Veritas Plane Blades

[Dennis Mills]

Hi Folks,

A brief note about Veritas plane blades. They say the face side (opposite the bevel side) is flat within 0.0005" - five ten thousandths,

and their surface roughness, Ra = 5 microinches. What does this mean to us? We'll get to that in a  minute.

First, let me say that every plane or spokeshave blade of theirs that I used have always been flat - no need to spend a lot of time getting the backs flat. You can go to your finest stone to polish the surface. They are the only product I can say that about. Hock blades, which many people swear by, need flattening. 

I have also been very favorably impressed with the quality of their blades, whether they are made from O1, A2, or their powdered PMV1. The heat treatment seems spot on and the blades are clean everywhere. Their blades are slightly more expensive than the Hock equivalents, but I find that to be a good trade-off because of the time saved by not having to flatten them ($46.50 vs $42.90 for a 2" O1 blade). Then again, if you use a small back bevel you can get around a lot of the flattening required in most blades.

0.0005" flatness? Two parallel plates within 5 ten thousandths of each other and every part of the surface will be between them. Ra = 5 microinches? Here is a link to a site that will give you more information than you probably want.

https://www.rapiddirect.com/blog/surface-roughness-chart/

I think Veritas plane blades are worth every penny (but for my planes I prefer to make my own - much, much cheaper)

Dennis