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Rant: nobody told me to wax my plane sole and I sanded maple with a sticky blade for 4 hours
Spent a whole Saturday in my garage on a walnut cutting board and the blade kept grabbing. Thought my sharpening was bad. Turns out I'd never wiped the sole of my No. 5 with paraffin. My grandpa's old block of Gulf wax was sitting in the toolbox the entire time. Two swipes down the sole and it glides like it's on ice. What else am I missing that seems obvious to everyone but me?
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eric_knight71mo ago
Wax on the sole helps but that's not why your blade was grabbing. A sticky sole makes the plane harder to push, sure, but grabbing and chatter come from the blade itself. If you sanded maple for 4 hours with a grabbing blade, your iron was dull or you had too much camber, or the chip breaker wasn't seated tight against the iron. Paraffin quiets things down and cuts friction, but it won't fix a bad edge. Bet if you'd pulled that blade and looked at it under a light you'd have seen a worn spot or a nick. Not trying to bust your chops, just don't want you blaming the wax next time when the real fix is ten minutes on the stones. Gulf wax is still good stuff to keep around though, works great on drawer runners and handsaw plates too.
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