A gift for a friend-----refurbishing a seme-ganna Japanese plane

I've been building some stairs, to access an attic bedroom that we built only, what.... 6 years ago! Already? The ladder that we had been using had it's charm, but I think that the renters of our house might want something a bit more traditional.

Treads in the works.

And.... A gift, for a friends collection, a seme-ganna.

At long last, here it is.

From this......

.... To this

I would like to tell you about how difficult this project was, all of the interesting little details and tricks that make these projects so gratifying, but......

This was super easy. A light surfacing, to remove the ubiquitous red Japanese paint (My friend Brandon says that every old american tool that he buys has spatters of white paint on it. The Japanese tools that I buy have red. Huh, Go figure!), left the wood looking wonderful.

There was some iron staining around the mouth (What have you been eating?!!) and top of the dai. This is simple to remove, using a phosphoric acid solution, typically sold as a paint prep for rusty metal, or an etchant/cleaner for ceramic tile. Swab a little on the dark areas and it will fade away in 15-30 minutes. The acid is very mild, no worries (I mean, don't drink it, or anything, but...), and doesn't discolor the wood.

The irons were a pleasant surprise. They are virtually unused, and only required a minimum of attention. I gave them a brief traditional rust bluing, to even out the slight amount of discoloration from the surface rust.

The surprise was that the main blade was forged from ren-tetsu wrought iron (unusual for this size of blade), and even more surprising was that the sub-blade is laminated as well (definitely not what I was expecting).

Notice the dinged up corners?

The ren-tetsu is very nicely layered.

Unfortunately, as I was removing the blades to photograph them, haha! Dropped!

At least we know that the  hagane isn't brittle hard, eh Michael?

So, off to the stones for a very quick touch-up. This was done rather late in the evening, so I did this old-school (no power, just muscle).

My stone sequence for this quick project.

Two cheap China diamond stones (mounted by me on wood bases), a strangely discolored white aluminum oxide based man-made waterstone (probably a King Hyper, and rapidly becoming a favorite of mine), and two naturals to finish things up.


The stone on the left is an aoto of some sort. It is relatively soft and serves to ease the transition, from the deep angular scratches of the artificial stones to the shallow, gentle scratches of the natural finishing stones.

A quick way to evaluate the relative hardness/softness of a natural waterstone, is to dab a bit of water onto it's surface. The softer stone quickly absorbs the water, while the hard stone absorbs little or none.



The choice of a hard stone versus a soft stone is rooted in some very interesting physics. I'm not going into that now, but it's something that I am trying to get a better grasp of. Later....



Because I mucked up the blade pretty well when I dropped it, I need to flatten the edge first, using a diamond stone.

The newly flat edge is uneven, because the blade had been partly skewed. In for a penny.....


I reset the bevel, using #80 grit 3X sandpaper (a 3M product), mounted on glass.

Yes, that is a sharpening aid! I'm feeling lazy. They aren't worth a crap for Japanese plane blades, but for narrower stuff they can be damn handy.


Instead of letting the burr form and fall off on it's own, I have begin removing it as I go, using a fine grit stone.

It takes a few moments longer, but *maybe* provides a stronger edge. We'll see. My thought is that the burr falling off on its own, is due to metal fatigue, and work hardening is not what you might choose for a durable edge. This idea isn't original I'm sure, but it is something that I want to try it out.

 It's nice to have stones large enough to use with a guide, if needed.



The hard Ozuku asagi gives a really nice finish to most blades, and is one of my favorite stones. You can really see the beautiful layering pattern in the wrought iron.

This blade is also a bit unusual, in that the stone gave the wrought iron a bit of a purplish cast. Every one is different. I love it!

Very close to a full mirror polish. It's funny that these cameras make it so difficult to for me to get the photos that I DO want (I want a macro shot of the layered jigane), but give me many pictures like these.



Here is where those stair treads are going. Obviously a closet (at least, it was.).

Thankfully, there is ample feline supervision in our house.

Cat tested.

Sharpen the Miki hisa folding knife using the King man-made/natural waterstone

Inertia has set in big-time. I've been working on my blacksmithing (Tong forging mania!! Interesting, no?), the to-do list just gets longer, and some of my projects have been on the back burner so long that I've no idea where to begin (again!). In addition to all that, the shop is getting so packed full of stuff that it's getting hard to find room to move, yet alone get some work done. EBay, here I come! I need to work on my meager photography skills. Certainly no lack of things to do, but where to start?

I know! Let's sharpen something!



A while back, I bought a peculiar looking waterstone. You can't have too many natural waterstones (or kanna, or chisels, or odd bits of wood/rusty metal/screw's/nails/files....), right?

Odd looking, to be sure. I thought that it *might* be a Japanese natural waterstone....

.....but it's not :'( 

What I thought was a manufacturer's INK stamp (first photo), is actually an IMPRINTED stamp. Bummer!

It's a weird stone, though. The fractures are probably due to freezing, but might just be from sitting too long in the water tank. It has the feel of a stone that doesn't want to be permanently wet. The fractures *look* like something that you see associated with old aotos, showing vertical cleavage planes and a somewhat coarse structure. It doesn't have the uniform grain of most man-made waterstones. Now that it's all cleaned off, it's composition is obviously very homogeneous. Definitely man-made.


Prior to bidding, I did a fairly thorough search for artificial waterstones with similar color, size, and markings, but didn't find any matches, so I was somewhat optimistic that it would be a natural stone. Oh well. Since I already have more synthetic stones than I can use, I set the stone aside for a while. A few days ago, this popped up on one of the Japanese sharpening stone blogs that I follow.....

We have a match! The gist seems to be that it's an old, unusual, King brand waterstone that is made from reconstituted natural materials. I guess that I was partially right, haha! In any event, my interest was renewed. And, yes, I actual read blogs about sharpening.......


The stone is 210-68-40 mm and feels rather light in weight, with an odd grainy, soft feel to it. It puts me in mind of a big chunk of powdery chalk, and feels too soft to be very practical as a tool sharpening stone. You can see how dished it is. It's obviously been used for sharpening knives, so.......



For ages now, my pocket knife has been one of those plastic, breakable blade disposables.

Even a $-Store craft knife can be improved by a little sharpening. A couple of swipes on a fine diamond stone will work wonders! The problem now becomes that the plastic body of the knife wears out faster than the blades do. And..... Plastic.

I sharpen disposable blades. My name is Jason and I have a sharpening addiction.......


I  got this a few weeks ago.

A Miki-hisa folding pocket knife, nothing special, but decidedly nicer than what I have been carrying. Mass produced, but with a laminated blade and a Bubinga body, after a bit of massaging it seems OK. I relieved the sharp metal edges and reshaped the body some, until it felt better in the hand, and while I wouldn't pay full retail for one ($40'ish), I thought it worth the $12 I paid.

Amazingly enough, I have had this for 3 weeks and it STILL has the factory edge! It's time to try out the new "mystery" King waterstone!


But first, some ground work. I use the Po'boy #125 diamond lap (loose diamond grit on a maple wooden block) that I wrote about before.

T=20 seconds. A minute on this is sufficient to remove most of the coarse factory grind.

Before I get too carried away, I need to work the hollow ground back of the blade. I start on a #400 Eze-lap. On the right edge of the stone, you can see a strip of black electrical tape. This is to keep the upper (curved) back of the blade contact to a minimum, at least for the roughing stages.

This being a cheap knife, the blade has a pronounced curve or hook towards the steel side,  so not only is the back of the blade hollow ground, it's also bowed along its length. This makes it pretty well impossible to make the back truly flat without making the urasuki all misshapen and ugly. 

I go for looks, cheat a little bit, and only do the minimum required to establish a small flat at the cutting edge of the blade (the lower, straight edge). The back is still slightly bowed, but it is adequate.

From the #400 grit diamond stone, I go to the oddball King man-made/natural. It is a very open bodied stone and needed to be soaked for about 5-10 minutes before using. It's very porous. 

And interesting....... Nowhere near as soft as I was expecting. I thought that this guy would  fall apart and be a heavy mud producer, but that wasn't the case, at least with this blade. It felt moderately fast, but without being aggressive. A soft, rough stone. Weird. You can feel the grainy nature, but it isn't scratchy at all.

An analogy: If carborundum/ silicon-carbide is a handful of finely ground glass, a typical aluminum-oxide stone would be a handful of fine beach sand. This stone would be a handful of dirt, or maybe sawdust.

The finish is in the #1000-2000 range, but the scratches are shallow, not sharp. This thing serves the same purpose as a coarse aoto. It would act as a bridge to transition from a sharp and scratchy synthetic stone to a natural finish stone. I strongly suspect that was the intention of the manufacturer. 

I would like to try this stone out using a hard kanna blade, but both the top and bottom surfaces are WAY too dished. This thing is shaped like an "S"!

Sticking with the "odd" theme, I use one of my favorite Oregon beach stones next. This was a bit of a step back, grit-wise, but served to confirm the relative grit finish. I didn't want to wait for more synthetic stones to soak. Most of the natural waterstones are splash-and-go.

I consider this stone to be around #2000, but a touch scratchy and the density is uneven. I still like it though.

And another Oregon natural waterstone to finish.

Good enough for a pocket knife.

More home-brew diamond sharpening stone stuff....

Still goin'....



Call me masochistic, a slow learner, what ever.....I have a problem with wanting to reinvent the wheel.

The acrylic showed some promise, but maybe can be improved? This time I used a file to prep the surface, leaving a scratch pattern that was perpendicular to the primary axis. Side-to-side, as it were. I was thinking that maybe the grit would set into the substrate more evenly.

A sprinkle of gems...

Then set, using a hardened steel roller. A large roler bearing, mounted on a handle is what you SHOULD be using, but.....

This time, I just sprinkled the grit loose, no glycerine. I had a chip-breaker/back blade/secondary blade (laminated construction, just like the main blade) that I had shortened, so am setting a whole new bevel here. Well.....I hog out most of the material with a grinder first. This is refinement, I guess. Babbling..... Sorry.

I rinse off the accumulated swarf and any loose grit that still remains, then have at it again. 

Yep, it works. The action is peculiar, like the blade is riding in tracks, on rails, so I try to incorporate a swirling or erratic stroke. This can speed up the sharpening process (think "random-orbit" sander vs the older vibrating palm Sanders), but it is hard to maintain a flat bevel this way. That's why the scratch pattern looks all screwy.

Maybe acrylic isn't the best material, or maybe this stuff was too hard. The material that is commonly used for a lapping plate varies. Balsa wood, copper, brass, even lead, it all depends on what you are lapping and what you are trying to achieve.

MDF

I liked this MUCH better. The grit bedded down well, possibly too well? The scratch pattern tamed down quickly, probably because the larger grains bedded more deeply during use. This combination felt more like a sharpening stone, but still not particularly fast or aggressive.

Derek Cohen has a great writeup on his blog, about making lapping plates from old cast iron plane bodies.

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/WoodworkTechniques/Castironhoningplatesfordiamondpaste.html

A cast iron clutch plate. Cast iron is made in a whole variety of hardnesses and densities. I think that a "soft" iron would be nice to try. This clutch plate is pretty hard.

It works. It feels like the diamond is mostly rolling around, and only a portion of the grit is getting embedded into the cast iron. If you look at the bevel, you can see a division between the soft iron and hard steel laminations, just like you would see if you were using a waterstone. It is the loose grit, tumbling around and putting microscopic dents into the iron, that gives the characteristic "hazy" look that is so pronounced with a laminated blade.

It works dry (see above)...

.... And wet. The viscosity of the fluid used to lubricate and flush away the swarf can have an effect on the "feel" of the lap, and the appearance of the blade itself. This is using a (relatively) thick oil, 10w40 synthetic motor oil.

I liked this combo for the "push". It felt like the high viscosity slowed down the rolling action of the grit. It left a more even haze to the iron. Compare the even, gray look of the soft iron to one of the pictures of embedded grit/acrylic substrate. The embedded grit leaves a very shiny/scratchy finish. I think that it's soooo cool that the same material (#120 diamond grit) applied differently, can give such different results.

This is using a thin oil, mineral oil cut 50% with mineral spirits. Is about the consistency of WD40. 

It feels different, looser, light, and very rumbly/roly/crunchy. And VERY messy. The appearance of the iron is more scratchy and not as fine as when used with the thicker oil. It still feels like only a small proportion of the grit is getting embedded into the cast iron substrate. This is a great combo (a cast iron lap w/diamond grit) for finer grit, something like a #400 and up. This coarse...... Not so much.

And a piece of maple plywood. 

The diamond grit embedded well into this material, as is evidenced by the uniformity of the bevel face. There is almost no visible line between the soft and hard metal. That means that the grit stayed anchored and actually sheared the metal, as opposed to rolling. This combination felt the most similar to an actual diamond sharpening stone. That said, the aggressiveness still quickly diminished as the diamond grains got pushed further into the substrate. 

My ideal would be this stone.....

... just a bit harder. Super fast, sharp grit, and fun to use (and it looks like a rock! I love that!), but too soft. It dishes quickly and gives up too much slurry, which gets in the way. I need to get back out to the beach, and find some new "real" stones. Like this one, but harder.

Show and tell- 3/25/2014 (Special birthday edition!)

 

A few weeks ago, Junji put a REALLY nice kanna up for sale. My wife immediately told me to buy it, "If you don't, I will!", she said. Here I was, feeling all responsible and prudent for not immediately buying yet ANOTHER Japanese carpenter's plane. Besides, it was too nice, too new. My other tools would get jealous!

Well...... Actually, after seeing me wander aimlessly about the house, sighing heartfully, she finally got exasperated enough to ask, "Why the glum face?". Wisely foreseeing days of excruciating should I/shouldn't I, she decided to be proactive and kill two birds with one stone. I have a birthday coming up soon, and I am one of those people who are impossible to shop for, so she saw the perfect opportunity. Wise AND beautiful!

I have also begun my foray into high quality saws. My personal sharpening epiphany has lead me to learn how to sharpen EVERYTHING that I use. To transform a tool that merely works, into something that feels like an extension of your own hands..... Well, the thought of a disposable tool makes me a bit sad now. But EVERYONE uses disposable blade saws now, right?

Disposables work great, last a long time, AND are cheap. I, of course, need to buck the current and swim upstream. Given the choice between common and cheap over rare and difficult, I unfailingly choose the more obscure. I have been waiting a while for exactly this type of saw, a azebiki-noko, to use for cutting small joints and such. An opportunity presented itself....

A NOS Nakaya azebiki-noko. I think that it is made by Shigemon, but I'm not sure. In any event, it's here and I'm happy.

 

I need to make a handle.

 

 

A bit of surface rust, but no pitting, from sitting on a shelf for 30 years. One side is rip tooth, the other is crosscut.

 

 

The teeth are so tiny and sharp, they remind me of the teeth of a fish. A mean little bitey fish!

 

 

The blade(plate) is dramatically tapered in thickness. This photo is looking from the heel, towards the toe. It looks like the blade thins into nothing.

 

The edges are beveled and tapered, hand done. Perfect.

 

 

 

I happen to already have another saw (a 270mm Ryoba) made by the same blacksmith, but a different grade, more machine made than hand made.

 

Different sizes.....

 

....same signature.

 

I had heard about happy saws, and how they will "sing" when being used, how they resonate. The big saw will sing, true, but the little saw...... The little saw rings, clear as a bell, when you touch it. And keeps ringing, like a tuning fork. It's actually a bit unnerving.

 

This is my first "real" saw, a professional grade tool, and to compare the two saws, side by side, there is little to compare. They are very different. The little azebiki breaths quality. Sharpening is gonna be a b***h, though.

 

 

 

Now, my most expensive Japanese tool, although that's not saying much, haha! For the same price you could buy a (new) very mediocre chisel from Japan Woodworker.

 

72mm Kojiro hira-ganna (finishing plane).

 

 

 

My first plane that still has its koppa-gaeshi intact, nice and tight.

 

******EDIT 3/1/2015******

Doesn't this guy read his own stuff? I need to correct some terminology here,sorry. Obviously if you want to learn the proper terms, you might search elsewhere,haha. I suggest Chris hall.

I said koppa-gaeshi, but that's actually the nearly vertical ledge just in front of the blade's cutting edge.

What I meant to say.......is that the TSUTSUMI is still intact. The tsutsumi is the funny little ledge that contacts the bevel on the primary blade, and is primarily seen on the better quality dai's. After a few years of conditioning the sole of your kanna dai, the tsutsumi dwindles away to a mere flap of wood, but this kanna is virtually new still.

My apologies, my bad.

 

*****end edit*****

 

 

 

It even came with its own house!

 

 

 

The ura-suki has been carefully preserved, and has probably only been sharpened a few times. I love how easy the back face is to sharpen, when it hasn't been all fouled up. No fat ashi here! Ito-ura, here I come!

 

 

The soft iron ren-tetsu is VERY soft, easy to work, and sharpening will be a simple affair.

 

It also has a lot of figure. I expect that this is a special variety of iron.

 

The chip breaker blade has a spot of discoloration, where the hot (Yes, hot!) shavings and resin have gummed up the blade.

 

Sometimes a chip breaker blade will get almost blue from the heat of planing, certainly discolored, and you can feel the heat as you cut certain woods. I would guess that it has something to do with moisture content and all of the heat energy that is released as the water molecules change phase.

 

 

The detailed texture on the head of the blade is very deep and 3-D. I almost wonder if it was done using an arc-welder, it looks strangely familiar. It's not something that was done using a texturing hammer, in any event.

 

The head is a bit deformed by hammer strikes, but not badly.

 

Not surprisingly, I need to immediately polish it. Notice that I said polish, not sharpen. It IS sharp! And the bevel angle is already right where I want it, 30 degrees.

 

I head right to my best stone, the Nakayama-esque asagi.

 

Soooo much figure to the iron. The blacksmith used these remarkable materials to achieve this exact effect.....and this is ONLY visible if you use these stones. A true example of a functional synthesis in art, I suppose.

 

 

The bevel surface looks dull and uneven, but is actually an almost perfect mirror.

 

 

So cool.

 

 

AND the super soft wrought iron was easy to repair. It only took a handful of light hammer blows to reshape the head, back into its intended form. This is the softest metal that I have ever worked, by far. I tried to duplicate the original file marks, too.

 

Definitely my best birthday present, ever. How did you guess?

 

 

The danger here is that a door has been opened, a precedent has been set. If I mope enough and let slip some mournful sighs, will she buy me these oh so nice tsuki-nomi that Junji found this morning.....

 

 

20-22 inches of giant chisel, meant for fine tuning the supremely detailed joinery used in temple construction. So very pretty, two with ebony handles and what COULD be ren-tetsu bodies (very rare in chisels) and the third just, well......just nice to look at.

 

Sigh....... sigh.....*ahem*...SIGH!!!

 

 

 

 

 

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