Sharpening by hand

[Alf]

Roger, traditionally sharp sand on a flat surface was used to flatten oilstones - it's not that bad a task, as long as you don't let things get too out of hand first... Various abrasives will work really, another stone, sandpaper, grit, whatever; it's no different from waterstones, just that because they take longer to get out of flat they take longer to flatten again. But less often - swings and roundabouts. But if it's really bad and you have no particular attachment to that stone, then I agree, you might find your time is worth more than the replacement.

Cheers, Alf

 

[Keefaz]

Keefaz,

I empathize with you mate: this was exactly the sort of thing that caused me much head-scratching when I started.

Some observations;

Firstly, be aware that everyone has their own preference, so be prepared to sink in a welter of good advice... :wink:

Secondly, I find that it helps to view working blades in 2 ways, with 2 different techniques applied for both:

a) The 'ways' are:

Setting up - on purchase, or after some major cock-up like running it into a bandsaw blade, or when you're changing the grinding angle for a different wood or use.

Running maintenance, which is normally about re-establishing a sharp edge while in use.

b) The 'techniques' are grinding, and honing.

Grinding is coarse work - it has no place in running maintenance, and will not establish a good cutting edge. I use a cheapo slow running water wheel to avoid damaging the temper of the steel for the edge, and carborundum grit on a steel lapping plate if flattening a back. This is how I 'set' the angles, flatness etc. This can take a while, but more on that later. Carborundum is significntly faster than a waterstone.

Honing is getting the steel that now has the geometry I want sharp enough to cut - this should be all that is necessary in the 'running maintenance' phase of a tool's life. That's where I use waterstones, and a strop if appropriate.

If you want some idea of actual speeds, check out this link, where I tuned up a battered and rusty old chisel: you will get faster... :wink:

http://www.cianperez.com/Wood/WoodDocs/Wood_How_To/Shady_on_Sharpening.htm

(Oh and as an after thought, don't go though the whole back flattening rigamarole unless the tool actually needs it: check with a straight edge, and make use of DC's ruler trick to minimise the amount of work: the only time I'll flatten a whole back is if it's in an awful rusty state, or convex. As others have said, the higher up the quality ladder you purchase, the less of an issue this should be.)

Thanks for the advice! Followed your link. Very informative.

Being a beginner, it's not just the sharpening I'm slow at; it's everything!

 

[engineer one]

it's a pipper isn't it, but the only way to get quicker is to practice,
and the only way to practice is with sharp tools.

had a blood test yesterday, and the guy taking the blood had lots of
tattoos, so i said do they hurt, he said YES, but i want them, he also said don't let anyone tell you they don't hurt.

the analogy is to tools. for whatever reason it has become common practice and economic reality that if you buy cheapish tools they need
working on to provide proper cutting edges, but as shady says, it should be done only once for some time.

back to the bottom of planes, it is a fact that unless the toe, area around the blade, and heel are aligned with each other, you will never have proper
control of the flatness of the wood you are planing.

still shady i noticed you do not cover the "enjoyable" job of flattening the sole to a sensible amount.

i know everybody has their own ideas about the best way to sharpen, but we all seem to use a number of methods on the same blade, in my case,
tormek, then water stones, then now finally, an oilstone, recently purchased, only a simple norton, but it does help with the final bevel,
for which i use the veritas camber roller on my mk11 veritas jig.

so how about specifics in terms of the best sandpaper/ emery paper
or what to use for flattening the soles of planes????

PLEASE it is a pain in the a**e and time consuming. :twisted:

paul :wink:

 

[Shady]

still shady i noticed you do not cover the "enjoyable" job of flattening the sole to a sensible amount.

Oh God Paul, don't scare the poor bloke!

Keefaz: he's right: the other major learning curve with planes is how to best flatten the base, and how to assess whether it's necessary. Whole different subject, and definitely one where paying for quality is a great help - at the moment, common consensus is that Lie Nielsen will, with respect to base flatness, work 'out of the box' (and will exchange for free if it's not), Lee Valley and Clifton should be OK, but may need a little tweaking, and others are a pot luck feast.

Paul - for me it's sheets of silicon carbide on float glass: not what perfectionists would recommend, but it gives me working tools... My fear is always destroying the right angle between base and sides, so I'm constantly checking with an engineer's square. I like as wide/long an area as possible, and use spray mount glue to hold the wet and dry down without bumps etc.

 

[Anonymous]

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[engineer one]

shady, having done it and found some of it enjoyable, ie learning to sharpen, i have no desire to put others off, and it can be easy to do so.

i think mr grimsdale is being somewhat naive, since he obviously had some kind of training, so can use his skills to overcome manufacturing flaws.

anyway each to his own, but what brand of silicon carbide do you use shady, everyone seems to have a favourite, and if it works for you, then
it might for me. i have the float glass, but so far have spent many odd minutes trying to get to what i as an engineer might see as level across the whole surfaces. i could of course use one of my engineers scrapers
and lumps of blue if i could find it to make life easier, but sanding seems more logical in one way. indeed in the old days we used to draw file surfaces to get them flat, and if i could figure out a jig to ensure i kept my
12 in turnip square to the sides, then i might try that. (sorry meant file )

i do think it is a false economy to buy cheap tools since it is not just the
blades and surfaces which may not be flat and true, but often these days,
the adjusters and their fittings tend to be really cheaply made, almost un -adjustable, and with massive backlash, and what ALWAYS happens is that the problems occur halfway through a job, and then you have a mucked up job on which you have to learn how to use the newly acquired tool.

my personal 2 pence but it is strange that i have 40 year old engineers tools that i bought as an apprentice that did not need flattening and anything other than honing, and still work well, but a brand new stanley
apron plane will not cut fine shavings from the box. it needs properly
sharpening and tuning. :?

no wonder woodies don't like engineers, our tools in the main work from the box. you dont buy a hacksaw and the sharpen the blade, you buy a new one! :twisted:

if youhave skills acquired years ago then you can work round, if you are new buy the best you can.

interesting though the latest popular woodworking includes a franz klausz article where he reckons Irwin, ex marple record blue line chisels are
good bang for the buck, maybe the yanks get the better steel, and we get the cheese. :twisted:

paul :wink:

 

[Colin C]

Hi All
I have found intresting as sharping is one of the things I found very hard to do right all of the time but after getting a jig ( some thing I used to turn my nose up at :roll: ), I have found it much easier to get my tools sharp quicker.

Mr_Grimsdale, I understand your thinking but when is the last time you bought a new plane or chisel because from what I have seen, I am very happy with mine, of with most are old ( planes and chisels ).
If you get the chace go have a look at same of the big names ( Stanley,Record/Irwin and Marples ), I think you will be very surprised at what they are selling compared to what you used to get.

Flattening the back of tools is some thing to do more os now as a young chip friend of mine that helps me on the odd job, had some new marples chisels that he found hard to sharpen, I had a look at them and the grinding on the back was more like the grinding on the surface of the table on my bandsaw :shock: .
As soom as I told him to flatten the backs, he found it much easier to sharpen them but I have some old Marple chisels with wooden handles and have not had to do that as the grinding was very fine on them.

Also when you go and look at the planes , take a straight egde with you and try to find a flat one, it may not be that easy.

I also dont have any LN or LV planes as I can dont what I need with what I have but I have a Japanese plane iron in my No6 as I got the blade for a £5

 

[newt]

My sharpening process is as follows:
Draper diamond wet stones fine , med and course £15, 2 pieces of 18mm mdf 1000 wet and dry on one piece and 2500 wet dry on the other, £ 5. eclipse honing guide, £ 2 many years ago.
25 deg bevel on the wet stones, then 30 deg on 1000, then final honing on 2500, back strokes only on the wet and dry, lubricate wet and dry with WD40. Finally push the blade into the end of a piece of soft pine moving it back and forth a few times. The final test is it must cleanly cut the hair on the back of my arm, you should be able to do miniature crop circles if your careful, but they are not mandatory.

 

[engineer one]

nice one newt, but not sure about these aliens on your arms. :lol:

paul :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

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[Shady]

Paul:

I use any generic silicon carbide for plane soles, with WD40 or camellia oil as a lubricant. (why camellia oil? Because I bought it for rust protection, and discovered that it was useless, so I need to get rid of it...)

The paper wears out surprisingly fast (like about 5 to 10 minutes...).

Although I accept Jacob's point that it is often not necessary, I got into this because, as a self-taught newcomer who started about 15 years ago, when L-N, L-V and Clifton were hardly even heard of, and there was no internet to help me learn on sites like this, I found it very difficult to get consistent sharpening results with my Stanley bailey pattern planes.

As a scientist, I wanted to minimise the number of variables (ie, was it my sharpening technique, the flatness of the plane soles, the inherent backlash, poor quality steel, etc, etc.) I do not strive for what an engineer would describe as flat, but I do scribble across the sole with a black felt tip, and then rub it on a relatively coarse grade silicon carbide. I always push 'along' the plane sole, to minimise any chance of introducing convexity across the sole.

After a few strokes, I inspect the base. Funnily enough, I arrived, independently, at the belief that provided the toe, front and back of the mouth, and heel, were in line fore and aft, and across the body, and proud of any other bit of the sole, the plane should work. (this is, of course, how a Japanese Dai is configured.) My soles are not necessarily flat, but they are all at this point of flatness, which means that the sole is not an issue if I can't work out why a plane is 'squirrely'...

As a result of my learning curve, I agree with you - Jacob obviously gets results with his tools - but he obviously knows how to - it's a classic chicken and egg problem. That said - I definitely don't do it if a plane cuts well with a newly honed iron in it - " if it ain't broke, don't fix it..." Hope that helps others...

 

[Sgian Dubh]

Having read through this thread I do find it a little disconcerting that there is still so much agonising over the need for, and processes of flattening plane soles and chisel backs, along with the usefulness (or not) of sharpening aids.

I don't take Mr. Grimsdale's approach where he seems to dismiss tool flattening as irrelevant-- I may have read him wrong, and if I did so I apologise. I've never found that to be the case. A plane sole that is flat, certainly in the important bits, helps no end.

In my experience as long as it's flat all along the rim and all round the mouth, that's good enough, although flatter is nice too-- if a plane sole is flattened as described you get a sort of figure 8 configuration where the sole is a bit hollow in the centre of each circle that forms the 8, and the mouth opening is where the two circles of the 8 meet.

The same with chisels. They don't need a back to be flat all along the length, just the 25- 35 mm or so at the business end generally works fine.

Flattening plane irons similarly where only the last 12- 25 mm is really smooth and flat works well (on standard bevel down planes anyway.) What really matters is that the curved end of the cap iron (chip breaker to some) conforms nicely with the back of the blade leaving no gap for shavings to get trapped in. And this suggests that really only the 2-4 mm nearest the cutting edge requires being just so.

Each year I have to teach new woodworkers how to tune up their tools. I can't afford for the process to become too involved and difficult for inexperienced woodworkers. It puts them off-- it's not in my nature anyway to get hung up on what is really a basic and simple set of processes as I'm working furniture maker that happens to also teach.

An extremely badly out of whack plane sole can be flattened in a hurry. Simply get a roll of the 4” or so wide green 40- 60- 80 grit paper from somewhere like B&Q-- £7 a go or thereabouts. Stick a long length down on a flat surface (e.g., glass) with spray mount-- 3 or 4 feet is good, but less will do. Set up your plane as if you're going to use it and retract the blade. Now 'plane' the sandpaper. I've never seen a badly dished plane sole take more than ten or 20 minutes to get flat using this super aggressive treatment (if using 40 or 60 grit.)

In truth, very few planes need this sort of aggression and you can flatten a sole adequately for working with using 100 grit-- 120 grit of the same type of green roll of paper.

There's no need to get a plane sole highly polished as some like. There's not much harm in it, but it's simply additional work. If you finish the plane sole at 80 grit and it's flat, you've got the essentials done. Some would argue that 80 grit striations on a sole is good in that it reduces friction. It’s good enough for me anyway so I can easily go along with that.

The back of chisels need to be smoother and this can often be done quickly with less aggressive abrasive paper and a touch up on a sharpening stone. After the initial flattening the process of honing alone should keep the back of a chisel flat enough for use.

As to sharpening, again I refer back to beginners I teach. I don’t want them to struggle with the job. It’s not in my interests to have learners put off by difficulties. I demonstrate freehand sharpening and encourage them to try and develop the skill. Not all learners can get it quickly—it’s not like learning how to sharpen as I had to do under pressure from the crusty old cabinetmaker I was sent to work with. For me it was, get it right, get it right fast, or by the end of the week I’d be looking for another job.

If a learner can’t get freehand sharpening right fairly quickly I suggest they try a honing guide and, for some, it’s the answer to their prayers. Most give up on the guides after a wee while. They’re limiting and fiddly and I’ve never used one brought in by one of my learners that I’d want to buy. To me they’re just a bloody hindrance to good sharpening, and most of the learners I work with soon work out how limiting they are and stop using them within a year.

Anyway, to end, I do often wish that the whole ‘mystery’ of plane sole flattening and tool sharpening could be knocked on the head. It can’t really afford to be mysterious as it’s an essential skill. As my old cabinetmaker tormentor said to me once, “If ye cannae e’en shairpen yer f-ing tools son, ye’ll never make a bloody cabinetmaker,“ or something like that, but perhaps not as polite, ha, ha. Slainte.

 

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[Shady]

Jacob and Sgian Dubh:

Agree with both of you - just remember that for the self taught amateur, sat out here in the metaphorical dark, it's darned difficult to disentangle folklore from useful info. My personal hatred is the sales push that tries to get people to buy expensive machines to do a job that will impart far more understanding and satisfaction with a little handskill effort. Sharpening, and understanding the effects of grinding away metal, is a particular case in point: I don't do it gratuitously, but if a tool does require fettling, I have finally got to a point where I'm pretty confident I know what I'm doing - and am delighted if I can help someone else 'up the slope'.

However, as I've said elsewhere, and as Jacob points out entirely rightly, I can afford to learn and obsess, because I don't have to make a living out of this: if I did, I'm not sure how many handtools would survive in my shop: I'd be focusing on time, cost and quantity.

At the end of the day, I get as much pleasure from tool tweaking as I do from making stuff - each to his own, and we can all enjoy different aspects of our hobby.

 

[engineer one]

interesting, i have no complaint that if it works for you then go with it, BUT.

the fact is that woodworking these days is rarely taught so people have to pick up the basics where they can. it is without doubt vital to learn to sharpen, and if you bought all the bit available, you could never afford the tools you need to sharpen :lol: :lol:

in addition every month or so, the magazines offer another fabulous method of sharpening your tools that does not require any effort, nor
does it take any time, as long as you were the guy who invented it.

i find it amazing that so few people who talk about sharpening can actually
write about it in such a way that anyone can easily pick it up.

i am lucky i could afford the tormek when i bought it, and frankly having checked out a couple of record planes in local stores, then checked the prices, i felt that it was worth the premium to buy clifton, ln or lv.
were i to be working full time maybe i would take a different approach, but
everyone who talks here, apart from mr grimsdale, buys a second hand plane, spends a number of hours flattening the sole, the chip breaker, and the frog, plus possibly putting in new screws, and then also putting new
totes and handles on and finally, a new blade, when they do the math
will have spent almost as much as a comparably new ln or lv with less
work. i agree that all planes need sharpening when you use them, but
in my recent experience for other people, lv and ln, plus clico blades and the japanese ones take and keep a better edge more quickly.

indeed thursday i spent half an hour fettling some spacer blocks for
a deck i was modifying, with my LN 60 1/2 holding the blocks i was able to
quickly and easily get thinner small blocks than i have in the past with
a stanley, and the blade still has an edge.

i think the most important thing to teach new users is NOT to grind with a
powered grinder, but start out learning to sharpen using diamond stones,
water stones, sand paper, or water stones, and if you want, (as a recent convert back to for certain things) an oil stone. that way they have a hard job affecting the temper and or hardness of the metal.

i will try the green paper for my older record and bailey,
and time them this time round. but will still use my LV and LN
planes for the bits i am presently undertaking.

finally having sharpened about three dozen different marples and other modern chisels, as well as my favourite dutch nooitgedagt ones over the last twelve months on a regular basis, the ones which hold the edge longer,
are the dutch ones, and they are the ones with the most effectively polished backs. in my mind it is to do with the way in which the front and rear cutting surfaces intersect at the correct angle that allows the chisels to work most effectively for longer. then when they blunt it is only the work of a few minutes to recover the edge, either by secondary honing,
or even getting a new primary edge.

paul :wink:

 

[MikeW]

...i find it amazing that so few people who talk about sharpening can actually write about it in such a way that anyone can easily pick it up...

I think this is because sharpening is a mechanical skill that even when one understands the technique of the chosen method, it takes repetition. Sometimes a lot of repetition in order to align what one knows to producing what one ought.

I think what further compounds the issue is when one bounces from one method or technique to another before mastering the method or technique at hand.

Often this is because the results do not align with what one knows one should obtain. So the method or technique is ditched in favor of another. And often, this technique or method is ditched for yet another. Doing this is counterproductive.

So I am all for picking a method or technique one believes in--can get behind and "know" it will work for them--and stick to it. Some methods are easier to get immediate results: machines and honing guides come to mind. My feeling about these devices are "great, go for it." But stick to it and at some point the results will align with what one expects.

Take care, Mike

 

[Paul Chapman]

I think what further compounds the issue is when one bounces from one method or technique to another before mastering the method or technique at hand.

Often this is because the results do not align with what one knows one should obtain. So the method or technique is ditched in favor of another. And often, this technique or method is ditched for yet another. Doing this is counterproductive.

How true. This can not only be counterproductive, but can waste a lot of time and money. I would recommend visiting one of the large woodworking shows where you can see all the various methods and techniques demonstrated, and you can also pick the brains of plane manufacturers and ask "what do you use". That way you can hopefully decide what method would suit your temperament and pocket. I did this and now have a very simple, fast and repeatable method that suits me and it's no longer a problem :wink:

Paul

 

[Alf]

As to sharpening, again I refer back to beginners I teach. I don’t want them to struggle with the job. It’s not in my interests to have learners put off by difficulties. I demonstrate freehand sharpening and encourage them to try and develop the skill.

Wotcha, Richard; would that be using a hollow ground bevel?

Cheers, Alf

 

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[Paul Chapman]

ctually the LAST place to go for good advice. They (Axminster etc) are the ones who have created this 'sharpening anxiety' in the first place and they want to sell you as much stuff as you can afford - and beyond! You won't hear anybody saying "this is a Tormek but you don't really need it" or "here are 25 varieties of diamond encrusted whotsits but I wouldn't bother if I was you".
They want you to BUY IT ALL and then give up and buy a 'useable from the box' bit of kit - and then buy another one I presume, when that is blunt.
Sup with the devil - take a long spoon!

Which is why I said pick the brains of plane manufacturers. They are into selling planes, not sharpening systems, but want you to get the best from their tools. All I ended up doing was adding a leather strop and some polishing compound to my sharpening system (three diamond stones and some WD40). That addition has transformed my blades from not bad to razor sharp. So simple yet so effective - I still can't believe how simple the solution was :shock: :wink:

Paul