Back of my Stanley Sweet Heart Blade

A while back, I restored an old Stanley #5C plane I got on auction, and I noticed that the blade was marked as a Stanley Sweet Heart. I also noticed that the blade seemed to be a laminated blade, that is there were obviously two pieces of steel making up the cutting edge.

Today, while sharpening it, I really went to town on getting the back of the blade flat and shiny

Boy when I was done could you ever see the two pieces of steel.....


I took a lot of pics, as it is hard to take a picture of something that is shiny, it may not look that shiny in those pics, but if you look at this pic......


... yep, it is shiny

This blade gets very sharp, but I'm finding it is a bit brittle, it will chip if it encounters a knot or something very hard in the wood. It is best left to taking a very very fine finishing cut, at that, it does well.

Cheers!

Nice. Now that's scary sharp.

Stu is this a result of Garrets visit? Is this what he considers is needed to get to "really sharp zone". I remember you saying after he visited that what you thought was sharp was not near where he is at.

Judging by this picture if it is the case i better have a sharpening weekend in my shop.

Nice polish is what i would call that finish. Did you get that right stropping it on your mdf wheel?

Rob Keeble said:

Stu is this a result of Garrets visit? Is this what he considers is needed to get to "really sharp zone". I remember you saying after he visited that what you thought was sharp was not near where he is at.

Judging by this picture if it is the case i better have a sharpening weekend in my shop.

Nice polish is what i would call that finish. Did you get that right stropping it on your mdf wheel?

Click to expand...

On a good day, I might be about 50% of what Garret was doing for sharp, on my stones no less!

It all comes down to technique, a physical skill, Garret has it from years and years of practice, I'm trying to get that way. I practice my sharpening every chance I get, it is all about muscle memory, body position and the feel you have for sharpening, I'm slowly but surely improving..... I think

I'll tell you what I saw sharp as being, take a piece of softwood, pine is what I had on hand, now sharpen your tool, chisel, plane blade etc. On the endgrain of the piece of wood, slice down, do a paring cut, to cut the end grain, then grab your reading glasses or even your loupe, and look at the endgrain. If you tool is really sharp, the endgrain will be smooth and shiny, no crushing of the endgrain. I saw Garrett do this with a LN chisel that he had, the endgrain was glassy smooth, the chisel was sharp. With my best effort I still have a lot of crushed endgrain, but I will improve, it just takes time to learn this manual skill is all.

I hope that explains it a bit more

PS this is MY opinion.

Have fun with your rehabbed plane!

Stu, are you freehanding or using a guide?

Freehanding