Caught WW Mag in faux pas

[sawduster]

Chris Schwarz wrote an article, "Bench Planes: The System of Three" for Woodworking Magazine (Winter 09) in which he is showing Stanley Type Planes and using the Stanley Bench Plane numbering system to identify the different sizes to be used. In the article he is talking about bevel angles of cutting irons at one point and comments that "37 to 45 degrees is ideal for a plane set up for roughing . . ." He goes on to say that a cutting iron bevel angle greater than 45 degrees would make the plane very hard to push. Actually, it would make the plane very easy to push since the Stanley (and other) bench planes are bedded at 45 degrees and, as shown in the first pic below, would result in the edge of the cutting iron not touching the wood, but instead the back of the bevel would skate right along the surface, possible burnishing the wood, but not cutting.



Note the difference in the second pic below showing a 45 degree bedding angle and a 35 degree bevel on the cutting iron.



I have sent him an email with copies of these same pics taken from a quick SketchUp drawing I did.

[dcarter636]

One little word made such a difference in the whole message, bed angle vs bevel angle is apples vs oranges.

[TDHofstetter]

Good catch, Jer!

[sawduster]

Actually, not such a good catch. Believe it or not, he emailed me tonight and asked me where in the article I was referring to, and upon my fifth reading or so, I finally figured out he was talking about pitch angle though I had construed it as bevel angle.

[TDHofstetter]

Ah, well. It happens.

Funny to think about, and a buncha' folks have a hard time getting their minds around it, is that a low-angle plane doesn't always provide a lower effective "rake". If the plane's bedding angle plus the bevel angle comes to more than 45 degrees (and that sometimes happens), the effective rake of the plane is higher than that of an ordinary high-angle plane. Like... if the iron is ground at 35 degrees and the plane's bedding angle is 10 degrees or higher, the bevel-up iron's effective rake is the same as, or higher than, that of an ordinary bench plane bedded at 45 degrees. Lots more support behind the iron, though, and you do get the option of regrinding the iron to increase that rake.

[sawduster]

One of my few modern planes is a Veritas low angle bench plane and I got a second iron for it. One I keep ground at a low angle for use on a shooting board, the other iron I have ground so the final cutting angle is 55 degrees, five higher than my Knight coffin smoother. Most of the time it stays set up for the shooting board since that was the main reason I got it, but in those few cases when the 50 degree Knight doesn't handle the job, . . .

[admin]

Well, there is a pleasing finding from all this; we know that at least one of the authors does read emails he gets. There's a whole bunch of 'em who like to act like reading emails is below 'em. That's even more prevalent with hunting and firearms magazines. Their word is law, all uneducated 'amateurs' needn't bother them.

I do like knowing if I have a question about the guys writing to clarify a point ,I'm liable to get an answer!

[sawduster]

Even more unusual of Chris is that he was reading his work email at home on a Saturday night. The fella is obviously dedicated to his job, but also does need a life. ;D

[admin]

But Jer, I used to regularly work from home on saturday...

Oh, I see whatcha mean now! lol.

[lexrex]

I have met Chris, I'm about 2 hours from the PWW shop and went down for a LN event. He is a genuine guy and takes his time to talk with people and answer as many questions as he can. All around good guy in my book. He also doesn't take vendor freebies and if he reviews a tool, he buys it himself or sends it back.