She's a cutie!
Veritas' small bevel-up smooth plane
[soundtrack : Swingrowers - ‘That's Right!’]
The other day I went by the post office and picked up a parcel from my Swedish purveyor of quality tools. Among a handful of books (God bless Lost Art Press) and a couple of tapered reamers there was a small Veritas bevel-up plane that they sell as a smoother but that I think of and will set up and use as a block-plane, i.e. for planing end-grain. About the same size as a #3, she’s a real cutie.
I always like to dress my new planes: I give their noses and edges a round-over so as to make them a bit less ‘bumpy’ (if that makes any sense to you :-)
And then I like to check the flatness of her sole by giving her a rub on some medium grit abrasives.
As expected, she’s well within tolerances, as have all my Veritas planes been.
I always order 2 blades / irons with any new plane. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to switch to a fresh blade and power on when you’re in the middle of a job and have ‘got your blood up’ instead of changing gears and settling down for a honing session. I like to hone in the morning, before beginning the working day proper. In the case of this plane I will set up the two blades with different geometries: one with as low a cutting angle (and as acute an included angle) as possible for softwoods, the other quite a bit steeper (and ‘blunter’) for hardwoods. These preferences develop over time, as I get to know the plane… Here’s my honing corner:
I give my plane-blades a back-bevel (you wouldn’t sharpen only one side of a knife, right?) and have knocked together a couple of magnetic honing jigs to hold the blades while doing so. I call them ‘the Magnetic Charlesworth Contraptions’.
As you will have noticed, I hone using self-adhesive abrasive sheets on float-glass. I have 5 grades of grit on each side of the glass; one side coarse for secondary bevels and one side fine for everyday honing of the tertiary (cutting) bevels. For lubrication I use Baby Oil / Vaseline Oil thinned with White Spirit. I dry the abrasives off after use and store the glass plates in dust-proof boxes. It works well.
When I need to re-establish or change a primary bevel angle I use a bench grinder followed by long strokes on 80-grit GOLD 3M abrasive.
I prefer Lie-Nielsen’s honing guide, but the new side-clamping one from Veritas is also decent.
I usually finish off with a light lick on a leather strop laced with 0,5 micron honing compound.
So sharp it’s bloodthirsty.
This little cutie will complete my selection of two-handed block-planes. It’s a joy and an ease to have just the right plane for the job.
