# rounding the corners on a smoothing plane blade?



## kjhart0133 (Feb 4, 2009)

Hello all,

I'm making a hope chest out of cherry for my wife's daughter who is getting married next month. 

I'm planning to dovetail the corners of the main box and will be using a smoothing plane to level all the joints and clean up the surfaces. 

I have heard that it's common to round the corners on the smoothing plane's blade just slightly to prevent leaving 'lines' showing where the plane has gone over the surface.

Can someone describe how to round the blade's corners to achieve this effect? 

Do you use a grinding wheel? A file? A sharpening stone? 

And how much is enough? 1/8" radius? 1/16"? 

Is this done before sharpening or after or does it matter.

Any other tips?

Thanks.

Kevin H.


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## ACP (Jan 24, 2009)

It's actually done during sharpening. On the smoother the camber is very slight, like barely at all. When you are sharpening the plane iron, every other pass or so apply pressure to the side, then the other side, then straight and repeat. Do this through your sharpening cycle and you should have an ever so slight camber on your iron. Leave the grinding wheel or file for the fore plane, the camber on that is significantly larger if you are using it to dimension your wood.


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