Wow! How sharp is that blade?

Feb 10, 2013 10 Replies

They could use those shavings for the hardwood ply at the BORG.

Yeah! but only after punching some voids in the veneer. ;~)

For those of who don't plane shavingsthat thin, 10 microns is about 4 ten-thousandth's of an inch.Less than half of .001". I just checkedwith my micrometer, and a thick sheet of paper from my copy machine is .006. So the sheet of paper would be about 15 times as thick as the shaving.

They didn't mention the woodthey were shaving, but Iwould guess that it's very soft, like Lime or Basswood.

Love it .... Long live Ninja planing!! LOL

That must be how they make toilet paper for public restrooms. Art

Impressive. If you showed me those shavings I'd have guessed some kind of microtome set at around 30 degree blade angle. Those guys are freehanding at close to 45 degrees.

We Wreckers call those "one-sided shavings". (We have to sweep them off the ceiling as all one-sided shavings float.)

This happens when we ScarySharp(tm) the blade so well, we have to move them slowly through the air so we don't split atoms with 'em. (So said Paddy O'Deen '96)

Without skewing the plane at the usual 15 or so degrees.

0.001" = ~25.4 microns. I regularly mike them down to 1 mil. Any lighter set, and the iron doesn't want to bite. They're obviously using very nice steel. And paying for it.

They benefit from using hand forged steel. The hammering takes the relatively large carbides in the steel and mashes them into even smaller carbides.

I find with my O-1 or A2 steel planes and chisels that honing finer than an 8000 grit waterstone doesn't help. But with hand forged steel, then you can hone with even finer stones and the blade will actually get sharper.

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