor Freight) and one from India(Hartville Tool). The block plane came from China (Home Depot) and without knowing the true origins of my 14" Jack Plane i will guess it was made in the USA.

Now i have spent a considerable ammount (6-7 5hr days) of time working each of these tools on my sanding paper(3M & Norton), and float glass and have a few interesting things to report, namely WOW I HAD NO IDEA....

With just a little while (30min) on each 110 and 220 grit paper the difference in sole flatness is amazing! You will want to keep going, and will be amazed how far you can clean up all of these 'useless' tools making each sole nearly perfectly flat!

The steel for the blades is an interesting topic, and clearly a properly honed Hock blade in the old 14" jack was the show stopper, yet the 'cheap' steel performed well, once honed! The China steel was the dirtiest, hardest, and stayed sharp long on my redwood test block. The India steel was clean and less difficult to draw across the sand paper, but didn't stay as sharp as long as the China steel.

Of Note, the most untrue plane sole was the made in USA old 14" jack plane, with a couple casting blemishes, but these all disappeared in time, and there was only a small section of this sole that i didn't true, it can be seen in the first of those mirror images.

So the lesson to be learned is this: You _can_ buy a cheap plane and make it work well, but ONLY if you invest the time in properly tuning the tool!