Back bevel for jointing plane

[Bob Gramann]

This worked so well I had to share it. In preparation to joint Osage Orange plates (which usually give me a lot of trouble with the variable grain directions), I honed a micro-back-bevel of 30 degrees on the top of the blade for a Stanley #4 plane after honing a normal 25 degree bevel on the bottom of the blade. The plane didn't even grab once when jointing. In a short time, I had a perfect joint. I wish I had done this years ago. I picked up the extra plane cheap at an antique store and spent a little time tuning it up. I will keep it set up like this just for the very hard woods.

[Jim Hepler]

Bob, I've had trouble planing osage as well. My solution was to simply flip the plane blade over making my 45 degree jointer plane into a bevel up plane with I guess about a 70 degree angle (45 +25 or so). I could only take the finest of shavings, but had absolutely no tearout. I had to move the chip breaker back quite a ways to make it all fit, but with that high angle, its only puorpose was to hold the blade in. I use that trick a lot now with any figured woods and anything that likes to tear. Sort of a no-cost scraper plane.
-Jim

[Brad Heinzen]

Yep. That increased the attack angle without having to change the bed angle of the plane. With a bevel-down plane and no back bevel, the attack angle is the same as the bed angle, so altering the bevel just changes the clearance and bevel angles.