How to prepare a kanna blade

In this video I show you how to prepare a kanna blade. This is usually the first step in tuning up a kanna. It covers flattening the back, tapping out, adjusting the chipbreaker, grinding the mimi, and some tips on sharpening.

[@andyryalls]

Fantastic. I think we all have been waiting for you to do this video as it helps confirm and teach Japanese tool users how to prepare the blade. Just cant wait for the next video and towards making the wafer thin shavings that a finely tuned kanna can make. Cant thank you enough buddy. Please keep on teaching. Many thanks Andy Ryalls from the Japanese tool study group in the UK

[@aliencat1]

Thank you for this and your series of videos on setting up a kanna. I picked up two great tips I have not heard or seen before, on tapping out the blade as part of the initial setup, and preserving the back of the blade when sharpening with natural stones. Great work!

[@kaikane97]

Thank you so much!! I just picked up my first kanna in Tokyo today. Really appreciate the time you spent explaining all the steps involved with tuning it perfectly. I see i have some work ahead of me before i get to use it.

[@stillinsight3895]

Hello Sumo-kun. I dont know if you still use this channel, but I just wanted to thank you for all of your hard work in conveying Japanese woodworking knowledge. Properly tuning a kanna seems hard to come by in the Western sphere. It makes getting into Japanese woodworking very elusive. However, your videos make it Japanese woodworking accesible and enjoyable. Thanks to you, my dad and I were able to tune our kanna and enjoy woodworking together. I have spent weeks just focusing on sharpening my kanna blade and nomi. It was very frustrating at first- i kept messing up the flat back or I held it wrong. But your videos and comments are very encouraging. I have the knowledge needed, I just need to listen to the tools and be patient. Now, even though I am still bad at it, I enjoy sharpening in my apartment. Maybe some day I will even get to use my tools! Thank you so much and I hope you continue to enjoy your craft :)

[@sumokun]

Hi! Thank you for your message. I am currently unable to make new content for the channel since I am too busy with work right now but I do read all the comments and try and reply. It is great to hear that you are able to enjoy this wonderful activity with your dad. Sharpening and setup is definitely one of the hurdles to be overcome but you will get the hang of it if you persevere. Just take things slowly and enjoy it. If you ever feel stressed, just take a step back and come back another time. As I mentioned, I read all the comments and reply so if you have any questions, feel free to message me.

[@thomasalison6188]

Thanks for the great videos! Very informative!

[@derekwhite6167]

Excellent video. Thank you. I just bought a kanna from an old-school sharpening stone shop in Tokyo and after I returned home became worried that my chip breaker was too narrow. You cleared that up for me with the advice about grinding the mimi...I guess I have some grinding to do! Again...many thanks for a great tutorial (this video along with your others).

[@sumokun]

Thanks for watching and hope you get some good use out of the kanna ;)

[@pespesle]

u r just like any other Japanese craftsman's: Accurate, accurate and accurate. tnx for sharing.

[@elliot3487]

Incredible amount of knowledge

[@desarrollojava]

Excellent video!

[@sumokun]

Thanks for watching! I'm nowhere near being a craftsman though. I'm just a hobbyist trying to do woodwork in a rented apartment :)

[@sumokun]

Thanks! The way I show here is just one way of doing things but the way I've found the simplest to pull off. In Japan there are as many ways to prepare a blade set as there are people who use them but the basics are all the same. Once you know what you should be looking for in a tuned blade set, you can apply it to any method you choose. I'll try and get the other videos done asap so stay tuned :)

[@chriscas-ToolAficionado]

In my quest to learn as much as I can about setting up a Japanese plane, this video has been very informative. So, thank you for sharing this, along with all the thorough and thoughtful replies to your viewers' questions! I have a question as well that I hope you can provide some insight on. I'm in the process of setting up my very first Japanese plane, which I bought new in Osaka, two years ago. Without going into too much detail over the somewhat stressful process of the initial setup of the blade to the body (I totally underestimated the process that undergoes in just the first stages of initializing a Japanese plane!). I set the plane body aside for now and started on setting up the blade and chip breaker. In the process of flattening the back and working the bevel side, I noticed that the blade's cutting edge was shaped with a slight convex. I made sure my combination 1000/4000 synthetic waterstones were levelled flat so I wan't to rule out the idea that my waterstone was concave. Now the convexity isn't visible to the naked eye (requires a straight edge to notice). I started to carefully level out that convexity and I managed to do so to some degree, but then I second guessed my decision and started to wonder whether I had bought a plane that was meant for rough planing, like having a Western plane with a cambered blade. Or is the minor convexity a standard design on Japanese plane blades? Thank you for your time.

[@sumokun]

Hi, it sounds like it is not a very big radius. First, planes fresh from the store are never straight or in any way near ready for use so having a slightly radiused edge or non-flat back etc is very common, especially if the plane is not a top end model. In your case, it sounds like it was just how it was ground by the maker that made the edge a bit radiused. There are no radiused blades like in Western woodworking for rough work. The Japanese method is to round only the corners and keep a flat profile in the centre. I would go ahead and just sharpen the blade to a straight profile (assuming you want it for smoothing type work). Just make sure to round the corners a bit to avoid train tracks.

[@kinobito3479]

@@sumokun Hey Sumokun (or maybe rather Sumo-kun, in case it's the japanese honorific), after watching your two series about building traditional style planes, this is another great video. Thank you for all the information! Right now I have two important questions left (which you already alluded to in your previous comment): 1) How exactly do you create the rounded off corners to prevent train tracks? Do you sharpen them between cutting edge and mimi or do the mimi take over that function though forming a sharp corner rather than a gradual backdrop? As to how: are 10 to 20 strokes for each corner with additional pressure on the highest grit stone enough? 2) Do you lightly oil the blade after every sharpening or can that be left out when you deal with hardwoods, where you sharpen often? In that case maybe just at the end of work?

[@sumokun]

@@kinobito3479 Hi, thanks for watching :) So 1) Different people have different ways but one common method I see is to basically sharpen only the corner by rolling the blade from side to side... if you know what I mean. This is done on all grits (except maybe the really course ones). This will create a really rounded corner. You don't need a lot of rounding off unless you are taking huge cuts so my preferred method is more akin to the Western method of taking only a minor amount of material off the corners by lifting gradually and only slightly on the corners and only on the finer stones (like 5k and 8k sort of range) about 5-10 times on each stone. This is usually enough for fine cuts. For deeper cuts, just increase the number of times you abrade. There isn't any real reason to make only a small radius. I just prefer it because I think the more common method looks pretty ugly and it requires radiusing the chipbreaker corners too to get them out of the way to avoid jamming where if you keep to the minimal method, you can get away with a straight chipbreaker. 2) Oiling the blade after every sharpening is a good habit to get into because although it isn't absolutely necessary if you are sharpening frequently, I find it helps the oil to "soak" into the blade better if done frequently and it ends up being more effective as a rust preventative.If only done infrequently, I find the blade sometimes absorbs the oil and can leave dry spots. Hope that helps!

[@sumokun]

Thanks for watching! It's good to hear you learnt something new :)

[@sumokun]

Yes, sorry for the delay. I actually have the parts mostly filmed and now its a matter of editing and uploading. I'll try and get everything uploaded asap ;)

[@SICDavid]

That is a great video and i thank you. I am very interested in Japanese hand planes and know very little about purchasing one. Can you recommend a website(US or international) that I can be sure I'm getting a good quality product? Yours looks awesome. Thx

[@sumokun]

Hi, unfortunately I can't really recommend a site to get a kanna. Most commercial sites that sell kanna price them way too high for a beginner and I would really recommend you look for something cheaper as a first kanna. I mean, if budget isn't a concern, then sure, go for it but assuming it is, you really want to practice setting one up and using it before getting an expensive one in order to reduce the risk of ruining it. If you need any more help feel free to ask away.

[@aleksandarjoksic8799]

Thank you very much for these videos. I've just got my first kanna (Takakatsu small plane). It should be good for a beginner. You've helped a lot to make it work. Still I do not have results like you, but I'll continue to work on it. All the best.

[@sumokun]

Thanks for watching! The best advice I can give is to take your time and be patient. Most, if not all tuning problems are from rushing the process and going too far. Tuning a kanna is not hard but it does require attention to what you are doing. Just about all the mistakes you make are fixable but its best to not have to patch up mistakes. Good luck and I hope you get a good result. If you have any questions feel free to ask :)

[@aleksashi1]

Sumokun Do you recommend oiling upper part of plane body with some oil? And how often, from your experience, should the blade be sharpened if you're working with a hardwood for example Black Locust?

[@sumokun]

Oiling of the dai is done very infrequently and usually with camelia oil, not a drying oil like BLO or tung etc. Its done more to get off the grime that has built up rather than finish and protect. I guess if you oiled up the dai too much it might become slippery and hard to grab onto? Personally I don't oil my dai. How often to sharpen is very specific to a particular craftsman. Some sharpen only when they reeaaallly have to, others sharpen almost every other stroke. It really depends on too many factors such as shaving thickness, wood species, initial sharpness, blade material... the list goes on. However that's not really useful to you so as a guideline I would sharpen "as needed". That means that for the thickness of shaving you are aiming to take, if the plane isn't performing smoothly then sharpen. For fat shavings, this can be as little as once every few hundred meters, but for fine finish work in hard woods, maybe every 20-50 meters is more appropriate. I've not worked with black locust before but I've used many types of very hard woods like ebonies and rosewoods and for these, I sharpen maybe every 50 meters as a guideline for general shavings (about 0.05mm?). I actually like sharpening but I've found over the years that its best to take the thickest shaving you can to reduce the number of sharpenings you need to do. I found the blade wears pretty much the same regardless of if you take a thick or thin shaving so its best to take thick shavings first then switch to a thin shaving to finish up, preferably with a different plane. Which brings me onto tip 2. Its a good idea to have a couple of planes in each of the sizes you use and set them up so that you have backups to use when a plane goes dull. This lets you get on with the work for a while then you can sharpen later. Hope that helped :)

[@aleksashi1]

Sumokun That helped a lot for sure. My two layered blade is one of the cheapest for Japanese planes but it's not bad. For sure I do not expect the same results as they would be with a Blue paper steel, Aogami or some other but It dulls pretty fast in hardwood. I can not get these 20meters. But this is very good advice to have more than one kanna. Thank you very much for your time and advices. I'm sure that I will be back with some more questions :) All the best 先生

[@sumokun]

No problem :) If it can't last 20 meters then maybe wait until you can get a better plane, then you can use it for a rough plane. There is no need for high quality planes in rough work. Also, if it did get dull while doing rough work, you can just sharpen up to about 4-5k and get back to work so it is much quicker than doing a full sharpen. Also, how sharp is it to begin with? I'm not sure of your sharpening ability so sorry if I sound condescending but I learnt that what I first thought was sharp was not actually sharp. If your blade is truly sharp, it should be able to cut a hair no problem. You can compare against a razor blade as a frame of reference. Again, feel free to message if you need more help :)

[@jamesfansdesigncrossing4184]

Hi Sumokun, Thank you for such important knowledge with us, would you like to share a few kind of water stones, such as natural stone vs artificial stone?

[@sumokun]

+James Fan Hi, thanks for watching! Stones are quite a personal thing. What works for one person might not work for another and it just gets more complicated when talking about natural stones. In general I would recommend staying with synthetics if you are not sure about what stone you want to buy. They work well, are relatively cheap and they offer consistency, which is very important if you are in the learning stages. I have a big tub full of naturals ranging from cheap to pretty expensive and I can honestly say there is no solid correlation between price and performance. In fact some of my most used stones are the cheaper ones. I do plan on doing a quick-ish video showing some stones and going through their pros and cons but I don't think I will cover natural stones in depth since it is just not really possible to reliably judge a natural without actually using it.

[@JoeGeorge319]

Thanks Sumokun - what grit & brand of finishing stone do you use, that stone at the end? Also, what brand of anvil is that?

[@sumokun]

Hi, the final stone here is a natural waterstone so there is no real brand or grit. iirc, it was an Ohira. The "anvil" is just a generic brand over here, I think it was SK11 or something. Its basically just a chunk of railway rail.

[@Herminski]

Great video, I am dealing with an uneven edge, the right side of the back of the blade is lower than the left edge corner, I've been sharpening the back on a 800 stone wondering if that would make any changes but I see that's not a good idea either, is this all more about the pressure when sharpening the bevel?

[@sumokun]

+Hermes Monroy Hi, I am guessing that you have a skewed edge? First, make sure your back is flat. Don't grind away on a coarse stone to flatten it, but tap it out to remove the low spots. Then sharpen up the bevel and concentrate your pressure on the side that is protruding. You probably won't be able to get it all square in one go (and it is a bit of a waste of steel) so just gradually make it square over several sharpenings, each time concentrating your pressure on the "bad" side. The skew, if it is not too severe, should be correctable with the lateral adjustment allowance in the dai. Let me know if you have any problems :)

[@Herminski]

Thank you, I will now do this steps

[@Herminski]

and yes its is a small skewed edge, Ive been planning a lot with this blade lately and what Ive been doing is the lateral adjustment on the dai that you mendtioned, also, thanks to your other videos about tuning up a kanna and how to flatten the sole, my shavings look better and sounds beautiful..

[@Ian_Hay]

I’ve recently bought a new kanna, so of course I’m back at this great series. Can I ask some advice? The kanna is new store-bought 70mm super blue steel smoothing plane. It’s a Nakano Takeo plane, and not cheap. As delivered, the blade bevel is quite skewed - ground over a mm off of perpendicular on either side. I haven’t fully tuned the dai yet to see how the edge finally sits at the mouth, but as it sits now, I can already see that - to protrude square at the mouth, the blade is going to be heavily skewed to one side, with little or no margin. Is this a condition you’d consider unusual and flawed enough in a new, retail kanna to send it back and find another? Or this is just an expected part of tuning a kanna blade, and should I roll up my sleeves and try to square up the angle at my diamond stones? Thanks.

[@sumokun]

Hi there. This is quite a complex question so this might get pretty long ... So first off, it's quite hard to judge if it's "defective" or not based on a text description but generally speaking, a high quality blade will be roughly square to the sides straight from the manufacturer. It is quite rare however to get a perfectly ground blade since they are handmade so you should expect some deviation. The main thing you are looking for is to see how far off the edge is off square when measured from both sides. It should be relatively even. It won't measure 90 degrees since the blade is wedge shaped so what you are looking for is an even amount of off-squareness. On a good blade set, you are looking at maybe around less than a millimeter to be ground off of one corner to make things even. If it's more than that it's not the end of the world but the care taken in making the blade would be questionable. One millimeter might sound quite a lot but you should take into account the bevel angle. Generally the bevel angle of new blades is quite shallow. This allows for easier grinding to get the bevel angle you want and also allows for easier squaring up of the edge. It will look ugly at first with an incomplete bevel but with use it will get ground down during sharpening and become complete. This does require good sharpening discipline though. Now regarding your comment about skewing the blade in the dai, before you go any further, stop. You need to get the blade set figured out before you touch the dai otherwise you will risk getting a loose fit. Dai are generally made to a 90 percent fit to a specific blade set. The last 10 percent is for the user to finish up to get the kanna set up as the user likes and to also give leeway for fixing up blade defects like skewed grinds and non-flat backs etc. The blade is wedge shaped so if you remove material from the back, it will fit looser in the dai. This is why you need to get the blade dialed in before tuning the dai. When tuning the dai, you should aim for a good fit in terms of having decent contact between the blade and dai bed, and also have it sit relatively centrally in the dai so there is little to no skew at the edge when tapped in. There should also be a small amount of lateral adjust wiggle room (about 1mm gap on either side of the blade is plenty). The thing you have to keep in mind with kanna is that the makers are usually really old by now and maybe they can't pay as much attention to finish as they did back in the day. It is also generally expected the user will tune the kanna and tools in general, to suit their preferences so things aren't as square and straight as in say modern Western metal planes. If things are way off though definitely have a talk with the seller and see if there is another in stock to compare to etc. Hope that helped and feel free to ask for clarification if you need.

[@Ian_Hay]

@@sumokun My many apologies for taking so long to reply back, especially after such a generously fast and detailed response. Thank you! First, yes, I knew pretty much immediately that I should pause on any serious work on the dai until I figured out what to do with the blade. Second - yes, the edges of the blade are obviously not parallel, and that makes it hard to measure and explain the degree of the slant. I’d explain it this way, after taking a few precise measurements: the high side of the blade edge is about 90 degrees relative to the side of the iron on that side; the low side is about 92 degrees relative to its side of the iron, so averaging about 1 degree off square on either side relative to each other. The high side is maybe 1.5 mm longer than the low side, so again averaging about .75 mm ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ respectively from where they should be if the edge were square to the notional center line of the iron. So it’s not *terrible*. I’m going to keep it, and work with it. But I’m a bit paralyzed as to how I’m going to correct it. The only jig that I have is the vice-type honing guide. That has a center wheel, so it’s hard to fit the blade and apply pressure in a way that reliably and measurably favours one side of the edge. If freehand sharpening, I could ‘favour’ my finger pressure on one side, and try to even it out, but I’d be afraid of how imprecise that is, and could over-correct, or just create an unpredictable and uneven camber. I was really hoping to freehand sharpen my kanna blades, and was hoping to avoid a new jig/guide. But maybe I need one. What would be your tool/strategy? Many thanks again, Ian.

[@sumokun]

@@Ian_Hay Hi, that does sound like quite a lot of deviation, buts it's not super out of the ordinary. So personally, I would use a K2 Grintec to set the proper skew and bevel angle. You can see it in my sharpening jigs video but it is quite expensive for what is essentially a one trick pony. If you don't want to get a new jig, then I'd first measure the bevel angle. I think you'd find that it is shallower than what is ideal (I:be never seen a new blade with a steeper angle). If that is the case, then that would allow you to freehand sharpen at the correct (steeper) angle and start off with only grinding the high corner/side. That should allow you to bring it down pretty quickly since it will be a skinny triangle of metal. Keep checking for "square" and you should be able to get a full edge quite quickly. Prioritise squareness rather than precise bevel angle at this stage. Once you get it square, you should be able to fix the bevel angle with a jig or freehand pretty quickly. Grinding down the whole bevel to the perfect bevel angle will just waste steel and take a ton of time so once you get about 1mm or so of bevel ground in across the width of the blade, stop and call it good.

[@Ian_Hay]

@@sumokun thanks so much, again. I now own 4 kanna of various sizes and quality, so perhaps the K2 is a reasonable investment in the long run. I’ll watch your video, and do some research on it. The bevel angle on my new kanna is currently 26 degrees. The steel is Super Blue (青紙スーパー鋼), so I assumed it could tolerate a shallower bevel angle. But I’ll look at what an appropriate angle is for that steel on a 70mm smoothing plane. Thanks again.

[@Ian_Hay]

(When I said ‘shallower bevel angle’, I didn’t mean shallower than 26 degrees; I meant shallower than typical, perhaps justifying 26 degrees).

[@borp6912]

How did you learn woodworking? Did you apprentice under someone or are you self taught? Either way, thanks so much for sharing your knowledge! ✌️

[@sumokun]

Hi, I learnt by myself. I started reading books and the various forums and watching youtube etc., and mainly just trying stuff out. All my Japanese-related woodworking stuff was from Japanese websites and books etc so knowing Japanese definitely helped!

[@ignaciomarqueztorres]

Thanks for your video. I tried tapper my blade but it didn't move. The corners of the back of the blade are still not touching the sharpening stone, I tapered with a Hammer over a piece of metal, also tried over hard wood. Any idea of what I am doing wrong?

[@sumokun]

Hi, there could be a few causes. First you want to make sure your blade isn't crazy out of flat. Tapping will help but can't fix a totally out of flat back (for example if the previous owner sharpened regularly on a warped stone). The next thing is you want to make sure you tap on the correct part of the bevel. Too close to the edge and it will crack, too far and it won't do anything. About 2/3rds of the way from the edge is about right. Next you need to make sure you hit with enough force. Start light and check frequently but if it isn't doing anything, hit a bit harder and check again. Having a solid metal anvil/block to hit against is definitely recommended. Wood is too light and doesn't provide good feedback. Just make sure the metal block isn't hardened steel and the corner is round. Lemme know how you get on.

[@ignaciomarqueztorres]

@@sumokun First of all, thanks for your answer. It is a new blade (tsunesaburo) it looks pretty flat . I flattened with a stone but the edges of the ura are still a bit too broad , I would like to send you some pictures to easy understand whats going on. Bought a piece of rail, it will be here arround her in the next coople of days.

[@sumokun]

@@ignaciomarqueztorres Hi, if it is new, then it should be pretty close to flat. Feel free to send some pictures over. You can get my contact details from youtube.

[@ignaciomarqueztorres]

finnally the blade is making contact at the tip of the ura. and its working like a charm. sometimes when i use the chipbreaker it gets clogged idk if I should remove some material from the mouth. and another question , can I make the ura dashi again? idk why but the sides of the ura are still too wide. the tip its narrow but it works

[@sumokun]

@@ignaciomarqueztorres Good to hear you are making progress :) Clogging chipbreakers can be caused by a variety of things. First make sure that the chipbreaker mates to the back of the blade perfectly. If there is even the tiniest of gaps, you can be sure that wood shavings/dust will find its way in there and eventually clog everything up. Next make sure you don't get too aggressive on the secondary bevel of the chipbreaker. If the bevel is too large, it will block the shavings. Next check that the CB is not set too close to the edge of the blade. Setting it too close can prevent the shavings from flowing off the blade. Also check the clearance at the very mouth of the plane. Make sure there is room for the chips to flow out. A tight mouth is good but with CBs, you don't need a super tight mouth. Finally make sure your blade is sharp. If it is dull, then you will get more dust along with your shavings and that is usually the initial cause of clogging. Ura-dashi can be performed as many times as you want. If your "ashi", the two thin strips along the side of the back hollow, are too thick, that means you've gone a bit too far with flattening your back. They should be kept as thin as possible throughout the life of the kanna if you want to maintain it well. The edge will naturally get thinner with use and in that case you can tap it out again and create a more substantial edge. When doing this though be careful to only flatten the edge and not the ashi otherwise you will end up with a flat back eventually.

[@rickhickman2730]

The tapping out actually pushes out the metal to create an area to flatten? How often do Japanese planes need tuning?

[@sumokun]

Hi, tapping out basically deforms the soft backing iron and as a result deforms the cutting steel layer. If you tap on the bevel, the iron layer gets squished and spread out so the steel layer will bend accordingly. In terms of tapping out, kanna require very little after the initial setup. Maybe once every 6 months (kind of depends on use)? If you maintain your sharpening stones and have good sharpening technique (i.e. keep everything *flat*) then the only time you need to tap out is when you sharpen past the hollow on the edge. The amount of tapping needed to fix this is quite minor and is easily done so I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you are a bit scared of destroying your expensive blade, find some junker from auctions etc and practice with that. It won't take you long to get a feel for it.

[@rickhickman2730]

@@sumokun so by squishing the metal out, it fills out the hollow creating the "landing" all along the back of the cutting edge which then gets honed to create the edge with the bevel basically. Is it worth buying a cheaper one to try out? The most common type of wood for the Dai is not easily available here in Canada, would it be worth making one from oak or Osage Orange? Trying to set myself up for success, but being new to woodworking, Japanese tools are a whole new gambit. Thank you for taking the time to answer

[@sumokun]

@@rickhickman2730 Yes, that is correct. It depends on how cheap you can get a practice blade but if you can source a "properly made" one (i.e. laminated with soft steel for the backing and of decent quality) for not a lot of money, then I would go for it. For dai material you want something tough. It should be hard but with good resiliency so it will not wear too quickly and will also compress and spring back to a certain extent. An extreme case of a bad wood would be something like ebony, which is very hard, yes, but it also very brittle. You need a bit of spring to grip the blade and give you some adjustment leeway. Oak should be OK (a bit porous for my liking but it should be usable) but I think Osage Orange might be a bit too brittle. I've never seen any of it in the flesh so can't say for certain but reading accounts of it online, it sounds a bit too hard. Can you get beech? That should be fine to use as well, although it is a bit soft compared to the Japanese oak. Hard maple would also be a fine substitute (again, a bit soft but it should work for your first dai). You can fix this by just laminating a hard sole material on to the beech/maple body.

[@rickhickman2730]

@@sumokun in Canada, there is one individual who deals alot with Kanna and recommended making basically a "plywood" lamination body out of Osage. I can get Beech. My thinking was, get a cheap plane from Amazon, and get a decent blade from the gentleman in Canada. Do I need to get the special tapping hammer? Can I just use a piece of wood for tapping out? I was thinking I would try the Amazon plane for setting up and tapping out, and then use that experience for a decent Kanna. Yamamoto Blue Steel is what has been recommended to me. It's approximately $2-300 USD for a Kanna and Dai combination. If I have understood all of the reading correctly, most Japanese carpenters do not use a "jointer"plane, the way we do in the West. Possibly a longer bodied Kanna, but for the most part, the Kanna are all around the same length, and planing rough lumber to finished lumber is a matter of how the Kanna are set up individually - correct? Thank you for all of the answers. I want to get a Kanna for finishing, and a Kanna for jointing. I primarily work with straight grained wood. I am going to build a wooden plane but it is a Western style Krenov inspired build (you might know who that is). I am also hoping to get a few Japanese chisels. The idea of the hollow, and the better quality steel and better adjusted tools (fitting blade to body, etc.) makes more sense to me.

[@samplum4150]

Hello, thank you for this video it's very accurate with details. I am trying to sharpen and hone my chisel and plane but I cannot make it shave my arm hairs. The edge is sharp but not sharp enough. I am working on 1000 grit flattening stone then 3000/8000 whetstone and then hone with a leather strop and compound. Is there anything I can do to improve blade sharpening? Thank you for you time

[@sumokun]

Ah that sounds like a similar situation to what I was experiencing. First off it is very important to make sure your stones are flat. Consistency is the name of the game and if your stones are not flat, you don't have a consistent reference surface to work towards. Diamond stones are a convenient solution although a bit expensive for good ones. The cheap ones are usually not flat so make sure you can test them before you buy if you go for a cheaper one. Another option that is good to start with is sandpaper on glass (or some other hard, flat surface). Of course you need a good, flat piece of glass for this to work so make sure you get a good piece. Then it is as simple as laying some sandpaper on the glass (a good guide is about half of the grit of the stone) and then wetting and rubbing the stone surface on it. This gets messy so be warned. Another important thing is to make sure you do not cross contaminate your stones. Make sure to thoroughly wash stones, tools and your hands before each grit. Getting larger grit particles on the finer stones will give you a bad result. This is especially important for you since you have a combination stone. The above two things are simple and require no skill but will improve your results so sticking to them is a no-brainer. Now for the actual process of sharpening, I would really recommend you get a jig at first for the reasons I explain in my jig video. These principles will apply to hand sharpening as well though. First rule is you must keep a consistent angle during all your strokes. This is ridiculously important. The reason for this is because once you get to the finer stones, you will only be polishing the edge and not reshaping the bevel so having a consistent angle lets you polish the edge efficiently otherwise you end up having to increase the sharpening angle after every grit to efficiently abrade the edge. Normally this is done by grinding the bevel to the desired angle and using it as the reference surface to follow while sharpening so that the whole bevel surface (including the all-important edge) is abraded at the same time. Hollow grinding can help here to give a more positive registration but it isn't needed. Once you have the bevel flat and at the desired angle, proceed on the rough stone to make an even scratch pattern all across the bevel and edge. Make sure you really check the edge to see all of it has been covered. This is easy if you have flat stones and bevel. A common technique is to feel for the burr on the back side and to make sure you can feel it all across the edge length. Some stone and steel combinations don't produce a very big burr so this is not always a reliable test. Make sure you really check the scratch patterns to see if there are any left over from the last grit. Do not cheat yourself here and think it is good enough. This is an area I was struggling with until it clicked for me and I was stricter on my standards. Patience is the key here. Then, you wash everything, and then move on to the next stone. Do the same there (make sure you inspect the very edge!) and then move on to the next stone etc. Once you get to the finer grits it becomes harder to see the scratch patterns so in the beginning sharpen for a little longer than you think is necessary. With experience you will be able to judge whether you have gotten there or not. Having said that, with 3 stones, you shouldn't have too many problems seeing the different scratch patterns. The difference between the 3 stones should be big enough to see with the naked eye. When you finish the bevel on all the stones, lightly hone the back of the blade on the finest stone only, to sharpen off the burr. Again, you are looking to abrade the edge so keep it flat on the stone and do not lift the blade up unless you want a back bevel. Now you can see why maintaining a flat stone is so important. Then flip back to the bevel and clean it up a bit, then to the back etc. Repeat that about 4 or 5 times and with each pass reduce the pressure you apply on the blade. After that, you should be done. Shaving arm off your hair is a minimum requirement but a good test I find is to get a hair and see if you can cut/split it while holding it about 5mm-10mm from the blade (like I do in my chisel restoration video). If you can get it that sharp, it should be serviceable. This is doable with 8k grit (in the video I use a Shapton 8k) so that is something you can aim towards. Other tips are that you should gradually reduce pressure on the blade as you near the end of the sharpening on each stone. This is to try and minimise the size of the scratches left on the blade before you move on to the next stone. This is just an efficiency thing. Also, ditch the strop and compound. It is a good band aid to get a sharper final edge but it will roll over the edge ever so slightly making the flat bevel you are trying to maintain not so flat with each pass. If you must use it, experiment with MDF as the strop. Just use a piece of MDF with compound applied to it directly so that you have a flat and stable surface. The compound you use is likely in the 10k~30k grit range so once you have mastered the 8k stone, you can supplement it with a 12k or 15k stone and that should serve you for pretty much everything. That should be enough to get you started but if you have any questions etc, feel free to hit me up :)

[@samplum4150]

@@sumokun thank you so much for your insight. I gave my sharpening another try today after receiving a 15k whetstone and following your tips. I have a bald patch on my arm where I tested the cutting edge 😁 made me so happy to see progress with correct technique. I tested the cutting on some old pallet wood but I had trouble getting smooth shavings.. it would get stuck and it was very difficult to cut. I was using a very small plane on a wide piece of wood. It did work better on the sides I suppose less material to remove so less pull. But even when it worked it cut shavings off very thick. My question here is: Do I need a kanna plane to get effortlessly thin shavings? As I have tried 3 different planes. All old English planes and they cut maybe 0.8-1.0mm thick shavings. I wanted thinner for more delicate work. I'm very interested in Sashimono Edo work. My only understanding is perhaps my planes are not made for thin shavings in addition to the cutting angle I have on the blades, makes it best suited for removing thicker material. Really hope you could share your wisdom with me and thanks again for your keen interest in teaching others

[@sumokun]

@@samplum4150 Hi! Sorry for the late reply. Good to see you are making progress in sharpening :) As for your shavings problem, you do not need a kanna to get thin shavings. You can definitely get super thin shavings with Western planes. There is a place for planes that can remove material quickly but I assume that you are looking to smooth/finish a piece of wood. First of all, you want to make sure your blade is sharp. I mean really sharp. To get a good final finish, you need a sharp blade. It sounds like you are getting there so keep working on that. Next is setup. I have found that having a smaller mouth opening in the plane gives a more stable cut. Try to close it up so that it is about 0.1mm~0.5mm in width. Ideally you want to close it up so that it only lets the thinnest of shavings through but this can cause the plane to jam so it is best to open it up a little more than that. You also need to make sure you plane sole is flat. If it is not flat it will rock about on the work piece and be unpredictable. Usually this manifests itself as a plane that doesn't cut so you advance the blade a bit more and then suddenly it starts taking huge chunks out of the work. Sandpaper on MDF is a good and cheap way to get a relatively flat sole. You will also need to check the bedding of the blade. Make sure it has good support at the casting. If it doesn't sit well, then it will likely move around under force and cause the blade to deflect under cutting. Again, this results in an unstable plane. Finally make sure you are not advancing the blade too much. An easy way to set the projection of the blade is to get a thing sliver of wood (like a piece of veneer or something) and run it lengthwise down the plane sole to check how the blade cuts on both of its corners. The resulting wispy shavings should be equal in thickness from both sides and they should be thin. This helps you dial in the lateral adjustment too so that one corner won't dig in to the work too much. As a final step, you should round off the corners of the blade a bit so that you don't get a step where the corner stops cutting. This can be done by just applying slightly more pressure on the corners of the blade whole sharpening.

[@samplum4150]

@@sumokun that is quite alright my friend. I went back to the shed with what you told me and I can plane smooth on both hardwood and softwood. I wonder if you know how to get micron shavings? Or at least fine shavings... The thinnest I can get with my kanna is 1.5mm thick. How would I cut thinner and finer?

[@sumokun]

@@samplum4150 1.5mm is *very* thick indeed. It is quite hard to diagnose the problem without actually seeing the kanna in question but first of all I would back the blade out. To set the correct depth of cut, you should back the blade out so that it no longer protrudes from the sole. Then advance it a little bit and then get a thin piece of wood and try and take shavings from the different parts of the blade. If it doesn't cut, advance a bit more and test. At some point, you will start cutting the wood. If it cuts on one side more than the other, then make a lateral adjustment (don't adjust depth yet) and try again until it cuts evenly across the width of the blade. You should then have a blade that is centered and cutting well, but still too thick. Give this a try and see what happens on some proper piece of wood. To refine it, back the blade out a little at a time and keep testing with the thin piece of wood as you do it. Depending on how you have fitted the blade to the dai, this can be a difficult process. If you have set the blade up for a thin cut with the thin piece of wood and can't get the kanna to cut on a bigger piece of wood, it could be that the sole is not flat or the wood you are planing is not very flat. Both of these are easy to check. If the kanna ends up taking a really deep cut instead, it is likely that your sole is not flat and your mouth of the dai is too wide. Give some of the stuff above a try and see how you get along and report back with any results. Good luck!

[@fridunanti]

Hi, it seems the blade doesn´t have any micro bevel as the european ones. am I right?

[@sumokun]

Hi, yes, that's right. You can put a micro bevel on the blade but its not standard. For HSS blades it helps to speed up sharpening but for normal steel in normal use I don't see any benefit and it is more troublesome to do and maintain without jigs. For the kezurokai shows, people do use micro bevels for ease of sharpening.

[@Tome4kkkk]

Hi! You wanted me to get back to you on separating a combination stone. Do you remember under which of your videos the conversation started?

[@sumokun]

Hi I think the video was the tuning up a chisel part 2.

[@Tome4kkkk]

Noted! I'll prepare a video if I have the time or a proper description. TLDR: not worth the risk :)

[@sumokun]

Haha, I suspected as much. Buying two stones costs more up front but I think they are more economical in the long run plus they don't have the disadvantages I alluded to in out other discussion.