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1,533 Posts
Hey all.
I picked up a Craftsman combination plane at Liberty tools a month or two ago, but it only had one iron (about 1 1/2" across), marked "O". That said, it was almost entirely complete (it's missing one of the two depth gauges), and the price was comparable to what I was seeing on eBay. With some research, I figured out it was essentially a Sargent 1080
Well, last week I found a reasonable deal and bought a set of cutters, in their original tool roll. The arrived last night, and despite some rust they're in remarkably good shape: almost no pitting, and none of it near the cutting edges as far as I can tell.
So, on that note, the questions.
Question 1. The straight edge cutters (1-11) are easy to tune up: sand them to remove the rust, re-grind the ones that aren't actually straight anymore, and then sharpen as usual. For the beading irons, I can polish the back and touch up the flat cutting surface, but how to I touch up the deep curved part? Some are OK, but some are a little rough, and probably won't leave a clean bead.
Question 2: As near as I can tell these are supposed to be measured in fractional inches. However, they don't actually seem to be. They appear to be metric. The #3, for instance, is actually more nearly 7mm than 1/4 inch. What gives? Do I have a set of custom irons that someone made? Did Sargent ever make metric-sized irons for these things? Any theories that are either probable or entertaining are welcome.
Question 3: I picked the cleanest beading iron there was (I think #15) and tried it out on a scrap of pine. It worked, despite my questionable technique, but there was a lot of tearout. Is that just the fact that I was using pine, or do I need to do something else that I didn't understand?
I picked up a Craftsman combination plane at Liberty tools a month or two ago, but it only had one iron (about 1 1/2" across), marked "O". That said, it was almost entirely complete (it's missing one of the two depth gauges), and the price was comparable to what I was seeing on eBay. With some research, I figured out it was essentially a Sargent 1080
Well, last week I found a reasonable deal and bought a set of cutters, in their original tool roll. The arrived last night, and despite some rust they're in remarkably good shape: almost no pitting, and none of it near the cutting edges as far as I can tell.
So, on that note, the questions.
Question 1. The straight edge cutters (1-11) are easy to tune up: sand them to remove the rust, re-grind the ones that aren't actually straight anymore, and then sharpen as usual. For the beading irons, I can polish the back and touch up the flat cutting surface, but how to I touch up the deep curved part? Some are OK, but some are a little rough, and probably won't leave a clean bead.
Question 2: As near as I can tell these are supposed to be measured in fractional inches. However, they don't actually seem to be. They appear to be metric. The #3, for instance, is actually more nearly 7mm than 1/4 inch. What gives? Do I have a set of custom irons that someone made? Did Sargent ever make metric-sized irons for these things? Any theories that are either probable or entertaining are welcome.
Question 3: I picked the cleanest beading iron there was (I think #15) and tried it out on a scrap of pine. It worked, despite my questionable technique, but there was a lot of tearout. Is that just the fact that I was using pine, or do I need to do something else that I didn't understand?