Episode 9 - I Hardened My Homemade Plane Iron — Will It Finally Work?

The iron for my homemade molding plane was finally shaped and fitted, but there was still one fairly important problem: it was soft. I had been testing it that way while developing the profile, but it simply wouldn't hold an edge. It was finally time to harden it. After a brief visit from one of the many crickets that seem to have taken over Dancin Quaker Farms this summer, I start with a MAPP gas torch and quickly begin questioning whether it's going to get this 3/16" thick piece of steel hot enough. It did not. So I move on to Plan B. That involves bricks, dirt, a leaf blower, considerably more fire and smoke, and perhaps some questionable judgment. After hardening the iron, I temper it on the grill at 400°F for an hour. Once it's cooled, it's back to the shop to flatten the back and finally hone the complicated cutting profile. For that, I'm using the Bondo fixtures I made earlier along with three grades of diamond paste. Eventually, I can see an actual cutting edge. But there's only one test that matters. I put the iron back into the homemade molding plane, grab a piece of scrap wood and start planing. And the son of a bitch works. After building the plane body from laminations, making the iron from an old lawnmower blade, shaping the profile by hand, fitting it, hardening it, tempering it and honing it—the plane finally produces the molding I built it to make. There have been plenty of points during this project when I wasn't entirely sure this experiment was going to work. That's what made seeing that first real molding come off the plane so satisfying. And apparently Amy is right. Crickets bring good luck. #Woodworking #MoldingPlane #HandTools #TraditionalWoodworking #HandPlane