I try to cover off as much detail as I can in each video, then follow-up with a written article, but sometimes people are more interested in the video details that what I provide ... hence a follow up video like this.
On Joint Testing ... Many people were interested in the joint testing and there were lots of comments and suggestions ... as I expected. The one joint that received a lot to comments and questions was the pocket hole joint. I did NOT glue that joint because it is an edge grain to long grain joint.
And as most of you know, there is little advantage to trying to glue end grain to long grain, seldom does the glue hold it very well.
What I did do with the pocket hole joint was to use coarse screws. I know the manufacture often suggests their fine screws for hardwoods, but I have often found that I strip them and end up having to put coarse screws in anyway. The problem with coarse screws (and even fine screws sometimes) they "can" split the wood, which did not happen with out test woods.
On Refurbishing an Old Hand Plane ... a number of people commented that rather than order a new heavier replacement blade I could have hammered the existing blade flat. And there is absolutely merit in them saying this. I have hammered plane blade flat in the past and they have worked fine. I have also replaced old blades with new ones and found a distinct difference in planing with a newer thicker plane blade. As you see in the video I replace the plane blade with a slightly thicker one, but did not do any honing of the blade and even with that, the blade worked fine ... was it much better than the original blade, well, the jury is still out on that one. When I get a chance to put a fine finish on the blade, I may do a short re-cap on it. Still I am not disappointed in the least with the final cost of my plane with the new blade and am looking forward to using it more.
An finally, I have provided a bit more detail on sharpening in the Electric Hand Plane video as a number of people suggested. It really is not very involved in terms of taking the old blade out, installing new sharp blades and setting them up so the point is even with the out-feed table of the plane. I'm sure if others have questions they will email me ... or even better, post in on the forums here and get a few of our resident experts to help them out too ... don't forget the Woodworkweb Forums for getting excellent answers.
Colin