Sharpening on stones with a guide

[D_W]

I teach amateurs and beginners. They are not getting pleasure from their planes or chisels because they are not getting them properly sharp.

They can be taught to produce a practically perfect edge in two days. One for chisels and one for cambered plane blades. (preparation, grinding & honing, squaring, cambering).

David,
I expect I sharpen moulding planes and carving chisels the same or similar way you do. It just so happens this is not very often. Modern furniture tends not to use them.

David

That's certainly an issue I hadn't considered - not using that type of tool at all (moulding planes or carving tools), and never really planning to.

I can identify with using the guide as an amateur and beginner, I guess I'm still both (but without the guide). I still recommend beginners your three bevel video when they talk about having trouble sharpening, because I know they'll grasp it and I know it will create a final bevel angle great enough to resist small chipout. I didn't stay with the method, but it served its purpose.

 

[David C]

I'm very pleased to hear that my DVD served its purpose for you.

This is why I can't understand skilled practitioners who constantly advise beginners against guides.

They get the job done and people can move on to freehand whenever they like.

The objective is sharp tools and it doesn't matter how they are achieved.

Best wishes,
David

 

[Jacob]

Near enough accurate judged by eye (and the emergence of a burr).

Us honing guide users can get it far more accurate (and therefore sharper) than "near enough".

Cheers :wink:

Paul

More accurate doesn't mean sharper. I suppose that's the honing guide delusion in one!
"Near enough" is good enough for us woodworkers, i.e. to a particular angle - not "near enough" to a degree of sharpness

 

[bugbear]

What I wrote was "Cambering, or honing an already cambered edge, is difficult to impossible with most jigs" which is true. I thought you read everything I write really carefully BB. Pay more attention!
NB if you look carefully you will see the word "most" which implies "not all".

Ah - so (inverting the multiple negatives) your statement could be paraphrased as "Cambering, or honing an already cambered edge, is easy with some jigs"

I stand corrected, and humbly apologise for my error.

BugBear

 

[MarkDennehy]

Mental note - never ask *that* question again...

 

[ED65]

I teach amateurs and beginners. They are not getting pleasure from their planes or chisels because they are not getting them properly sharp.

This is the problem in a nutshell: newer woodworkers need to be able to produce good edges right now. It's the difference between a plane that barely works and one that sings, between a chisel that crushes end grain or slices it cleanly, between a carving knife that's not safe to use and one that'll pare with little resistance.

We all know these things, there's no argument there. Why do we (woodworkers collectively) insist on arguing about how they got there when the results are what matter? Does the wood care how the steel was held? Of course not. So neither should we.

While I think freehand sharpening is the thing to aim for I think those struggling with it should NOT always be encouraged to persevere with it but to try a jig (homemade ideally since it won't involve any outlay and they can try it nearly immediately). If they try honing with a jig and it's a revelation they're helped now, when they need it the most. And they'll always have that level of sharpness to refer back to as a point of comparison for their freehand sharpening efforts, to match or try to exceed if they want to take it that far.

 

[Paul Chapman]

I think freehand sharpening is the thing to aim for

I disagree. Surely the thing to aim for is a method that quickly and repeatedly produces a super-sharp edge. If, for some of us, that means using a honing guide, so be it.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[MIGNAL]

At the end of this week I have a complete beginner coming into the workshop. If it takes him longer than an hour to learn how to freehand sharpen I'll be shocked. Chisels and planes. I'll leave the difficult ones (like double beveled knives) for another day.

 

[MattRoberts]

We've just hijacked a guy's thread with 9 pages of debate on freehand vs guides. Maybe we should leave it there

 

[Phil Pascoe]

The end product is really all that matters. When I first learned to set a plane at school when I was twelve I found it difficult to do by sight, so did it by touch. Five or six times the master took the plane off me after I'd set it to check it, after the first couple of times he handed it back untouched. The last time he watched me I asked if there was a problem - no, he replied, you can do it perfectly well - just get on with it. Fifty years later, I still set planes by touch. I don't give a toss whether other people do it by sight or touch - anymore than I give a toss whether other people use a jig or not.

 

[Paul Chapman]

We've just hijacked a guy's thread with 9 pages of debate on freehand vs guides. Maybe we should leave it there

Don't worry, he probably fell asleep hours ago :lol:

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Phil Pascoe]

We've just hijacked a guy's thread with 9 pages of debate on freehand vs guides. Maybe we should leave it there

Serve him right. He put "sharpening" in the title. He should have known what would happen.

 

[Bm101]

I sometimes wonder why I ask questions on here. Some people probably think, ahhh here we go.... Another one asking the same things we've been answering for 10 years. I've made so many mistakes and newboy errors. But then again where else would I be able to get the direct advice of people who write books on woodworking, teach it to amateurs on courses I can't afford to take the time off work or my family for, or the likes of so many others who are consumate experts, professional or otherwise who are kind enough to help out. I have broad shoulders. I'm willing to look the fool because I hope I have an even broader mind. Every mistake has been learnt from. Each time I got it wrong I got it right the next time. Every mistake made is a lesson learned.
I never really got the deal on sharpening debates . TBH it seems a bit mad to me. I bought a few nice chisels and after years of doing diy and so on, it was a Damascus moment. A literal eye opener. What was a task before became a joy. Shhhhink! as the wood did what I wanted it to. And all of a sudden I was converted. How you get there hardly seems important. As long as you get there.

Freehand, guides, who cares? Whatever suits you Shirley. Dont call me Surely.

 

[ED65]

I think freehand sharpening is the thing to aim for

I disagree. Surely the thing to aim for is a method that quickly and repeatedly produces a super-sharp edge. If, for some of us, that means using a honing guide, so be it.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

Wow Paul, take that completely out of context why don't you?! I go on to actually support the case for jigging, geez Louise.

 

[Paul Chapman]

I think freehand sharpening is the thing to aim for

I disagree. Surely the thing to aim for is a method that quickly and repeatedly produces a super-sharp edge. If, for some of us, that means using a honing guide, so be it.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

Wow Paul, take that completely out of context why don't you?! I go on to actually support the case for jigging, geez Louise.

Apologies if I misinterpreted what you said.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Jacob]

.....
The reasonable solution was to make another surface in the same plane as the stone and leave the guide on that surface and the blade on the hone. It doesn't really go further than that.
.....

Without a jig you can sharpen on a very small stone, if you really have to. Not easy but say 1/2" square for fine honing. Too small for grinding - unless you have a lot of time - say you are working on a prison escape and getting kitted up with sharp edges. 8)

 

[Jacob]

..... I don't give a toss whether other people do it by sight or touch - anymore than I give a toss whether other people use a jig or not.

I don't give a toss either - except I think it could be helpful to point out to our OP (and legions with the same dilemma) - that problems will go away if you dump the jig. He is asking for help - it's not good enough to simple instruct him to buy more kit!

Two essential things:
1 Don't exceed 30º ish. Less is OK, even if this results in a rounded bevel. This demands self control!
2 Don't stop until you get a burr right across especially the middle where there is usually most wear. If you can't see it you can probably feel it.
3 If you don't get a burr promptly you may need to remove more metal from the bevel to speed things up. Coarse grinding, angle grinder, belt sander 40 grit etc. is fine. This is often called "backing off".

 

[D_W]

.....
The reasonable solution was to make another surface in the same plane as the stone and leave the guide on that surface and the blade on the hone. It doesn't really go further than that.
.....

Without a jig you can sharpen on a very small stone, if you really have to. Not easy but say 1/2" square for fine honing. Too small for grinding - unless you have a lot of time - say you are working on a prison escape and getting kitted up with sharp edges. 8)

It's also a lot easier to keep stones flat when they're narrower than wide iron, but I guess troublesome with a jig. When I used jigs, my stones were always wide, and I had to flatten them.

Once I went to freehand, I stopped flattening my stones other than as part of the sharpening process.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

"I don't give a toss either - except I think it could be helpful to point out to our OP ... " - fair point, Jacob.

 

[Trafalgar]

In need of a tip here.

I'm sharpening plane irons and chisels with the scary sharp method and using one of the ten million clones of the eclipse guide, and everything's fine - because I can use a relatively long strip of sandpaper so I get a good bit of travel on it. And when I use the oilstones it's more or less okay as well because they're fairly long and easy to turn around. But I got some (really cheap, but I'll upgrade to proper DMZ or EZE-lap ones in a while) diamond stones and was using them this weekend and realised that they're so short that I'm getting about 2-3 inches of travel at most or the guide wheel goes off the stone and the angle changes (and if I start with the guide wheel off the stone and on the bench hook platform I use, I still only get 2-3 inches of movement before the wheel jumps up onto the stone). And since the stones are taped in place, spinning them round to avoid uneven wear is a little awkward.

I tried holding the angle by hand. And learned that when it comes to sharpening woodworking hand tools, I'm a pretty decent software engineer (hammer)

How do you guys manage to get round that? Inset the stones into the bench hook or something? Or do you just have to go and learn to do it without the guide?

Mark, if you want to use a guide you made a bad choice in buying short stones. You'll have to eat that loss and buy longer ones. It's that simple. You other alternative is to learn how to hone freehand though short stones aren't a joy then, either, in my opinion.

You need the more-or-less standard 8" long stones. Woodworking is hard enough. Don't compromise on stones. 8x2 has been the bench woodworker's standard for decades. It didn't happen by accident.