I have been working on a school project with one of my kids for a few months.  Making a ladder back chair from a red oak log.  I have a Stanley #4 bench plane, and it was making quick work of the wood until my son decided to run it over a screw head on the workbench.  I sharpened the blade several times, but I can't get the thing to cut like it did before.

I have watched numerous videos and cannot figure out what the heck I am doing wrong?  The blade is plenty sharp, so is it the way I am setting it up?  Any help is greatly appreciated at this point.....

I'm not questioning that you've sharpened it, just questioning your understanding of plenty sharp. Have you sharpened it on stones and honed it on a strop until it easily slices through paper? Before I knew what I was doing I thought I had my plane blade "plenty sharp" but couldn't figure out why it wouldn't cut. It needs to be razor sharp, not "yeah, my blade is razor sharp" but, "my barber would be jealous of the edge on this blade".

What bevel angle did you use? Did you use a guide? Did you roll the corners of the edge so it's not gouging at the corners?

After that, do you have the blade in the right way? It's more common than you think to accidentally flip the blade over. Is the blade held secure?

Do you have the blade sticking out too far? Start with no stick out and slowly adjust until it starts cutting a chip.

Did you adjust the frog?  If not, either the cap iron is improperly set or the iron isn't as sharp as you think it is.

The absence of photos and details makes helping impossible.

Sharp.
Very.
Sharp.

Stock photo of the exact plane I have.  I think this was a cheap-ish plane from lowes or home depot.  I remember my dad having some really nice planes growing up, this is not one of those.....  The adjustment wheels suck.  I have it adjusted as far back as possible, so as to remove very little material.  Maybe it is not as sharp as I thought, but it seems way sharper than it was when it was cutting great.

To answer the specific questions, 30 degrees is what I believe to be the optimal angle for this style of plane.  No guide.  I just followed the factory angle.  Wet stones with honing oil, no strop. I did not draw the corners in.  We are currently taking square pieces and knocking down the hard corners to get them closer to being round spindles. So 1/8"-1/4" wide pieces at a time and basically just using the center 1/3rd of the blade.

I'm guessing I need to reassess how sharp it actually is?

I use a hybrid of the Scary Sharp sharpening method
I generally do not use honing guides.   Just like in shooting or other things, muscle memory develops and can be just as good and faster.

But if you have a damaged edge, maybe start by gently grinding back on a wheel grinder. Do not go to hard or fast into the wheel to avoid bluing the blade.  And stop and cool it in water frequently
Then I use a coarse india stone.  
After that I switch to wet/dry paper on a harbor freight granite block.  Sand wet to remove previous abrasive lines
I go up to 2000 grit.  Only because that’s as fine as the local hardware store carries.  
Then use a 6000(?) grit Japanese water stone to hone the edge.  A strop and compound will do too

Now for making a chair out of green wood, you’re really better suited by starting with a drawknife (the legs will or should be riven/split so should be straight grain anyways).   Use a vise or shave horse to hold the stock since you will be pulling with the drawknife.   You can make good rounded contours with that tool.  Refine the shape with a spokeshave set for a fine cut.   I make my spokeshaves using the “Dave’s Shaves” pattern and Hock knives.  

The slats should be also quarter sawn.  

One of the things very important with ladder back chairs is grain orientation.  You want to take advantage of the wood shrinkage and not just glue and certainly not nails or screws.   Mostly the stretch tenons on this style was not through tenons like you’d see on Windsor chairs, that are then affixed with a wedge.   The stretcher wood should be pretty dry for assembly, and make sure the tenon holes are not too loose.  


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Ladder back rocker next to the Windsor sack back rocker
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These are the Brian Boggs more sculpted design.  Not the rustic John Alexander traditional style (for he went nuts and cut off his nuts and became and ugly looking old tranny).

If you can’t remove some hair with the edge you are not sharp enough.  
Your stones are likely a higher grit than you think.  Or maybe you rolled over the edge some.  

Depth of cut and gap opening is important.   But if you were getting good shavings before and did not adjust the frog position that’s not likely it
Scary sharp is an effective and inexpensive system of sharpening.  Guides help but are not all the answer
I do make a small secondary bevel at 2000 grit by just raising the blade slightly and taking a few passes.  Do both sides to at least 2000 grit.  
If you’re just rounding the stock you don’t need to worry about radiusing the corners of the blade.  
You should strop or takes some passes on an even finer stone to remove the burr created when sharpening.  

Also forgot to say when you sharpen you also need to flatten the back side of the blade.  It should be flat for at least a 1/2 up from the edge
When it’s done you should be able to see your reflection like a mirror

Get a good old Stanley 4 on eBay
Look for a nice old drawknife on eBay.  Witherby , swan, LI J White, Barton all made excellent draw knives.  So long as it’s not pitted and has both wooden handles it can be sharpened to a wicked edge

Was the screw in the wood or sticking up from the bench, like for a stop?

Also a dumb question maybe, but do you have the blade facing the right direction?  
That type of blade would be easy to reverse.  
That’s a really hideous #4 design.  

What are the shavings looking like?

My boat building days.

Took a mahogany boat and faired it for a plug to make a mold for a fiberglass boat.

Yeah I have the harbor freight knock off. It's been modified to be a scrub plane. It sucks to setup to say the least.

Op you got any feeler gauges and something you know is really flat?  Bet you rolled it a bit.

Very possible.  I just tried it myself, and while it is not awesome, it is doing an OK job?  Perhaps I did not take into account that a 13yr olf is the one using the plane....

Isn't that feisty lady @planejane a woodworker? Or am I just imagining that?

I mostly build cabinets. Ninety-five percent of my work is done with power tools. Furniture making with hand tools is day and night compared to what I do.

Based on your guys' posts, it was not nearly as sharp as I thought??

Based on your guys' posts, it was not nearly as sharp as I thought??

@JQ66 -

Thank you for taking so much time in responding.  I have a draw knife, but we are trying to follow how he would have made this chair if he were actually in school?

I have a DW735X in the garage that I would love to employ for this project, but it is all about the hand tools for this one...  I am trying to learn the fine craft of the old-time wood smith......

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These three planes were my grandfather’s and it took me a while to get the cutting edges right.

It was time on the angle grinder getting them square to the edges, then I picked up a honing guide and went through 5 grits of wet/dry paper on float glass. First set to 25° then at 30°.

As someone mentioned earlier, muscle memory is key when hand sharpening and I knew I didn’t possess that. That’s why I got the honing guide.

ETA: this is the guide I’m using. It’s inexpensive (on sale for $12.99 at Rockler).
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Needs some fine tuning, unlike the $125 Lie-Nielsen guide. But I think Fine Woodworking magazine had the video I followed to get it up and running

I was thinking in terms of traditional means.  The drawknife is how you start to shape the riven billet.   You could do the front legs on a lathe, but the back legs most people don’t have a lathe that long.   Also you generally do some shaping to scallop out the front side of the back leg.  With practice you can make a round shape very quickly.   Another thing just came to me - when you saw you had trouble planing- did you take notice of going with or against the grain?    Against the grain with most planes and setup you will not get nice shavings but tearout.  
Maybe you already know, but look at the edge from the side you will be planing.  You want the see the long grain rising away from you (unless you’re using a jap pull plane).  
The chairs I showed - all the rounding on the legs were done by hand tools.   Only the stretchers were done on a lathe.  The Windsor legs and stubs done on a lathe too.   All the back spindles and done from riven/split oak with drawknife and spokeshave.   Drawknife then spokeshave to refine the shape.  Green (not totally dried or kiln dried) wood is very easy to work with drawknives and spokeshave.  Rough forming you don’t want to be wasting your time taking fine shavings, but thick sections.   Just be mindful of grain direction changes or the grain running in.  


A good resource if you can find is “make a chair from a tree”. By John Alexander (later jennie what a train wreck that guy was. Carrying around a teddy bear into his 70s)
Very expensive - but there are some older YouTube videos of him online   The book was supposed to have been reprinted by Lost arts press.   But apparently not yet.  


And what about the seat?  Will it be woven hickory bark like the authentic ones would be?   Or belt like shaker seats?
Hickory bark is not that hard to do.  Time consuming to prep it (you can buy it from a couple places on line).  If you do wear nitrile gloves.   Has to be worked wet, so gloves are more to prevent your finger nails from becoming so soft they tear off.

Maybe you are doing a shaker style - they tend to have straight backs and are not comfortable chairs.   The Appalachian ladder back could have some minor steam bending, on bending the back legs gently over a form of still quite green to take a gentle rake backward with an inflection point just above the seat.  So much more comfortable to sit in.
You can set up for steam bending without too much investment too.   I use some scrap lengths of sch 80 pvc.  (Sch 40 won’t last long until it sags).  An old metal gas can and radio those to the pipe, and a turkey frier burner to heat the water.   Make the form out of a 2x4 or 2x6 with the back arc you need, and screw that onto a double up plywood base.  Wedge in the bottom straight part of the leg, and then bend in the op and use some bar clamps to hold it until dry.  A day or two.   Steam the piece for at least 45 minutes     Watch the grain when you bend.   You don’t want to see the long grain on the edge or it may separate at the bend point.

Special fixtures are made to hold the blade at the correct angle to run on a grinder.  A roller guide is made that is used on a flat stone.

Without these, it is difficult to get the blade angle and edge true.

I haven't touched my hand plane since I bought a power plane.

Go to Amazon.com and search for "Hand Tools" in the "Books" section.

Fine Woodworking, Aldren Watson,... there were a lot of books there which I know to be good.

Thanks. Ordered it to give it a shot. Should be here monday. Fingers crossed, we will be back in business soon with this project.

A simple strop for polishing the edge: take an old pair of blue jeans, spray glue to a sheet of luann or other very smooth material, take a stick of polishing compound meant for charging a buffing wheel. Rub it heavily over the denim. Strop away and a nice finely polished edge ready to slice will the result (assuming you got the grind/stone down).

If you cannot shave some hair off the back of your hand the blade is NOT sharp enough.

Those fucking drums are obnoxious and annoying as fuck