New (to me) sharpening system - small review

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(There's a summary at the end if you want to skip the detail)

Well, over the years, I've tried a lot of different sharpening techniques from oil stones 20 odd years ago, through scary sharp, then wet grinders, powered horizontal grinder, DMT stones and then finally Japanese waterstones which have served me very well so far. Recently I adopted Norton 4000/8000 stones as my 1000/6000 waterstone became too worn to use.

Well, quite a long time back, I decided to experiment with different abrasives on the horizontal powered grinder and placed an order at Lee Valley for some of their 15, 5 and 0.5 micron paper available here http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=33004&cat=1,43072

After a play, I put them in a drawer and forgot all about it as I prefer waterstones to powered sharpeners.

After the chat with DC at Yandles, I was looking for some wirewool and came across the those long forgotten sheets in the bottom of a drawer.

So, I glued it to my plane falttening MDF sheet with spray mount (2 of them were self adhesive) and tried it out.

DSC01759.jpg



After using the DC ruler trick on each paper in turn, I used a sharpening jig to hone a secondary bevel on the blade with each paper and found it only required a few strokes on each one in turn to generate a very uniform and shiny bevel. After polishing on the 0.5 micron paper, the bevel was polished better than on my 8000 Norton stone and at least as well as with the blue polish on a strop that i often use.

To test the sharpness, I decided to take end grain shavings from a piece of ash that was lying around.

wood.JPG


Worked so well, that I sharpened most of my block and smoother planes and each took full width end grain shavings in hard-to-plane ash (none of your namby-pamby cherry or sycamore nonsense here :D )

Shavings.JPG



Summary

These papers sharpen as well as my waterstones and are much better than the 'traditional' wet and dry 'scary sharp' approach

The backing is plastic, not paper, which makes them tough and resilient

The 15 micron removes metal at an amazing rate :shock:

The finish from the 0.5 micron has to be seen to be believed - looks like i stropped it!!

Due to the width of the paper, the ruler trick on the back of a plane blade is much easier than with a waterstone

Due to the length of the paper, one needs less repetitions to remove the required metal, thus making sharpening faster

The cost of scary sharp may put people off (having to buy replacement abrasives often) but I sharpened the planes in the photo above and then 7 more tonight after the photo was taken, and the papers are still working fine and I have only used half their width thus far.

No need to flatten them, unlike waterstones (contrary to the many fallacies propagated around the web, flattening waterstones is very fast and easy)

On the whole, they are faster than using my waterstones, especially the ruler trick on the back of the blade, and the final bevel is equal to the best I have achieved with other methods including using a strop after sharpening on a stone


Bottom line

Will I change to these from waterstones? Too early to say although I have ordered a half dozen sheets of each which should last em a few years should I decide to change :wink: but I quite like having the choice at the moment 8)
 
Hi Tony, would you mind explaining the "ruler trick".
regards,
Rich.
 
Rich":qbe66agg said:
Hi Tony, would you mind explaining the "ruler trick".
regards,
Rich.

Place a small ruler on your sharpening medium (see my photos above) and rest the blade againt when falttening the back and so you flatten only the 2mm or so behind the cuttign ietge of a blade rather than trying to faltten all of it which would take ages

DC suggested this first.

Don't do it on chisels
 
Thanks for that info Tony,Whilst waiting for your reply I watched a you tube video on sharpening using the ruler and the demonstrator was sharpening a chisel?
regards,
Rich.
 
Rich":1nbmwckw said:
Thanks for that info Tony,Whilst waiting for your reply I watched a you tube video on sharpening using the ruler and the demonstrator was sharpening a chisel?
regards,
Rich.


Hmmm... so is it a yeah or a nay re chisles? :?
 
MDF_HAKA":3nyballo said:
Rich":3nyballo said:
Thanks for that info Tony,Whilst waiting for your reply I watched a you tube video on sharpening using the ruler and the demonstrator was sharpening a chisel?
regards,
Rich.


Hmmm... so is it a yeah or a nay re chisles? :?

A definite no on chisels, you need the properly flattened back for registering the chisel in a cut.

A definite yes on plane blades though where it saves loads of work and you don't have the regustration issue.

Cheers, Paul. :D
 
Thanks for that Tony. I'll add some of those abrasives to my next order to try them out myselfs.
 
Tony

Yes I've been using this stuff for a while - you obviously haven't seen my video on Youtube [-X!
This is my setup although I usually skip the 5 micron and go straight to the 0.5 micron after the 1200 grit stone:

_MG_5545.jpg


You're right the 0.5 micron is at least equal to using a strop.

The 0.5 micron paper is easy to tear though plus it is a pain getting hold of the stuff - I get it from Tools for Woodworking.

For more information on the stuff Brent Beach is the man:
http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpen/sharpen.html
http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/ ... x?id=25403

Lurker yes it is scary sharp with very fine abrasives which can replace stropping with leather or diamond paste. I only use it as a final step - laid simply on top of my fine diamond stone. (Although I've just picked up an 8000 grit DMT which may replace this step.)

Tony do you really need two LN identical block planes!

Cheers

Gidon
 
Rich":33t97eeb said:
Thanks for that info Tony,Whilst waiting for your reply I watched a you tube video on sharpening using the ruler and the demonstrator was sharpening a chisel?
regards,
Rich.

Never, ever, ever do it on your woodworking chisels as they need to be flat right up to the end, whilst the ruler trick will put a slight back bevel on the end reducing the chisel's usefulness (can't pare with it) as it's sharpened edge would lie above the work surface when the back is rested against the srface
 
lurker":37lw2eap said:
I must be missing something here.

All I see is scary sharp but with fancy abrasives.

You are missing nothing, it is a better version of scary sharp that gives far superior results and so is a better alternative
 
gidon":1klasdqv said:
Tony do you really need two LN identical block planes!

Cheers

Gidon

Eh? :? I don't have two identical block planes.

My block planes are the small apron (first ever LN to try them out), a standard low angle block bought some time later and a block Rabbett (blade extends to the sides of the plane body) bought even later and used to clean tenons and rabbetts :wink:
 
I came across an American article on the 'net recently (probably FWW, can't remember) that showed you how the Ruler Trick can also be used when you come to sharpen your cabinet/card scrapers, in case you're interested. :wink:

Gidon, I like your holding jig there, the cam lever idea is genius! :D

I take it you don't use a honing guide though, or else you'll risk creating a dish or hollow in the centre of the stone?

Sorry Tony. :wink:
 
Hello there Gidon,

I watched your utube video and was very impressed. Is this the type of Duosharp DMT diamond stone you have?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/dmt-10-duosha...ryZ20762QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

This seems to be double sided. Presumably you have two stones? (looking at your set up)

I have been using an Arkansas stone for my final micro bevel, is that equivalent to the extra fine diamond stone?

The ebay price for this item looks good given that the same thing elsewhere is £130+

Is there a reason why you choose the Duosharp over the Dia-sharp continuous stones? What is the difference?

Hope you can shed some light on these issues.

Thanks, Tony
 
Escudo":1osm5yiw said:
Is there a reason why you choose the Duosharp over the Dia-sharp continuous stones? What is the difference?

Hi Tony,

The only snag with the perforated stones (which I have) is that if you are honing very narrow blades, like a 1/8" chisel or a combination plane beading cutter, they can get caught in the perforations when pushing the blade forwards. For that reason alone, if I were buying again I would probably go for continuous stones (or at least one in a fine grade). Other than that, I find the perforated ones work well.

Cheers :wink:

Paul
 
What are the benefits for the non continues stones? The negative are shurely:
- less abrasively active area
- small object fall between the abrasive spots (as paul states)
 

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