Musings

Restoring Infill #1 – Obtaining Functionality (Simplified Sharpening)

With the sole flattened and all the moving parts verified as functional, I quickly brought the iron up to snuff.  The “cutting edge” when I got it bore an eerie resemblance to the smile of a pre-adolescent who was missing half of their baby teeth.

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My tools for whipping the bevel into shape were the Lie-Nielsen honing guide, an angle jig for the honing guide with several angles pre-set so I could get the rig ready to go in about five seconds, and my 50-cent granite lapping plate made from a piece of salvage counter backsplash.

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For a long time I used the slab freestanding, but recently I glued it down to a piece of plywood to allow for better attaching of the 60-grit sanding belt I use to really get things going.  In this case it took a dozen strokes or so to remove the gap-toothed effect and establish a new bevel.

 

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I moved the honing guide to my jig for holding my diamond stones and took a half dozen strokes on each of the 220-grit and 1000-grit surfaces.  I removed the iron from the honing jig and took a dozen strokes free-hand on my 8000-grit water stone, a half dozen free-hand pull strokes on the wood polishing plate charged with 0.05 micropolish powder and was ready to reassemble the plane.

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The results were immediate and satisfying, and with the functionality assured I marched forward with the “purdyin’ up” of the tool, a critical component since it is a proven fact that beautiful tools work better than uglier tools.  I read that somewhere on the interweb, so it must be true.