About the Veritas PM-V11 Plane Blade

I recently bought a 2-3/8″ PM-V11 Stanley replacement blade from Lee Valley for my restored No. 5-1/2 hand plane because the original blade was warped. I had been using a blade from a No. 6 plane but that is not a long term solution.

When I hone the blade, I quickly learned that the primary bevel is at 30 degrees instead of 25 degrees(which is noted on the storage box). The micro bevel is at 35 degrees. The micro bevel is not very even(highs and lows across the width) so it took me maybe 10 minutes to polish the micro bevel to my liking. I imaging Veritas uses some machines to put micro bevels onto their blades, so I understand it is hard to get the micro bevel as even as manual methods. When I flip over to take the burr off, the leading edge of the face(Yes, for plane blades, the flat side is the face. For chisels, the flat side is the back. I know, confusing!) polished up right away.

To fit the new blade in the No. 5-1/2, I had to widen the mouth by about 1mm(~0.04″). I chose to file the front of the mouth because I don’t want to alter the area behind the mouth which the frog could slide back and forth on.

After moderate amount of use, I noticed there were a couple small chips on the blade. So I honed the blade again to remove the nicks. Since then, the blade held up well with moderate amount of use so far.

I will report back after extensive use of this blade to see if the edge indeed last much longer than Lie-Nielsen A2 blade. To be continued…