York Pitch Re-Grind

Garrett Hack replies: For a common Stanley or other bench plane you would need to hone a 5° bevel on the back of your iron. I would not recommend you do this however, but you could by honing the back while propping it up with a ruler on your stone—the so called Ruler Trick.

Far easier is to restore an old wooden plane with a York pitch, or buy a Lie Nielsen bench plane with a 50° frog or grind a steeper bevel angle on a low angle bench plane such as the #62. Since these are bevel up and bedded at 12°, a 38° bevel angle should do the trick. And for this latter choice it’s easy to try even steeper bevel angles, or much lower ones, or go back to 25° when you are tired of experimenting!