Shopsmith Forums

Highland's Hardware sent out a news letter and in it there is a like to a video by Ron Hock on making of one of his planes. I thought you all might be interested in it. http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/blog ... nekit.html

I know Ron Hock is an expert on planes but one of the things he does that makes me shudder is he places planes blade side down on this bench.

I was trained under the threat of a paddling by my shop teacher never to lay a plane blade side down on a table. He gave two reasons
1. With the blade down it could and would damage the bench top.
2. With the blade down it could and would dull the blade all that much quicker.

We were trained to lay our planes on their side, to store them only where the blade if left extended past the bottom would be over a cavity in plane rest therefore the blade was never touching wood unless it was actually planing.

Yeah, Ed! We all (at least most) of us had that same lesson. My eyes were wide open when I read that Ian Kirby puts his planes down on their sole. When he answered a question about it in one of the woodworking mags, he said it doesn't hurt a thing. He sets his down on a wood surface.

On the other hand I see most planes are stored in an upright "leaning" position. My guess is this method of storage is used to save shelf space.

Same 'lesson' learned here. I assumed those setting on their sole had the blade retracted. I shall continue to store mine that way(retracted), and set them on their side when not retracted. And never set on anything harder than 'wood'.

JPG
Glad to hear that! I was beginning to wonder since it seemed like a long time before any one else responded I thought I was the only one trained that way. I was starting to think my shop teacher was a nut.

Ed- thanks for the link! We didn't even have planes in shop class, so to me they're still mysterious objects with unknown capabilities, and any information on their use and care is welcome.

Gary

Dad would rap my knuckles but good if the plane was put blade down while in use. Then he would make me stop everything and sharpen the blade. I learned early how to sharpen a plane blade using a stone. (Is their any other way? Really?) I always store planes with the blade retracted.

I was in the era where I still had some Shop classes, before they disappeared from the schools, but mine were mostly power-tool-based classes. So it was a long time before I got my hands on a really well-tuned plane.

Several of the high-end planes probably have A2 steel irons these days (I've never tried it, but it's really supposed to hold its edge a long time).