{"id":7677,"date":"2023-04-30T19:24:45","date_gmt":"2023-04-30T23:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/?p=7677"},"modified":"2023-04-30T19:24:45","modified_gmt":"2023-04-30T23:24:45","slug":"more-on-the-ruler-trick-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/2023\/04\/30\/more-on-the-ruler-trick-part-4\/","title":{"rendered":"More on the Ruler Trick, part 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ruler<\/p>\n

Ironically, I do not use a ruler for the Ruler Trick. As I described in a post<\/a> about five years ago, I like a 0.020″ strip of plastic cut from shim stock<\/strong> and roughened on the bottom for a better grip on the stone. This is about the same thickness as a 1\/2mm ruler.<\/p>\n

One advantage of using shim stock is for short blades<\/strong>. In the photo above, I am using a 0.015″ shim to raise the spokeshave blade to approximately the same angle as a 0.020″ shim raises a full size blade that fully straddles the stone. Perhaps this adjustment matters little but it helps keep my sharpening technique consistent and it is simple to do.<\/p>\n

Many specialty and joinery planes<\/strong> have short blades, and many are bedded bevel up. Some of the bevel-up blades, such as side rabbet planes, have quite a low clearance angle. The Ruler Trick is especially helpful on these.<\/p>\n

The blade of the wonderful Veritas router plane<\/strong> is detachable from its vertical stem for convenient sharpening. The clearance angle of the blade as installed in the plane is only about 5\u00b0. For this little blade, only about 1 inch long, a 0.005″ shim gives about same 1\/2\u00b0 back bevel as a ruler or 0.020″ shim under a full size blade.<\/p>\n

Regarding the direction<\/strong> of Ruler Trick honing as discussed in the previous post<\/a>, the spokeshave blade above is about the shortest I can practically use the across-the-edge motion. For very short blades like the router and for short skew-edged blades, the along-the-edge motion is more practical.<\/p>\n

Woodworkers are indebted to the late David Charlesworth<\/strong> for the Ruler Trick and for the abundance of his other insightful teaching.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ironically, I do not use a ruler for the Ruler Trick. As I described in a post about five years ago, I like a 0.020″ strip of plastic cut from shim stock and roughened on the bottom for a better grip on the stone. This is about the same thickness as a 1\/2mm ruler. One […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[54],"class_list":["post-7677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-techniques","tag-ruler-trick"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7677"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7681,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7677\/revisions\/7681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}