Easiest Blade and Chisel Sharpening

[D_W]

Once a thread is 6 pages long, it can go anywhere.

Back to the sharpening, I can give a comparison of times, because I had to use a guide while testing irons so that someone else could duplicate my results. There are a few trolls who think lee valley is out to get them, so they had an immediate reversal of affection as soon as I got results.

God, I hate guides. I used charlesworth's sharpening method when i first started, and at that point, it was great. I literally took notes from his early video because I hadn't started woodworking, followed the methods end to end and had a sharp iron the first time. So, I used that method as I had old guides, and for testing purposes, I needed to use diamonds so that no iron would be criticized as incompletely sharpened. Stones and sharpening are a side hobby of mine, just like toolmaking.

Cycle time for honing with a diamond plate as a secondary bevel and 1 micron diamonds as tertiary - 4 minutes. Agonizing. That's with ruler trick and then confirmation of wire edge removal since some of the steels have an extreme taste for keeping it.

The guide takes away some of your touch with the iron, even if it's the eclipse type (Which is probably the best type for someone to at least learn a little touch). You can't lean on it, you can't manipulate it as much as freehand. Agonizing.

Cycle time without a guide, same stones, same irons, about 1 minute and 20 seconds. The sharpness difference is effectively nil, and I tested duration of edge life and freehand is within 10% (it may be even on another repetition). That tells me that I may have freehanded slightly less clearance, but it didn't amount to much, and in the balance, I'd much prefer that. Shallower is always possible to match edge life.

As much as it was interesting to plane several miles and see how long irons actually last in a controlled test, it's about 1/20th as important as being able to sharpen well and quickly.

If there is any speculation about edge quality, mine is better than most. Maybe not all, but most.

The scope pictures for the irons came out of the availability of it (as in, i already had it, so no reason not to use, plus it's interesting to see what edges look like on the same piece of wood (as in, do some fail in bits while others do it evenly- in clean wood, the answer is, no really, though the plainer the steel in traditional steels, the more uniform the edge quality will be).

But nothing will teach a new woodworker more than a less durable iron and dimensioning by hand. You'll get good at sharpening quickly.

Other than perhaps richard mcguire (however his name is spelled), I don't think any of the instructor gurus do much dimensioning. Chris Schwarz planes a lot of already flat pine boards, and I've seen sellers squaring wood up in a few videos - it was agonizing. He may have been making more than one point at the time, but it was pretty rough.

 

[D_W]

Thanks - looks like you've done a lot of work, and thorough.
I was once in the business, but for home workshop hand tools I have only ever used old Sheffield steel stamped by makers such as Wards and Marples. (having said that, I bought a couple of v cheap Chinese socket chisels in the late 70s, used them as scrapers etc then found they are quite good hss laminated to steel.)

I'm just a curious amateur, but I sold some japanese stones and razors at one point, and got a decent microscope so that I could view what a stone actually was (these were all natural stones, no synthetics, and there are a lot of shysters selling natural japanese stones for high prices. I sold good graded stones cheap just to break even and keep the ones that I liked). Same with razors - anyone sharpening a razor and selling it ought to be able to guarantee that the edge is perfect or near to it, and razors are often lazily or incompletely sharpened when they're sold as "professionally sharpening" which is a farce. I never charged for sharpening.

At any rate, I do a lot of hand planing from the heaviest to finishing wood straight off of the plane, so I volunteered to do the test. Now I have the hassle of writing about it and organizing all of the stuff, which is agonizing for me. The test is easy - i need to be wealthy enough to have an assistant and a writer!

I forgot, I still have a gaggle of infills, and they all have original irons in them. If it's of any curiosity, I did test bevel angle (to see how much difference 30 degrees vs. 35 makes in a 47 1/2 pitch plane - the answer to that is there's little difference in duration of planing between sharpening - steeper than 35 and things will get short fast, but that's already known)..that allowed me to see the relative performance of a ward iron in a norris 2. Its edge life was about 3/4ths of my O1 iron (which I made, but tested against a hock, both lasting almost an identical amount of time - the O1 is my best, and I foolishly thought I could make something that would wear very uniformly and be right on the heels of the alloyed irons. So much for that).

In a decade, I"ll pop my head up again and see what's out there. There still isn't a version of an iron that tolerates filthy dirty wood or interrupted cuts and lasts like the V11. IT's not needed, of course. None of it's really "needed". Of the 800 feet planed by O1, anyone doing final smoothing would've gladly taken the first 400 feet, done a quick touch up in two minutes and planed another 400. That covers a lot of territory, and I don't want anyone to be misled into thinking they'll really gain something with V11 - I'd say maybe two minutes an hour in the shop, but at the cost of an iron that's a little harder to grind. Anyone who has spent much time dimensioning will recognize that in the heavier work, you're really looking for the easiest to sharpen iron and a break once in a while to do it, so I don't see the value of V11 in heavy work, especially if the wood is dirty - that makes everything equal more or less.

The chinese iron is also a star in this contest - versions of it are $7-$12 shipped from china. It's better than a2, even though the irons are a bit rougher when you get them (they're just an HSS bit brazed to a mild steel blank).

In order for me to make an equivalent to the V11 irons, I have to spend about $30 on ground stock, files and gas.

(the chinese is true HSS, too - you can grind it until it starts to glow and when it cools, it'll still be hard. Then you can burn your fingers with it while you marvel at it).

 

[Jacob]

......... I don't think any of the instructor gurus do much dimensioning. Chris Schwarz planes a lot of already flat pine boards, and I've seen sellers squaring wood up in a few videos - it was agonizing. He may have been making more than one point at the time, but it was pretty rough.

I had the luck to do a very good trad joinery course as part of an intensive back to work scheme, having had business fold thanks to Thatcher. Very strict regime run like an open prison! 6 months full time 8am to 5 am five days a week. Everything by hand as if machinery hadn't been invented. First week I spent making little half housing crosses as practice in planing, sharpening, marking, etc did dozens of them all starting from rough sawn timber. Looked like a pets cemetery! Brilliant introduction.
If you have to do the stuff (or get thrown off a course) you get quick at sharpening freehand on a stone. Any old stone, a boulder even! It was 1980 ish and honing jigs were not common, even that recently. You wouldn't have time to fuss about anyway.

Anyone who has spent much time dimensioning will recognize that in the heavier work, you're really looking for the easiest to sharpen iron and a break once in a while to do it, so I don't see the value of V11 in heavy work,

Yep. No point in retentive edge if it takes longer to sharpen - you need the little breaks! Also if it's really easy there is no deterrent to repeating the exercise and keeping things super sharp.
PS I slightly resent having been suckered in to modern sharpening to the extent I did, by smooth talkers who were making it up as they went along. Mainly the time I spent fiddling about with jigs. So I do sympathise with the endless debate which goes on - so many people have been sold a lemon!

 

[D_W]

There are a lot of people learning remotely - I get that, i did. Having a sharp tool the first time was handy, but there are phases of things in life, and people need to get a grip on that. The jigging can give someone the understanding of the angles involved, and do a little bit of manipulation and find for themselves things that don't work (like the oft proposed "there's no real need for clearance, I will be sharpening at 45 degrees), or other such things. Whatever they may be, some sense of laziness and desire not to be tied to a sharpening bench for 3 to 8 minutes every time you run into a silica inclusion in wood should send people toward no jig. I can't think of too many things that don't have beginners and then not beginners - the latter does things differently. More efficiently, generally with more feel or habit and less structure, but still with as good or better results. It happens planing, too. Nobody dimensioning wood planes in an X shape. We remove high spots and observe the wood, but a beginner doesn't have sense to do that so they have to check their work planing Xs or some other beginner's method. like using a jig, you could do that indefinitely and get good at it, but it's punitive to time and development.

It's true sharpening razors, sharpening kitchen knives, using a table saw, whatever it may be.

(I'm sure your beginnings planing and sawing by hand have made a myriad of other things much easier. I dimension with hand tools because I like it. I can suffer through using machine tools to dimension, but i feel cheated out of some experience and it's just an exercise in moving things around the shop and then cleaning up dust. There's no need for anyone else to share that sentiment with me, it's not the point. The point about the dimensioning is that someone early on told me that a woodworker will be much better with dovetails and chisels and smooth planing - all of that stuff - if they do the rough work by hand. I thought that was strange, and seemed far fetched. How does coarse work make you better at fine detail? Well, it does. I guess it's just a matter of coordination and neurons or some such thing - working to a mark all the time. Then the design and the marking become the challenge rather than trying to remember someone else's list of rules about how you should hold a chisel, or a saw, or whatever else.

 

[nabs]

There are a lot of people learning remotely - I get that, i did. Having a sharp tool the first time was handy, but there are phases of things in life, and people need to get a grip on that. The jigging can give someone the understanding of the angles involved, and do a little bit of manipulation and find for themselves things that don't work

I think this is an important point - many of the things that may seem frivolous to experienced users (expensive new planes, jigs, flattening the backs of plane irons, new diamond plates etc etc) are actually good ways for beginners to remove some of the many variables that can make it hard to get a sharp edge.

I am still a beginner so I still well remember the first time I ever got a blade sharp: it was with a jig, and soon after that the penny dropped and it was easy for me to spot what I was doing wrong when I tried it freehand. Absent any one to show me what to do, and without that first helping hand, I might still be faffing around today trying to understand endless bewildering internet discussions about sharpening

 

[ED65]

*sigh* Yes, again for the umpteenth time, sharpening IS simple but that does NOT make it easy! We need no more proof of this than the known fact that many struggle with it, not for days or weeks but sometimes for years.

It's unfortunate that a few, from the perspective of knowing how to do whatever it is, seem to have completely fogotten what it was like to not know how. Or how long it actually took them to pick it up :roll:

 

[ED65]

D_W, preach on brother!

Cycle time for honing with a diamond plate as a secondary bevel and 1 micron diamonds as tertiary - 4 minutes. Agonizing.

:lol: :lol: I've spoken to more than a couple of people for whom 4 minutes would be a fast hone indeed.

 

[Jacob]

*sigh* Yes, again for the umpteenth time, sharpening IS simple but that does NOT make it easy!

Fairly easy for those who kick off with normal freehand techniques. You could manage it too if you weren't so keen on talking yourself and everybody else out of it!

We need no more proof of this than the known fact that many struggle with it, not for days or weeks but sometimes for years.

They tend to be the ones diverted into tedious modern techniques. One of the worst was somebody giving his account of trying to flatten the whole face of each of a set of 12 expensive Blue Spruce and getting deeply upset by hours of fruitless work. He'd watched something really stupid on Youtube, from a well known name! In fact a chisel is never easier to hone and use than when it is brand new. 20 seconds should do it, if not it's faulty ask for your money back

It's unfortunate that a few, from the perspective of knowing how to do whatever it is, seem to have completely fogotten what it was like to not know how. Or how long it actually took them to pick it up :roll:

Not me squire. I remember it well.

 

[D_W]

One of those folks is the person who got me into woodworking. He started me off 15 years ago with the advice that i could choose to do things by hand if I want, but for him, there's not enough time in life to learn to do it. His shop is power tool heavy, and solutions to things like tearout come in the form of shelix heads refitted to older tools. His building plans are laid out in autocad so "just wing it and then fit the next piece if something is a little off" is out of the question.

His shop is wonderfully neat, and he still buys new sharpening gadgets from time to time despite dreading the process. His tools are so efficient and quick that you don't have time to think while using them, so you have to plan separately and the work goes by in a flash. Momentary lapse results in much ruined material. I can't work that way - but if I had to actually work for pay, his setup would make a set of kitchen cabinets in a fifth of the time that mine would.

I think his sharpening cycle time with hand grinding mixed in is probably about 10 minutes - a completely different world. He does a good job sharpening, but is stingy with plane use on anything so as to avoid having to do it. I would have to give him 98% of the credit for why I work almost entirely with hand tools -

 

[Jacob]

.....
I think his sharpening cycle time with hand grinding mixed in is probably about 10 minutes - a completely different world. He does a good job sharpening, but is stingy with plane use on anything so as to avoid having to do it. I would have to give him 98% of the credit for why I work almost entirely with hand tools -

:lol:
Me too. I do a lot of machining but I do like hand tool work and I even like sharpening! Doesn't take 10 minutes though - that'd be for serious fettling on damaged/neglected tools and I don't otherwise need to grind anything.

 

[swagman]

DW; were you able to determine if the edge retention of pmv11 vs 01 closely matched that of Veritas's earlier claims.

Stewie;

http://www.pm-v11.com/Images/story_RadarChart.JPG

 

[MikeG.]

.......... I use Paul seller's sand paper method.......

He uses diamond plates.

 

[Jacob]

DW; were you able to determine if the edge retention of pmv11 vs 01 closely matched that of Veritas's earlier claims.

Stewie;

http://www.pm-v11.com/Images/story_RadarChart.JPG

I like the chart. That's a hilarious bit of pseudo science if ever I saw one! :lol:
I've no objection to people playing the game of sharpening 'science' but it does intrude on those who just want to do woodwork. The less notice you take of the gadget sellers and the johnny-come-lately 'experts', the easier it gets!

 

[Jacob]

Found a mad chisel "prepping" thread here from a few years back. I couldn't find the geezer wrecking his new set of Blue Spruce. It was the same story but worse. Both acting on nonsensical advice from a dodgy sharpening expert. You can probably guess who - he's on youtube a lot.
chisels-sizes-what-for-what-work-t84251.html?hilit=prepping%20chisels
Basically - don't do it! It takes a few seconds to hone a new chisel ready for use. A few minutes if you prefer struggling with a jig.
Actually the chisel "prepping" nonsense is probably the single most pointless and time wasting advice given out by the modern sharpening gurus. Probably wrecked a few tools too, and put people off woodwork for life! And you need diamond plates - especially if you are having to rectify the damage done by the bad advice to do the same stupid thing but using sand paper.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I bet the OP wishes he never asked. ](*,)

 

[Trainee neophyte]

I bet the OP wishes he never asked. ](*,)

For us newbies, who haven't seen all this before, it is actually quite useful. I imagine it wears a bit thin after the 40th time around, especially if you already know how to sharpen a chisel.

 

[Jacob]

I bet the OP wishes he never asked. ](*,)

For us newbies, who haven't seen all this before, it is actually quite useful. I imagine it wears a bit thin after the 40th time around, especially if you already know how to sharpen a chisel.

And it was a question from a beginner. I know I'm always repeating myself on this but I do feel that I know what I'm talking about - having been through the many options over many years, whilst doing a lot of woodwork!
Got a couple of jigs in a drawer somewhere but never got suckered into buying one of those really expensive ones though!

 

[Woody2Shoes]

I bet the OP wishes he never asked. ](*,)

For us newbies, who haven't seen all this before, it is actually quite useful. I imagine it wears a bit thin after the 40th time around, especially if you already know how to sharpen a chisel.

......
Got a couple of jigs in a drawer somewhere but never got suckered into buying one of those really expensive ones though!

For me, a jig is handy on those occasions where you've got a blade where the edge has veered away from 90 degrees to the shank/body and where that lack of squareness can cause a significant difficulty elsewhere - e.g. shoulder plane blades

I also remember finding a simple eclipse jig handy (although I now have the Veritas one too :wink: ) as a set of 'training wheels' to help me start off on my 'sharpening journey' :roll: . Keeping the cutting edge at 90-ish was difficult for me early on.

I completely agree about the largescale misunderstanding about 'flattening' the back of a chisel/plane blade.

Cheers, W2S

 

[bp122]

I bet the OP wishes he never asked. ](*,)

Not quite. It is indeed an information overload, but I'd rather have more information than less. It had been very useful to make a decision as to which road to take and also hear about everyone's experiences with different methods and makes if components.

I got myself a coarse and a fine diamond plate from ultex, as it had been referred to by a few members here.

I got them yesterday and tried them out on my no.4 plane and a couple of my old Marples chisels. It is astonishing what a sharp tool can do!

I did use a guide though. I also discovered a combination water stone in the garage which I also used. Getting the hang of it slowly.

Thank you everyone for your suggestions, it really helped.

Best regards
B

 

[Rich C]

I have a cheapy jig, I mainly use it for rehabiliting my collection of ebay chisels, which have some fairly abused ends. It's nice to establish a correct angle on the bevel initially.