Wednesday, December 09, 2015

Cross Post of "Beat a Dead Horse"

While the engineers and metallurgist hash out sharpening PM-V11 steel on a SMC thread, I've an observation on sharpening some other tool steels. I've always liked HC steels for working, mostly because they are easy to sharpen and will give a keen working edge that holds up reasonably well. Life is a trade off in most things, and working edges are one of those thing where if you improve one area some other area ends up in that well known basket. Because HC steel fits my "likes" and work flow I would guess 95% of my tools have HC steel cutters. There are a few exceptions and one is a cheap crank-neck WoodRiver chisel I picked up because I needed one to remove some glue and it was available. Turned out to be one of the most used chisels in the shop.

Anyway Bubba cut to the chase....

I've never paid much attention to sharpening the crank-neck because of its use, when it loaded up with "gunk" or wouldn't remove glue I'd hit it with a couple of the oil stones and go back to work.

When I'm, for whatever reason, trying to avoid being productive I sharpen iron. BTW, my hands have been "black" for the last couple of weeks .

Finally to the chase: I decided to give the crank-neck some love....Total rejection, it refused my advances. Started out on oil stones with a "green stuff" infused Horse's Butt strop working freehand. Sharp feeling and looking but I decided to break routine and test on some end grain, OK but a lot of effort to pare. A&B'ed with one of my HC chisels, no contest the crank-neck was dull. Humm, what to do?

Pulled out the Shapton Pro's and went through the full progression finishing up on a Gokumyo 20000. Same story....No joy it didn't improve. What the hey, maybe I've lost the freehand touch....where is the new Lie Nielsen honing jig, has to be somewhere. Flattened all the Shapton and the Gokumyo and went at it again using the jig, no difference. The blankety blank will not sharpen.

Bottom line, I've not a clue what steel is used in the chisel, but while it will get sharp enough to remove soft glue and other rough work around the shop it will not get to "working" sharp like a HC chisel such as a Japanese White Steel or a Western O-1.

I guess I'm in the market for a good crank-neck.

ken

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5 comments:

  1. Valley Woodworker4:56 PM

    Timely post, I have very few crank neck chisels and was looking for some. I'll cross these WoodRiver off my list :-)
    You would think that with today metallurgical know how we could consistently produced good tool steel, but nah... Once in a blue moom I ran into "funny steel" like you described, but never with my "antiques", only new crap.

    Bob, sipping a cold one. Its 2100 here, now :-)

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  2. Andy7:45 PM

    I agree with you. I prefer O1 to any other steel I have tried, particularly A2. I cannot understand why Lie Nielsen stopped making O1 chisels and now only makes them in A2. I have a mixture from them and strongly prefer the O1s. I sharpen my O1s more frequently but spend less total time sharpening.

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  3. Andy7:45 PM

    I agree with you. I prefer O1 to any other steel I have tried, particularly A2. I cannot understand why Lie Nielsen stopped making O1 chisels and now only makes them in A2. I have a mixture from them and strongly prefer the O1s. I sharpen my O1s more frequently but spend less total time sharpening.

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  4. I'm a OK guy8:48 AM

    Bob,

    For what I use the crank neck for not getting paring sharp isn't really a big deal but it did surprise me. I may order a couple from Japan just to expand my chisel range or really just because I can :-).

    ken

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm a OK guy8:49 AM

    Andy,

    LN stopping O-1 production was a disappointment and adds to the cost of their planes.

    ken

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