Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Sharpening seems to have got much simpler since I bought a Sorby Pro edge. NB, don't buy one - an ordinary belt sander is much more useful.
What I find myself doing is backing off the bevel frequently on 120 grit on the pro edge, then fine honing the bevel (rounding under etc) on just one fine oil stone, and that's it. One grit on a machine, one grit on an oil stone.
The freehand bit is quicker than changing a belt and anyway you still have to take off the wire edge face down on a stone. So the versatility of the Proedge is a bit redundant, ordinary belt sander just as good. For all straight edges at least. It does run cool with coarse grits true (but not with fine grits).
Have been right around the houses and now back to the system I was using nearly 50 years ago! So why did I abandon it back then? Answer- it was the seductive call of the Stanley jig! It hasn't half wasted a lot of my time over the years. Luckily I didn't get drawn in to scary sharp and all that stuff with sand paper. :roll:
So why now? Mainly because the slow inefficient sharpening I used to do with jigs etc didn't really matter when I was just doing softwood joinery but I'm now trying to do other things and a nifty, effective and efficient sharpening system is much more necessary.
What I find myself doing is backing off the bevel frequently on 120 grit on the pro edge, then fine honing the bevel (rounding under etc) on just one fine oil stone, and that's it. One grit on a machine, one grit on an oil stone.
The freehand bit is quicker than changing a belt and anyway you still have to take off the wire edge face down on a stone. So the versatility of the Proedge is a bit redundant, ordinary belt sander just as good. For all straight edges at least. It does run cool with coarse grits true (but not with fine grits).
Have been right around the houses and now back to the system I was using nearly 50 years ago! So why did I abandon it back then? Answer- it was the seductive call of the Stanley jig! It hasn't half wasted a lot of my time over the years. Luckily I didn't get drawn in to scary sharp and all that stuff with sand paper. :roll:
So why now? Mainly because the slow inefficient sharpening I used to do with jigs etc didn't really matter when I was just doing softwood joinery but I'm now trying to do other things and a nifty, effective and efficient sharpening system is much more necessary.
