I own the LV low angle smoother and have an extra blade, the high angle
optional blade, ground at the factory to 35 degrees. I've known for
some time that putting a back bevel on it is supposed to reduce tear out
but being the procrastinator that I am, I hadn't ground the back bevel
until this afternoon. I put an 8 degree (give or take) bevel, 1 mm wide
on the back and gave it a work out on an oak drawer front that I'd set
aside early this year because I couldn't tame the tear out without
sanding it forever.

Early this year: A couple runs through the planer resulted in tear out
no matter how light a cut or which direction. By the time I'd run it
through a few times, I decided it was too thin to be installed along
side the other drawers and ended up cutting a new front. If I'd owned a
thickness sander, I would have put it through that in the first place,
but being in a hurry to remove old stain, I ran a bunch of drawer fronts
through the planer after scraping off the lacquer finish. The rest came
out flawless.

I found that problematic drawer front today and gave it a go with the
modified plane blade. It was like a miracle! Almost like using a
scraper plane, but faster. The surface was left silky and all the
divots disappeared after a half dozen strokes. Very cool.

Oh, and kudos for Robin and company designing the new honing guide. It
paid for itself today.


And I know nearly every one of you here already knows about back
beveling a blade. I just wanted to share...

Question: Wouldn't a back bevel on planer blades make them chip and wear
out much faster?

Is there a 12 step program for procrastinators?



Dave