Firstly, apologies as I'm sure sharpening has been done to death, but my question I hope is a little different.
I work as a technician on a furniture course at a college and am constantly trying to improve and streamline the way we do things. Something that is a constant source of frustration for me is our sharpening systems and the result we get.
Although of course we look at sharpening in detail in both practical sessions and also in theory, its very difficult to stress its importance to people with very little experience and have that translate into actions.
Our paring chisels seem to shrink at an alarming rate as I inspect them and find all manner of multi-faceted bevel angles, rounded and softened bevels and horror of all horrors, BACK-BEVELS!... :evil:
We have racks of tools including about 16 chisels each of popular sizes, mortise chisels and also many planes of different forms.
Things have improved slightly recently as we have gone from the old days of freehand-sharpening and then re-grinds on an abrasive wheel all too often, to the use of the Tormek system and the Eclipse-type honing guides to hone blades inbetween use.
We also used to practise a primary bevel angle of 25 degrees on our chisels and then a honing angle of 30 degrees. I believe this used to confuse students and the chisels were always a huge mess so I suggested sticking to a single angle of 25 degrees all the way, hopefully to reduce time between re-grinds. This has improved things quite a lot but we still get quite a lot of facets on the chisels I think due to the difficulty in matching the angle off the Tormek to the angle with the Eclipse guides, despite the use of blocks screwed down used to set the correct projection. They just don't seem to tally up.
Basically, the problem of trying to get in excess of 70 students per week, all reading from the same page with regard to sharpening and reducing wear on the tools and time lost sharpening which could be spent making is a difficult one.
I've looked at various other honing guides as I don't find the eclipse ones very well made and they don't seem to hold our chisels all that flat. If there is any room for something to be used incorrectly or broken then one of the students will eventually find it.
I've recently looked at the Veritas MkII guide as it seems very good quality with a nice wide wheel, but although in my own workshop I think it could be used with great results often, to try and get 70 students of differing ability to all remember the correct sequence right away is perhaps a bit too much.
I was wondering then, if anyone had any ideas which we could employ that would be ultra simple, provide a good and repeatable result with accurate bevel-angles and not cost the earth! :shock:
I work as a technician on a furniture course at a college and am constantly trying to improve and streamline the way we do things. Something that is a constant source of frustration for me is our sharpening systems and the result we get.
Although of course we look at sharpening in detail in both practical sessions and also in theory, its very difficult to stress its importance to people with very little experience and have that translate into actions.
Our paring chisels seem to shrink at an alarming rate as I inspect them and find all manner of multi-faceted bevel angles, rounded and softened bevels and horror of all horrors, BACK-BEVELS!... :evil:
We have racks of tools including about 16 chisels each of popular sizes, mortise chisels and also many planes of different forms.
Things have improved slightly recently as we have gone from the old days of freehand-sharpening and then re-grinds on an abrasive wheel all too often, to the use of the Tormek system and the Eclipse-type honing guides to hone blades inbetween use.
We also used to practise a primary bevel angle of 25 degrees on our chisels and then a honing angle of 30 degrees. I believe this used to confuse students and the chisels were always a huge mess so I suggested sticking to a single angle of 25 degrees all the way, hopefully to reduce time between re-grinds. This has improved things quite a lot but we still get quite a lot of facets on the chisels I think due to the difficulty in matching the angle off the Tormek to the angle with the Eclipse guides, despite the use of blocks screwed down used to set the correct projection. They just don't seem to tally up.
Basically, the problem of trying to get in excess of 70 students per week, all reading from the same page with regard to sharpening and reducing wear on the tools and time lost sharpening which could be spent making is a difficult one.
I've looked at various other honing guides as I don't find the eclipse ones very well made and they don't seem to hold our chisels all that flat. If there is any room for something to be used incorrectly or broken then one of the students will eventually find it.
I've recently looked at the Veritas MkII guide as it seems very good quality with a nice wide wheel, but although in my own workshop I think it could be used with great results often, to try and get 70 students of differing ability to all remember the correct sequence right away is perhaps a bit too much.
I was wondering then, if anyone had any ideas which we could employ that would be ultra simple, provide a good and repeatable result with accurate bevel-angles and not cost the earth! :shock: