Shaping An Iron

Most woodworkers have enough problems keeping straight plane irons and chisels square - when you start to use planes with skewed blades things can get pretty "interesting". Instead of using jigs and calculating angles I prefer to use a more straight-forward method. I've taken some photo's as I make a new iron for a Moving Fillister rebate plane - this has a skewed iron so is perfect for demonstrating my method.

Here is the blank for my iron - this is annealed high carbon steel and the blank is bigger than I need so I will have to remove material from the side as well as the cutting edge. If you are tweaking an iron for a plane you already have you will have less work to do - let's get started. First I "black" the area I need to work with a felt tip pen.
Then the iron is set into the plane with the iron projecting across its full width as evenly as possible. As you can see, I have a lot of material to remove on this one!
Now I scribe the sole of the plane onto the iron using a knife with its back flat in the plane.
I repeat on the side of the iron (ignore this step if the iron does not project from the side of the plane)
And I am left with this - two clear line to work to. As these markings are scribed directly from the plane you are guaranteed a perfect fit.
In this photo you can see I have removed the majority of the waste - if you are working on an existing plane iron you will probably be starting with an iron in a similar condition.
The iron is then trimmed back to the line, but with the iron upright. I use a sander for this - either a belt sander with a fence like in this picture......
..or a disc sander like this one. Take your time when you remove material as you can remove too much quite easily - use a gently touch and cool the iron in a bowl of water if you have a lot to remove.
Here is my iron - the cutting edge is right back to the line. I still have the side to do - I repeat the procedure.
Check your progress by replacing the iron in the plane and sighting down the sole. You can see in this photo how the iron projects evenly - exactly what we want.
Now I remove the black from the back of the iron on a stone and then apply black to the bevel of the iron.
I then grind the bevel on my bench grinder with the tool rest at 25 degrees. I do this free-hand and regularly check progress....   ( I am using a Norton 3X wheel in my grinder - it runs very cool and is a dream to use. No more blued irons!!)
..by checking how the blackened area of the bevel is being ground away. A bit more work to be done here...
..And pretty much done here. I don't grind right to the tip - leave a small amount of the blacked area at the tip. We will remove this next when we hone the edge on the polishing stones.

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