In the last video we showed what a properly set up cap iron can do.
This time I want to show you how to set one of these up.
This was filmed before the last video was uploaded so if I haven't addressed your questions
I'm not being rude.
Getting one of these set up isn't hard, it's well worth the effort because you've only
got to do it once.
Now, there's two main things I do to get these going, unless your cap iron's in diabolical
condition but that's another story, but what I like to do is I've got to make sure that
it's seated well.
This edge here wants to be seated very well to the iron.
We also, I like to put a little angle on here, a precise angle.
So I start with the seating, that's normally where the work is, and it does pay to have
a properly set up, or a properly prepared iron.
I'm going to do another video on preparing irons and flattneses of backs because I don't
actually have very flat backs but, I'd like to talk about that separately.
But if you're beginning it does pay to have it because it gets rid of any anomalies, you
can pin point your problems much easier.
So we're going to presume that that's nice and flat, it's sharpened to whatever standard
you find satisfactory, and now we need to make sure that this edge here is flat, the
edge that seats on to the iron itself.
And this one is actually in quite bad condition, it's got some chips on it so I don't know
how much work it's going to take to get it out.
You'll also notice, most cap irons that I encounter are spring loaded and you can see
there's a gap between the two.
So it's contacted back here, it's contacting at the front and then we tighten the screw
up it applies pressure, like a spring.
And that means that we're ever so tight at the cutting edge where it's very important.
That does mean that we have to have a slightly different approach when we come to flattening
this area here to get ourselves a reference face, we can't just sit it on the stone and
rub it about because if that and that are in perfect plane you're going to have a problem
when we tighten that screw and that spring loaded bit happens.
It's basically if you think of it like this, we've got this big bevel that's sat, as it's
loading as you load it up with the screw you end up riding on the arse of the bevel which,
it's lifting the front and then you're gonna get all your shavings through it and then
you're going to get a sod of a clog.
so to overcome that, and again this angle isn't important, I'll just spray this up and
you'll see.
These are just two oil stones, one's coarse one's fine I haven't got a clue what the grips
are but they work.
Now what I do, I hope you can see this, rather than holding it flat just by eye and then
just rub it up and down, looks a bit barbaric I know but it does do the job.
So all I care about is that being lower than the stone.
Now if you're a little bit kak handed and you're a bit worried about holding an angle
you can just, let me find something, these might do.
Just for demonstrating purposes, get a bit of wood that's lower than the stone, and then
you can ride that like that, and that'll get you a nice consistent angle.
But that angle isn't important as long as that back edge is relieved.
I'll just do that quick, we'll see how much we've got to do.
I might skip through this because there's nothing more bloody boring than watching this.
We're nearly getting there actually, you might be able to see this, you can see we're getting
polished steel along here, we've got a little bit more to go.
I'm just starting to feel a little burr there now and that's when you know you're getting
there.
I've got a chip in it there, it's like a dint I'm just going to try and get past that.
So now I've got a burr all the way a long there, feels like a sharpened edge and that's
kind of what we're after, we actually want that edge to be sharp.
If it's sharp it's going to seat far better.
So I'll just copy that on this finer stone, this won't take long now because it's already
flat.
Right with any luck, I've got a big bloody dint in it, God knows what's happened to that
one but I might be able to get it out with this next step, and that is to put this bevel
on.
And what this bevel is, that's the whole concept behind these things, that's the whole purpose
they're there.
It's what the whole of the last video was on, and I've not really ever experimented
with it so it'll be quite interesting to have feed back on anyone that has, but I find that
anywhere between 50 and 60 degrees on that as a bevel works fine.
I don't find that you have to be too picky in all honesty, and I also, I was always shown
to actually round it, so rather than having a flat bevel like a jig would give you I suppose,
to actually to round it almost emulating the curve of what's on this one so that's not
a tricky one, all you do is lift it until it's about 45 degrees, lift it a bit more,
do this at the back of the stone, and then when you push you're naturally going to create
that curve and then you'll be back to your 50 degrees, or whatever you're going at.
I'm trying to not knock this out of square , it wants to be square with the blade so
it helps of your blade, if you sharpen your blade square, you don't want it skewed.
I'll just polish that off now.
You should have a real big bur on the back of there now which needs to come off so we'll
just flip it over, I'll just give it a couple of runs.
That's got it, here it goes.
You can just snap it off, we're not worried here about a cutting edge.
That's spot on that.
So that was a fairly bad one but that didn't take too long, it was only a few minutes and
we had that big dint to remove.
So they really are worth doing, I don't know of any cap iron that comes out of the box
ready, it's much like a blade you've got to tailor them to suit yourself and I think sort
of manufactures do understand or I like to think that they do understand that.
Now you could polish that now you could take that to a strop, it certainly wouldn't hurt
anything and if you're having trouble getting rid of your burr then that's a nice option
to do but it terms of gaining any performance for polishing well I think in all honesty
after an hour or so use this things going to be pretty polished from the shavings itself
so I've never worried about that.
Right so I'll let you digest that and then the next video will be up in a couple of days
and we'll get that cap set.