For those not familiar with the Tormek grinder, the SE-77 jig, an upgrade over the older SVH-60, holds the blade and slides onto the guide bar, where it rotates to present the blade edge to the grindstone in a very consistent manner. The niftiest features of the SE-77 are its ability to reliably put a controlled amount of camber on a plane blade, and to microadjust the lateral angle of the blade edge to the stone.

The SE-77 has a sturdy build. The left clamp screw slides to adjust the width between the two clamp screws. This more securely holds a wide range of blade widths. There is an end stop on the right side that squarely registers the right side of the blade into the jig, which is useful for blades with parallel sides.

The pair of small thumbscrews, shown in the foreground of the photo below, controls the two special functions of the jig.

To microadjust the lateral angle of the blade edge against the stone, you back off one of the screws and advance the other the same amount. This is much more reliable than shifting and reclamping the blade in the jig.

To camber the blade edge, you loosen both microadjust screws. This creates a pendulum motion about the small stem. (See the photo: the small stem has a brass washer and external snap ring on its end.) With this pendulum motion, you can guide a controlled amount of camber onto the blade edge. The system works very well, though you do have to blend a gradual arc. A too-heavy touch can create a shallow V-point edge instead of a nice smooth camber.

Another welcome feature of the SE-77 is the design of the lower jaw of the blade clamp, which gives a good grip on Japanese chisels (hallelujah!), even onto the shank.

At $66, the SE-77 is not cheap. Having used the Tormek for a many years for grinding – very little on the leather honing wheel – this new jig has been a worthwhile upgrade.

Dear readers, I hope this series on blade camber has been helpful. As always, what I write is born of “the sawdust and shavings of my shop.” These are the techniques and approaches that work for me as I make things. I welcome your ideas and comments.

Rob

Creating the camber

There doesn’t have to be high art in producing the camber. On a coarse diamond stone, I start by leaning the blade to the left and slightly raising the right side. It is important not to overdo this. I then gradually reduce the lean, keeping aware of the approximate number of strokes, and blend the camber through the middle. Then I repeat this on the opposite side.

On the Tormek grinder with the older SVH-60 blade holder, I would lean on the slightly flexible guide bar to create some camber. The newer SE-77, which I will cover in the next post, is more controlled. The camber can be refined on a medium stone. Mild camber, such as in a high-angle, bevel-down smoother, can also be refined when honing the secondary bevel.

It is easy to underestimate the amount of camber by just looking at it without a straightedge reference, so I check the camber by holding a small, wide aluminum square (straightedge) against the edge and observe it against mild backlighting. Eventually, one can reliably relate the appearance to the performance on wood. Again, I do not measure it, nor recommend that as a habit.

If you overdo the camber, the nose of the blade will dull first, so when you go back to the stones to clean up the secondary bevel, some of the camber will automatically be reduced.

Skewing the plane

Skewing the plane at a typical angle used routinely has no significant effect on the camber function. However, an extreme skew angle, such as the 45° shown in the top photo, or even 60°, can occasionally be used to advantage to get the plane to pull a shaving from an isolated area, such as to correct a bit of tearout.

This is really just playing with how the plane sole bears on the surface contour of the board. The full camber depth is retained but is effectively spread over a shorter length of blade. (The plane stroke is still about parallel to the length of the board.) With some trial and error, you may be able to get the blade to “reach down” into a localized area.

Camber the chipbreaker too?

Very small differences, on the order of .1mm/.004″, in the setback of the chipbreaker may affect planing performance, at least according to this Japanese experiment. Should the chipbreaker therefore have a camber that matches the blade to create a consistent setback? With a straight-edged chipbreaker on a cambered blade, is there a difference in the shaving characteristic or wood surface across the width of the blade that cannot be explained by the difference in shaving thickness?

In theory, maybe so, but I have only rarely encountered advice to camber the chipbreaker. It also seems like too much trouble, so I don’t do it. Maybe it would help for a highly tuned smoothing plane. Any ideas, readers?

Next: the Tormek SE-77 jig

To master handplanes, a woodworker must master the matter of blade camber. To introduce the bevel-up/bevel-down/frog angle issue, please refer to my 2009 post. Here I want to present a more intuitive approach to guide you at the sharpening bench.

The issue

When checking the blade after grinding, you naturally hold it up and observe the camber, sighting at 90° to the face of the blade, like this. But when the blade sits on the frog at an angle, the effective amount of camber is reduced. Think of it this way: if the cambered blade were laid flat, there would be effectively no camber at all.

So, you have to create what looks like more camber than you need, and just how much more depends on the bed angle.

Please note that I am not suggesting that you take out a leaf gauge and measure the camber! I took measurements for these posts and other writing but that is not my method in the shop. I suggest use the guidelines set out in part one of this series, work intuitively, using a bit of trial and error, and get a sense of how the camber that you see performs on the wood.

As an example, in the photo at the top, with the blades standing vertically, the blade on the left shows about .004″ camber, and the one on the right about .14″. In the photo below, the blade on the left is set at 45° and the blade on the right is set at 12°. This results in an effective camber of about .003″ for both of them.

So, to get the same effective camber, we had to grind an additional approximately 1/3 more (observed) camber for the blade bedded at 45°, but for the blade bedded at 12°, we had to grind almost five times more (observed) camber.

Here is a handy table to help absorb a general sense of the differences.

Bed angle       Grind this multiple more camber than what the plane needs

12°                 4.81 [whoa, must grind lots more to get what you want]

20°                 2.92

22°                 2.66

45°                 1.41 [grind just a little more than what you want]

50°                 1.31

55°                 1.22

60°                 1.15 [what you see is just about what you get]

And another thing

Camber is somewhat of a nuisance to grind into the blade edge. It slows down grinding and, especially, honing. Unfortunately, and, I contend, for little or no good reason, almost all bevel-up planes made today have a 12° bed. That requires you grind a lot more camber than in a bevel-down plane. If the bevel-up plane had a 22° bed, this problem would be greatly reduced.

This is yet another reason why I continue to advocate that bevel-up planes should be made at about 22°. I explored the matter several years ago in this post and elsewhere.

Skip this part if you want

For those who like this sort of thing (as I do), here is the derivation of the chart above. The key point is that it is a non-linear function because of the sine curve. So, there is a big difference between 12° and 22°, and much less difference between 50° and 60°.

Please refer to the diagram in the 2009 post, which shows how the camber that you observe when your line of sight is 90° to the face of the plane blade is reduced by the sine of the bed angle when the blade is placed in the plane.

f = functional camber with blade in plane

c = observed camber normal to blade

A = bed angle of blade

f = c · sin A

c = f/sin A

c/f = (f/sin A)/f

= 1/sin A

=sin^-1 A

The ratio c/f means how many times greater must the observed camber be to produce a given functional camber. c/f is just the inverse of the sine of the bed angle.

Revisiting this matter, there need be no confusion as long as you keep in mind that the amount of camber that belongs in a plane blade is a function of how the plane will be used, and particularly, the kind of shavings the plane will take. Without getting hung up on numerical absolutes, here are three reliable guidelines that I use, which I hope readers will find helpful.

I wrote about camber in 2009 but I think some of it bears restating, and there are a few things I would like to add.

For a smoothing plane blade: Make a very small camber to allow the plane to produce very thin shavings, perhaps .001″, that are thickest in the middle and feather out to nothing at barely less than the full width of the blade. This produces only imperceptible scallops on the wood surface. The finer the shavings you intend to take, the shallower the camber should be.

For a jack plane blade: Use more camber to take thicker shavings without producing stepped-edge “gutters.” Vary the camber according to how aggressively you want to remove wood with the plane. The camber also makes it easier to direct the cut to take down the high spots on the surface of the board.

For a jointer plane blade: Make a very small camber to make the plane capable of correcting an out-of-square edge by laterally shifting the plane without tilting it. Position the deeper part of the camber over the high side of the edge to bring it down, and thus incrementally work toward a square edge. The camber also creates a miniscule concavity across the width of the edge of the board, which ensures there is never any convexity there, which would produce an inferior joint.

So, there’s the essentials. Coming up, I’ll revisit the bevel-down/bevel-up issue (that I brought up in 2009) in a quantifiable but intuitive way, look at the effects of skewing the plane, present a thought on chipbreakers, and maybe another thing or two that popped into my head while I was in the shop but forgot to mention so far. Then, we’ll take a look at the Tormek SE-77 jig, which I’m liking a lot.

Trick question. It depends. This post will discuss factors in the amount of camber in the edge of a plane iron with attention to an under-appreciated trigonometric quirk.

The slight convexity or “camber” in the edge of a smoothing plane iron should allow the production of airy shavings that are thickest in the middle, say .001″, and feather out to nothing at a little less than the width of the blade. This produces imperceptible scallops on the wood surface and avoids square-edged tracks or “gutters“.

A similarly small, or perhaps a bit more, camber in the edge of a jointer plane blade allows one to bring down the “high” side of an out-of-square edge without tilting and destabilizing the heavy plane. The camber should be positioned at the center of the blade projection so the plane can be shifted toward the high side of the board’s edge to remove a slightly thicker shaving there.

For jack planes, more camber lets this workhorse take thicker shavings without producing gutters. The more pronounced camber also makes it easier to direct the plane’s cut at the high spots on the surface of a board being dimensioned.

When grinding and honing a plane blade, I check the camber by setting the blade’s edge on a small aluminum straight edge and holding it up to the light to look for the tiny gaps that gradually enlarge from the center to the sides of the blade. (I never measure this amount so I cannot answer the question posed in the title of this post.)

Now some trig. Let’s say the camber – the depth of the convexity of the edge – is .005″. When this blade is installed on a 45 degree frog in a bevel-down plane, the actual functional convexity is reduced. Think of it this way: if the blade were laid flat and you viewed it toward the edge, there would appear to be no camber at all. The functional camber is reduced by the sine of the bed angle.

sin 45* x .005″ = .0035″

Look what happens in a bevel-up plane with a 12 degree bed:

sin 12* x .005″ = .001”

Therefore, I sharpen more camber into a blade for a low angle bevel-up plane than for a bevel-down plane to achieve the same functional amount of camber. The camber that you observe sighting 90 degrees to the face of the blade will mostly disappear when you install the blade in a 12 degree-bed, bevel-up plane and sight down the sole to observe the camber. Compensate for this by being generous with camber in the sharpening process. A more direct approach during the sharpening process is to check the camber against a straightedge with the blade tilted at the bed angle.

Again, I do not measure these things but rely on my eye, experience, and especially feedback from the work. Of course, sometimes I’m off, usually by over-cambering. However, since the middle of the blade is thus destined to dull first, it is easy to reduce the camber on the next honing.

There are undoubtedly other factors affecting shaving thickness, such as blade sharpness, blade edge deflection, and wood grain, so it is most important to monitor the performance of the plane and make adjustments when you resharpen.

You can use trial and error or a set of leaf gauges to work this out to your liking. Like just about everything else, there’s more than one good way. Use the principles and find your way.