Sharpening chisels - the old way?

[Anonymous]

The "classic cases" we have here with honing guides is firstly "solution to a problem which doesn't exist" and secondly with respect to manufacturers "selling tools by creating a need where one didn't previously exist"; which of course applies to about 90% of what you find in a typical catalogue.

Jacob

Couldn't agree with you more Jacob, just had a look through the rutlands catalogue, all great stuff but you don't need 90% of it, but a lot of people can't resist it because it looks good and is built well!!!

 

[Paul Chapman]

The "classic cases" we have here with honing guides is firstly "solution to a problem which doesn't exist" and secondly with respect to manufacturers "selling tools by creating a need where one didn't previously exist"; which of course applies to about 90% of what you find in a typical catalogue.

Jacob

Couldn't agree with you more Jacob, just had a look through the rutlands catalogue, all great stuff but you don't need 90% of it, but a lot of people can't resist it because it looks good and is built well!!!

And I bet Chippendale had never even heard of the Rutlands catalogue :wink:

Cheers

Paul

 

[Anonymous]

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[engineer one]

well, personally jacob i do think you try to be provocative, by trying to justify still using old methods which may well have been properly superceded by modern ones.

i say may have been because as you rightly have said in the past many modern things are not improvements. however what is interesting about the way this post has expanded is that you have only served to confirm what is sadly obvious, in that if you have proper training and experience, then many older methods work very well. however if you were not properly trained, or trained for too little time, then you will often become disenchanted by methods which do not seem to give instant gratification.

i am sure that you are right in that for you this method works well, but you have spent as you said 40 years before going back to the beginning.

my personal experience is that the edge i have managed to get from an
oil stone using it first, is not good enough. however, using other methods i do subsequently find that a quick hone after grinding is quite effective.

as for the rutlands catalogue et al, manufacturers have decided these days that the only way to grow as companies is to devise products that may or not answer an existing question. often though a look "outside the box" and experience will make it possible to use a combination of tools. however it is important to remember that many people want the item they are making to be finished very quickly so they cannot adapt technologies they do not know or understand.

it is interesting that as more and more machine tools become available, more and more amatuers return to hand tool usage since it distances them from their day to day life. maybe you will have restarted the oilstone movement. however don't complain if some of us think you have gone too far backward in your attempts to use tools and equipment which fit the items you are restoring. :twisted:

as for global warming, well that is the perfect answer to how to intimidate people with hearsay and guesswork, and absolutely no facts that we are the only reason for it happening. but that is for another place i guess.

thanks for opening the debate again jacob, and forgive those of us who think you are ignoring the fact that your experience gives you a better feeling about handling your tools whilst thinking that the novice needs help, for instance a guide.

paul :wink:

 

[Colin C]

I think a point is being miss here :roll:

I for one have tried hand sharpening and was not happy with the out come most of the time ( I do this for a living ).

If you can get it done by hand then great but some will have problems with it and not know what is going wrong, like a friend of mine ( just finished his carpentry and joinery course), but could not get a good edge on his chisels.

He had asked his teacher but after looking at them and seeing that the grinding on the back of them was like the grinding on the table on my bandsaw :shock: .

I told him to get the backs flat so that he could get a good edge and after this he could, also you have said your self Mr G that you have found it much easier to do with your new way.

How long have you been sharpening you tools?
I understand your point but there is a place for both and a jig can also be quick :roll: :wink: .

If you know what you are trying to get to then all we are doing is splitting hairs on this when it comes to how quick it can be done IMO.

There is one thing I would like to add, if you you using timbers like palm ( very hard and brittle ),Tulipwood ( not the builders type ) and satinwood you need very sharp tools to work without the breakout, so the sharper they are the better, plus the edge does last longer.

This is where all of the polishing come in to it

Regards Colin

 

[Anonymous]

imagine if someone invented a "chord jig" to make guitar chord patterns easy :roll: order now to avoid disapointment :lol: :lol: They'd sell a fair amount I reckon, but with guitar playing it comes down to teaching your fingers to do the work and muscle memory to get them to do it consistently, theres no short cut (apart from open tunings) . As with the sharpening jigs, they become popular as a short cut as has been said to assist folks who havent had an aprentice training and endured a tradesman "mentor" calling them a "stupit daft wee bastit" or whatever it was, and if your happy with that fine I'm not sneering down my nose. If I thought a honing guide would of helped me I'd use oneThis whole "debate" seems a bit pointless, hair splitting as colin said. going back to the guitar analogy its like someone saying my barre chord in open E is better than your E chord in standard tuning; differnet ways to get the same final result, is it worth chowing over any more????
Mind you it has to be said I was sent an axminster catalogue (I never asked for one it just arrived with the steel bench screw for my vice) Its packed with lots of gimmicks and shiny toys, I could easily get an out of control spending habit which is I supose what the woodwork industry gadget people want me to have, but I wont because I prefer to make stuff myself when I can. And buy it if I cant (thats why I bought the bench screw as I couldnt do the thread cutting) EG the tapered reamer on John Alexandres site; the clico one is POOR it is flimsy and wont take hard pumishment. The simple wooden one totally outperforms the clico one, easier to use, faster, cleaner hole and finish, and a fraction of the price, and only took me about an hour to make.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

They are OBM chisels.

I know it's dumb Mike because I've been seeing this acronym in all sorts of forums for perhaps several years, but I've never been able to work out what OBM stands for. Anyone care to enlighten me?

As to all this debate about how to sharpen I'll refer everyone back to a comment I made back in page three (I think) in this thread--- sharp is sharp. It doesn't matter how you get there, just so long as it's quick.

Well that's just my opinion. I learnt how to do this sharpening thing freehand a long time a go. I don't get too excited about the exact angles. If you looked at my tools it's obvious that some have somewhat convex bevels. Others have a concave one, and a selection are flat, and another few have two or three bevel angles on them.

As far as I'm concerned all those different forms of primary bevels are acceptable. They would be. I use the tools like that. What matters is the pointy bit at the end, and how flat the back side of the blade is.

Personally I have a great dislike for all the guides out there that I've ever come across and used, and I've tried a lot of them. They are restrictive forcing me to do what the guide wants to do. Not only that many of them I find aren't very good anyway, or at least that's how they seem to me.

The reason I've come across so many of these guides is because each year I teach fresh hordes of students how to tune their tools and sharpen the blades or irons. I show them the freehand style I use and get them to have a go. Many struggle to get it right, and I'm not going to spend a whole afternoon standing over a single student as they 'learn from the master' so to speak. That's how I was taught which led to the slightly embroidered tale A lesson in Sharpening I posted earlier.

I suggest to students they consider buying or acquiring a honing guide to help them if they can't get the hang of sharpening freehand. There's no point in being completely put off their chosen career because they can't get the knack of sharpening freehand.

Of course, once they get the jig many can't get good results because they can't work out how to use them properly. That's where I come in and have to work out what they're doing wrong and correct their errors. And that's where I've developed a dislike of honing guides too. Too restrictive and you're stuck on the jig's narrowly defined path which isn't for me. I like to change things when I think there's a benefit and jigs and guides won't let me do that easily.

In the end I still go back to that old mantra. Sharp is sharp. Just be quick about it if working wood is a means of making a living. Slainte.

 

[Roger]

Oval Bolstered Mortice Chisels

You've got my vote as well .....

 

[Anonymous]

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[woodbloke]

Paul Chapman wrote:

And I bet Chippendale had never even heard of the Rutlands catalogue

Just to add to the general fray of this discussion, I too am inclined to agree that the vast majority of stuff in catalogues, though droolworhty, is simply not needed and is there to generate an income for the tool manufacture's and retailers. I generally decide on what new kit may be needed at the start of each job (usually a router cutter or two) and proceed from there. I have mentioned it before, but you only need to see what Alan Peter's uses (in his book) for hand tools (provided a respectable range of power kit is available) to realize that, as has been said by others, 90% of what's in a catalogue can be kicked into touch.
As an additional thought, tho' it is generally recognized that the 'Golden Age' of furniture making was the period from around 1795-1820, where much stuff produced then has never been bettered, equalled maybe, but I suspect not bettered. Craftsmen then were 'time served' it is true, with almost everything being produced by a 'hand process' including the sharpening of all edge tools, certainly the multitude of jigs were not available then. I am not a 'Luddite' and embrace all modern methods, within reason, and not withstanding 'the slope', but I do feel that once a valid method has been found by the individual that works for him or her (and we all do things differently) then that's entirely justified. Just my thoughts on this one...heading back to the 'shop - Rob

 

[Sgian Dubh]

Oval Bolstered Mortice Chisels

Ta. A wee mystery solved. Slainte.

 

[Anonymous]

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[MikeW]

Hah...glad the mystery was solved before I got back here, Richard!

Mercy. I fear I may have been misunderstood--or my own lack of understanding misapplied...Or perhaps the person using my post is misunderstood. So many potentials for misunderstanding.

Which is perhaps one reason why sharpening threads can grow into so many posts.

Richard said it, I said it, others said it. Sharp is sharp and how one gets there is pretty much immaterial unless they recognize a problem and seek advice.

What I liken this thread to is a researcher advancing a paper on Theory X. Often times in so called professional review, Theory X will be ripped apart by the researcher's contemporaries. Now, many of those contemporaries will have had a copy of the paper prior to formal presentation. These contemporaries have the opportunity to test, or prove, Theory X. Many/most do not, instead stopping at "testing" it against previously proven theory to evaluate the claims presented. I'll leave the flawed analogy here.

Jacob's experience is just that. It's his experience. He is placed into a position of defending it. That is often a loosing proposition. Why? Because most often it is not tested by people who are critical [not necessarily a bad thing meant there]. I tried Jacob's method. It works. I guess I have always used it on oval bolstered mortise chisels. At least for as long as my spotty memory goes back. I tried it on a firmer. It worked fine for it. But so do other methods. Seems to me that unless the method is tried, one doesn't really know if it works or not. The hard part is setting aside preconceived notions.

Or not. Because it really doesn't matter what method one uses to arrive at sharp. The whole excercise of sharpening is to be able to do one's work.

OK. Back to hiding and answering long overdue emails.

Take care, Mike

 

[dchenard]

Can anyone here calculate square roots by hand? I can, but I don't know of anyone else in my entourage who are able to. Does it matter? I don't think so, since a calculator can do it faster than me. Slide rules are cute (I own a couple), but a calculator or a PC will give you more precise results. In this case you get more, faster, and I would call that progress.

Dovetail jigs: are they better than going at it by hand? In this crowd few would agree with that. Becoming proficient at doing DTs by hand is kind of a "rite of passage" that shows the ability of the maker. Besides, by the time a jig is set up a good craftsman/woman can whip out a dovetailed drawer as fast or faster than a jig. DT jigs do gain the edge in speed and consistency when the number of joints to be cut becomes large, but the downside is the limitations that a jig imposes on the maker (spacing, pin size, stock size). Unfortunately, a majority of customers don't care for the difference between hand-cut and jigged DTs... In the end, we don't get more (quality), but we can get it faster. Is this progress? I don't think so, because the potential gain in speed occurs at the expense of quality and beauty.

Now to the sharpening jigs. Same question applies. Can we get more, faster? We sure can get more consistent results, but certainly not faster. David C's example earlier in this thread took 1:21 for a chisel (and I'll bet he didn't take the slowest example that he had available...). If the position is that we can get a sharper edge when using a jig, then I would say "demonstrate it". To my knowledge that hasn't been done.

It's true that for someone who has never sharpened a tool in his life a jig will give better results. But it is not hard to learn to sharpen freehand, a lot less than sawing IMHO. If I did all the stock sizing by hand like they did a couple centuries ago, I'd probably get better results when cutting tenons and DTs. For the most part though, machines do a faster and more precise job than doing it by hand.

So, are honing jigs progress? Methinks not, as the alternative is quick to learn and provides excellent results very quickly. I learned to hone freehand in March of this year, and with very little shop time since (young children will do that to you :roll: ) I get quite good results, not too many hair left on my left hand...

I remember my "jig days", where I'd wait until most of my chisels and plane blades became dull, then take one evening to hone everything. Now, when a tool gets dull, I move to the stones nearby, a few swipes and I'm back in business...

DC

 

[Paul Kierstead]

So, are honing jigs progress?

If a person is happier and more content to use a jig, then it is better for them, period. Whether or not it is slower for them is irrelevant if that is what they like to use. Now for you, clearly jigs were a deterrent; for others, they are an attraction.

This is not aimed at you, specifically, Denis: To suggest that someone's methods are inferior when they get good results with them and are happy with it is actually kind of insulting. Now I don't think any of you intend to be insulting and also don't realize it is insulting, but it is. When you tell someone their practices are slow and you "moved beyond that", you are insulting them and their methods. I think this is why these discussions tend to get heated. Even if it could be 100% proved that using a jig is slower then not, and that the time invested in free-hand honing is paid back after 5 honings (I am making stuff up here), it still wouldn't prove that it is better, because not everyones goal is the fastest possible. Maybe they are happier with using a jig; maybe they are happier with rock-consistent bevels. Who are we to say what their goals are? I think there is a need to understand that not everyones goals are identical, and not everyone's desires are identical.

I often cross cut wood with a handsaw just because I want to and enjoy it. Does someone wish to tell me my methods are inferior because they are slow and require more effort?

 

[Roger]

Hasn't his run its course?

 

[Anonymous]

Paul, your methods are inferior because they are slow and require more effort. :lol: :lol:

 

[Alf]

Looking back through this thread I see I've cunningly largely side-stepped taking it seriously, and despite my best efforts to haul it off topic before it became the next locked thread many learned minds have bent themselves to the thread.

Or rather not the thread but instead the debate 'twixt honing guide and non-honing guide.

Alas, the subject often descends into one being "better" than the other. Learned minds from both sides of The Pond have opinioned "Sharp is Sharp" and ultimately that's the bottom line. If you get a better result standing on one leg with a handkerchief in your mouth and singing the first verse of The Hedgehog Song then go to it, my friend. Just a word of advice - don't set up a workshop web cam... Equally, if you find a brief to and fro on the stone threshold of your workshop is all that's required, more power to your elbow. If you like a honing guide, there is no stigma. If you freehand, you are not first among equals.

But equally, if you use a honing guide you don't necessarily have sharper edges, and freehand can sometimes make a godawful mess of a tool. Rejoice in your differences, but don't fall into the trap of believing one is in any way superior to the other. Woodworkers are all different, their methods often differ, thus results differ. Let's not put off the honing guide-user from having the courage to at least try freehand honing, any more than we should make folks feel anything less than honing freehand is somehow "cheating".

Here endeth the lesson. And for pity's sakes can we avoid having two locked threads in a row on here, chaps...? [-o< Let's give the dado fiends a chance on General Woodworking first, eh? :wink:

Cheers, Alf

Owner of three honing guides, too many stones to mention and habitual freehander. Can you say "foot in both camps"?

 

[Paul Kierstead]

Paul, your methods are inferior because they are slow and require more effort. :lol: :lol:

Aha! I knew it!

Just to clarify, I am a wildly opinionated and believe in strongly expressing ones opinion, but at least try to be careful to put it in my own context and try to understand that my context may be different then others. And no, I am not a moral relativist

 

[Anonymous]

If you get a better result standing on one leg with a handkerchief in your mouth and singing the first verse of The Hedgehog Song then go to it, my friend.

eeerm, has someone been peeping into my workshop. :lol: