RE: Sharpening stone recommendation

[Tim Pavier]

Hi all,
Looking for a new stone, trying to get my chisels and planes wicked sharp.

currently have;
combination norton grinding stone (not sure exact grit)
White Arkansas
Black Arkansas
home made bench strop (veg tanned)

I'm thinking possibly a diamond stone or perhaps sharpening compounds for my bench strop
let me know what you reckon.
Thanks in advance,
Tim

 

[shed9]

Is the Norton an oil or waterstone? Going to guess that you use the Arkansas' for medium to final stone polish and therefor the Norton has one side at least c1000 grit.

Diamond stones are a good way forward, especially at the very coarse and ultra fine spectrum (in my opinion). However, given your current setup and desire to go that bit further I'd plumb for a very high grit water stone and a decent compound for the strop personally.

How do you sharpen? Freehand or jig? This may be another aspect to review to achieve the results.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

+1 for diamonds - Ultex are amazingly good for the money, Eze-Lap are good and a little cheaper than DMT which are also good. Atoma sound good but are a touch more expensive still. That said, what problems are you having with your existing kit - which would seem perfectly adequate?

 

[memzey]

I dare say you don’t really need any new stones if all you want to achieve is “wicked sharp” in a woodworking context. As they are all oil stones I’d start with the coarse side of the Norton and progress from there to white then black Ark. A combination India on its own is a great stone but you will get sharper by finishing on the black Ark and then strop. Whether you need to go that sharp is up to you though the key thing is to progress up the grits methodically. Only move up from your coarsest stone once you have raised a burr across the whole width of the cutting edge. With the other stones only move up in grit once the scratch pattern from the previous stone has been replaced across the width of the cutting edge. Strop to remove final remanants of the burr and away you go - wicked sharp. Sorry if teaching to suck eggs but your black Ark is a very good stone for achieving a fine edge if used properly.

 

[memzey]

I should add that in my experience one advantage diamonds do have is in speed of cutting. Arks are very good stones as well but generally slower working which is why the black is good for finishing as it doesn’t need to remove much metal to do its thing. Having said that; I haven’t found any stone quicker at removing metal than a coarse Crystolon and that’s where you really want to remove metal quickly.

 

[Tim Pavier]

Is the Norton an oil or waterstone? Going to guess that you use the Arkansas' for medium to final stone polish and therefor the Norton has one side at least c1000 grit.

I believe the Norton is Silicon Carbide (Crystolon) and is 120 and 180 which I sharpen with oil.

How do you sharpen? Freehand or jig? This may be another aspect to review to achieve the results.

A bit of both, I like to establish my bevels using a jig and hone and polish by hand.

 

[Tim Pavier]

I should add that in my experience one advantage diamonds do have is in speed of cutting. Arks are very good stones as well but generally slower working which is why the black is good for finishing as it doesn’t need to remove much metal to do its thing. Having said that; I haven’t found any stone quicker at removing metal than a coarse Crystolon and that’s where you really want to remove metal quickly.

Thank you for your comments, I do feel like my technique could be improved.

 

[ED65]

As already said you don't need a new stone. Assuming the steel isn't ultra-hard or made from a wear-resistant modern alloy it's possible to go from the coarse side of a Norton combo stone directly to a hard Ark and have a perfectly serviceable edge, one that would satisfy many users. Honing is not a race or a contest, but to give an idea of how efficient and trimmed of fat the process can be this can take all of 2-5 minutes.

A brief stropping to the above edge (even without compound) would take it up one notch and should match any reasonable definition of wicked sharp; you should be able to easily and painlessly shave hairs from the back of your hand or your forearm with anything honed this way. To put that in a woodworking context such an edge should also be capable of neatly paring pine end grain.

If you find this level of sharpness impossible it's less likely to be a materials issue. It's much more common that it's a user issue. If you can achieve this sometimes but not others then it's definitely a user issue, because that's the classic indicator of variable technique and a new stone or two or a change to a different media won't resolve this.

I do think a diamond plate or two are well worth having and there are ones that cost about the same as a posh coffee available that work great and last well. And since I think there's really no need for anything in between a very fine one and a very coarse one it's very affordable to dip your toe in that pond. But you don't need them, and if the problems you're experiencing are a technique issue they won't sort it out.

If you're sharpening freehand then you could do with going back to basics somehow and thinking about what you're doing at each step, try to examine how you're moving and if you could be doing certain things more consistently. Then look at a freshly honed edge under magnification if you can (10x is enough to see some useful detail) or alternatively if you could take a well-focussed macro photo with a camera or your phone and look at the image enlarged.

 

[memzey]

I don’t want to kick off another one of those threads but you can tell what you are doing without the need for any magnification. It’s just a question of have you raised a burr across the whole width of the cutting edge with your coarsest stone and have your finer stones fully replaced the coarse stones scratches across the whole of the cutting edge. If you are doing both of those you are sharpening. If not you are not sharpening. Once you’ve done those ok then remove that burr, strop (a bit) and away you go. Wicked sharp by any definition.

PS - I have all of the stones you have listed and am familiar with their use. We each have different opinions on this but in the interest of time I would not go from the coarse crystolon straight to the black Ark. You’ll save yourself a dozen swipes on the stones at least by using the white Ark in between - you might even find the white fast enough to do away with the Crystolon for all but the most extreme case.

 

[D_W]

Fine india between the crystolon and the natural arks. The crystolon is a grinding stone only, the fine india is better at anything else.

When you're sharpening on the final stone, lift the handle just a tiny bit and work just the edge. Not lots and lots of passes, just enough to make sure that the edge is done. back and forth front and back with a few light strokes and strop.

that prevents a large microbevel and makes the next sharpening cycle fast.

If you want a compound for the leather, I'd stick (on leather) with the larger compounds, like autosol or a low single digit wax stick like flexcut gold. The finish on leather is much finer than the grit size would suggest (as in, autosol is nominally similar to a black ark stone, but on the cushion of leather, it will cut finer).

Less is more on the leather with compound, don't change the geometry of the final stone.

Typical regimen with your stones will be fine india, maybe some quick work on the soft ark, finish work just at the edge and a little on the back with the black ark, and then bare leather. The better you get with touch, the less compound will improve anything.

 

[ED65]

I don’t want to kick off another one of those threads but you can tell what you are doing without the need for any magnification.

Ditto, but... Magnification is of course not needed in normal sharpening/honing, it's of help in identifying technique issues (which I think a lot of us are presuming is Tim's difficulty). At 10x you can for example see minor faceting on a microbevel that most older eyes would struggle to see, or more easily spot unintentional rounding/convexing or true dubbing.

Re. your PS, with respect I think you're neglecting to account for differences in honing style. Anyone who hones a given way could show that it's possible to jump from something a lot coarser than a coarse Crystolon directly to the finest Ark without it being in any way slow or inefficient. Can still be a sub-two-minute process if the tool wasn't allowed to get too blunt before pulling out the stones.

 

[memzey]

I don’t want to kick off another one of those threads but you can tell what you are doing without the need for any magnification.

Ditto, but... Magnification is of course not needed in normal sharpening/honing, it's of help in identifying technique issues (which I think a lot of us are presuming is Tim's difficulty). At 10x you can for example see minor faceting on a microbevel that most older eyes would struggle to see, or more easily spot unintentional rounding/convexing or true dubbing.

Perhaps that makes sense but it is borderline academic imo. If the OP minds the burr then he will have taken care of dubbing/rounding over as nothing drops a burr quite like a rounded edge! 10x magnification to check your edge makes sharpening seem way trickier than it needs to be.

Re. your PS, with respect I think you're neglecting to account for differences in honing style. Anyone who hones a given way could show that it's possible to jump from something a lot coarser than a coarse Crystolon directly to the finest Ark without it being in any way slow or inefficient. Can still be a sub-two-minute process if the tool wasn't allowed to get too blunt before pulling out the stones.

With equal respect, I have the same stones and gave my advice based on my actual experience using them and applying a technique I also shared. There’s no way I’d go from something that coarse to a black Ark - it’s just too slow. The Crystolon leaves scratches that are too deep to be quickly removed by that stone unless you are happy to spend ages at it or are advanced enough to apply tiny micrbevels. If you’ve got some technique to do that that a newbie can easily pick up I’d be glad to hear it. Last point but I found in my early days at this that honing quickly was a key to honing well. My issue at the time was an inability to maintain a consistent angle which was exasperated by additional strokes at the stones. I can’t speak for the OP but it seems a fairly universal principle that is worth sharing.

 

[ED65]

...or are advanced enough to apply tiny micrbevels.

Advanced? Not to sound like Jacob but putting on a secondary is basic basic stuff, and the smaller it is the easier it is to do well! (Fewer strokes on harder stone, less opportunity to screw up.)

To try to not make this any more confusing for the OP we can get into this on some future thread that's about sharpening more generally. So you know where I was coming from, in shorthand: CC 25°, Ark 30°, ruler trick.

As for the magnification thing, consider it a throwaway. ]. In case you're unaware it does have a proven track record for helping ID specific technique issues, but it's not a must-do by any means and I didn't mean to suggest that it was: "...if you can".

 

[memzey]

I’m glad we can agree that 10 x magnification can be thrown away as far as helping newbies get to grips with sharpening quickly and efficiently is concerned.

As for the rest I don’t really have anything else to add to my comments above apart from that the question of whether to micro-bevel or not is a personal preference. Personally I don’t see how trying to maintain another bevel angle would help someone new to all this get his chisel wicked sharp in decent time but that’s based on my own experiences, others may find differently.