A New IBC Blade For My Old Stanley #5

Stuart Ablett

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I went and bought myself a new IBC blade and chip breaker set for my old Stanley #5, I've not been happy with the old #5 since I bought an IBC blade and chip breaker set for my old Stanley #4 :D

It arrived today with two friends, that I'll get to in a moment.

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New blade, right out of the box, I did not even clean off the micro film of rust inhibitor from the blade and chip breaker set. I just spent 10 minutes or so filing the throat a bit to accommodate for the thicker blade, then making shavings like this, wow, very impressiveI got out the #4 and combined the two on the face of the board.....

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Did not take long at all, I'm so impressed with these blades!

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Next up I got two replacement blade for my LN #62, I got them on sale at Woodcraft, so for the price of one I got two!I plan on regrinding them to 38° and 50° these angles combined with the 12° bed on the LN #62 will give me effective cutting angles of 50° and 62° which should handle the curly grained wood, or at least that is the plan :rolleyes::D
 
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These blades are impressive, you can honestly tune up an old plane to very near what a very good expensive plane can do, at a fraction of the cost.


I got two regular blades for my #62 LN Low Angle Jack plane, this plane does very well on end grain, but not so well on regular wood, and very poorly on anything curly etc. One remedy for that, is to re-grind and sharpen the blade to a higher angle. I picked 38° for the first one, this gives me a working angle of 50°, better in regular wood and OK in curly stuff......


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Yep, does very well on that straight grained wood, how thin is it....??


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Thin yeah?


How about this....
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... yep thin!


Next up I'll be working on the second blank at 50° which will give me an effective cutting angle of 62°, which should handle the curly grain well.


Cheers!
 
Stu can you be more specific in your experience with these new blades.

Is it the thickness of the blade itself /type of steel as in hardness/ quality of flatness and finish ??

Reason being i nearly bought a new blade for my old Stanley #7 when i first got it. BUt Larry saved me and got me to properly sharpen my stanley original. It was from the true sweetheart generation and i found it was laminated steel as in two different types layed on top of each other.
I got down and did a decent job on the blade and it was superb and has kept its edge very well and has only required honing every now and then.

On my number 4 i got from my Dad i went out and bought a new Lee Valley equivalent and the only difference i have noticed is that the this is a thicker blade producing a degree of less chatter but ....the excercise you showed years back of seating the frog properly led to the plane being a better plane more than the blade did.

I can fully understand the angle aspect to the whole sharpening part but where i am in procrastinate mode is we have three pretty reputable suppliers in the market for equivalent blades

thinking here of Ron Hock, IBC , and Lee Valley.

Now how does one trully differentiate i dunno. They all are slightly thicker, all can be ground and sharpened to whatever angle one desires to use it at and some like LV offer their blades in two different hardness steels and now LV has that new steel they put on the chisels.

Your deal sounds sweet , was this a key part of your decision to go IBC.

I am afraid i find so much marketing hype surrounding one or other source that it gets me to the point of doing nothing.


I spent some time last night researching and considering this whole plane business.

we can get blades at around the $50 mark

Woodcraft has the new version 3 (duh takes them that many turns to make a decent premium plane) on sale for just over $100

Then LV has it seems modified their plane prices and they get to be just on the $200 mark and up

Then LN has theres still in the $300 range


So if i go back to my #4 and consider that i could get a woodriver without the frog issue of my stanley and a new blade to boot then they start to look competitive by comparison to a refurb stanley.

I know you have planes from at least both LN and LV and some old Stanley and there are so many voices and views mixed with emotions but i would like to hear some more detail on why you chose the IBC blade and its merits other than the angle and out of the box finish.

I suppose we creep into territory not dissimilar to table saw blades and which one is best. :)

Thanks
 
Yes Rob the thicker blade and chip breaker make a difference, and the new A2 steel is miles ahead of the old Stanley SW blades.
One reason for ME that I'll buy the IBC blade set to refurbish an old Stanley over buying a new Wood River plane is that that WR plane is from China, the IBC blades are made in Canada.
The edge on the old Stanley SW blades can certainly be made very sharp, but you will have to resharpen that blade several times before I'll have to resharpen my IBC blade. The IBC blade stay sharp longer, and deals with knots etc much better than the old Stanley SW blade, I too have one of the old laminated steel SW blades, and it can be very sharp, but damages easily compared to the A2 steel blade. For the #4 I would get the matching IBC blade, in my #4 I have a LV replacement blade, better than original, but it uses the same old thin chip breaker, for my #4 1/2 I got the IBC set, works much better.

I look at it this way, I'll not buy the stuff from China, personal choice there, so that is off the table for ME, so then I'm down to buying a new premium plane from LV or LN or refurbishing an old plane.

Matched set of IBC blades
#4 $84
#5 $84
# 4 1/2 $90
#7 $90
Total $348

LV #4 1/2 $229
LV #4 $199
LV #5 1/4 jack $229
LV #6 Fore $265
Total is $922
(I realize that these are not all straight comparisons, but close)

LN #4 1/2 $325
LN #4 $265
LN #5 $325
LN #7 $425
Total $1340

For the LV planes that is $574 more than the blades, and for the LN planes that is $922 more than just the blades.

The question then is how much can you buy a decent old Stanley plane for to put these blades into?
Certainly a nice Bedrock would be great, but they are expensive, the collectors pay top dollar for them. I think if you find decent user planes to tune up and house the IBC blades you will be ahead a lot in the money department, but I also realize that many enjoy the premium planes for more than just using them. I was/am looking for practical usability in my hand planes, and value too. For ME, after buying one set of IBC blades and putting it in my #4 1/2 I was sold, for ME it makes sense, YMMV. :D

Just to be clear, no diss on either the LV or the LN they are both companies that make amazing tools, that I would like to own a whole stable of one day, but for ME buying the blades, and refurbishing the old tools, let me spend the money on say a shoulder plane, that I would not have had the budget for otherwise.

I hope this helps!
 
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OK, this morning I got the second blade reground and sharpened for my LN #62 low angle Jack plane.


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I then went to work on some of the curly maple I have. I hit a small area first with my regular #5 Jack plane, this has the IBC blade set in it and it is sharp, but still, with a working angle of 42° I got lots of tear-out. I then moved to the #62 Low angle jack, with the blade reground to 50° which gives me a working angle of 62°, you can see the results below!


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Next to no tear-out, from here a card scraper and this board will be super smooth and have no tear-out at all.


Hard work pushing that plane with a blade at 62° but boy does it work well.


Cheers!
 
BTW to add to my other numbers, this is about what I paid for my used planes....

#7 $65
# 4.5 $55
#4 $25
#5 $35
Total $180

Not counting shipping, as I'd have to pay shipping for new planes too.
Now if you add the price of the IBC blades sets for all four planes that is a total of $528

$528 for four planes that will give the modern premium planes a run for their money, well I think if you are starting out in the hand tool market, you cannot beat this deal, sure the LN and the LV planes are really wonderful, and would be a welcome addition to anyone's stable of hand planes, but doing things this way, gives me more purchasing power to buy other planes that I also wish to have, I'm not wealthy enough to start off with all the toys I want, and I've not been doing this for nearly as long as some other guys, so that is what I do. I have four planes that really preform very well for a very reasonable price, and some sweat equity.

YMMV :wave:
 
I finally got the regrinding finished and some sharpening done, not 100% satisfied with the sharpening yet, some more polishing to do to get these blades up to a good level, you can't reach that level in one go out of the box, IMHO, the blades get better the more I use them and resharpen them.

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The three blades that will go into my LN #62 Low Angle Jack Plane

Top is 25° with the 12° bed gives a working angle of 37°
Middle is 38
° with the 12° bed gives a working angle of 50°
Bottom is 50
° with the 12° bed gives a working angle of 62°

A regular bench plane's blade is ground at 25
° bedded so you get a working angle of 45° This angle usually gives a lot of tear-out with difficult grained woods like say curly maple. I hope that I can avoid that with these two new blades.

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It is hard to take pics of shinny things :D
 
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