Starter sharpening stones

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Absolutely, no one way is right, you have to find your own way. The philosophical quote just happened to be Japanese, and a meaningful quote can transcend any culture. Nothing or no one is more spiritual or pure than anyone else. I could also say "The life which is unexamined is not worth living" ,same thing. I like coffee creams.:)

I do disagree with you on one point. I doubt Donald trump could learn shame from anyone...

Jacob, what is your opinion on hand grinders? Did you use them at school?

Piccalilli, tell us how are you going to sharpen!
 
And here I was thinking I was being a mug for still using an oil stone and seriously considering splashing out some significant cash on good diamond stones... looks like I'm so retro, I'm back in fashion! LOL

Seriously though, I do use sanding paper and a bit of marble for cleaning up old chisels and plane blades, but day to day, it's always an oil stone and 3-in-1 oil, like back at school.

The oil stone will last a lot longer, and you know you are retro when the sharpening action makes your bell bottoms sway...:D

I read an interesting article about 3-in-1 for sharpening. I will see if I can find it. They said the ingredients had changed and it made it more waxy which blocked the stones pores. I told my friend this who works restoring old cars and he brought me in a unopened old tin, I keep meaning to try it to see if it has changed! Seriously, sewing machine oil is excellent, and cheap.
 
We had a large diameter hand turned wet wheel, must have been 18" dia 2" thick or more. Perfect really - except the temptation was lazily to remove lots of metal rather than removing just enough on an oil stone.
We also had metal workers sharing the room who used an ordinary powered 6" bench grinder but we woodworkers were banned from using it, which was also a very good idea - in inexperienced hands does more damage to blades than any other cause. Done it myself! Blued edges, bevel nibbled by rats etc.
In fact half the stuff I buy from ebay seems to have suffered in this way!
Re 3in1 I don't know about a problem but anyway I usually thin it with white spirit half n half.
 
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Thanks for that very kind offer, I’m a bit far away though as I’m in Tyne and Wear!
I have been looking at the cheap eclipse ones on eBay and might see if I can just pick one up for a few quid. I’ve heard mixed things on honing guides and learning to hold the angle of the blade, some people say it takes years of practice. From a knife sharpening point of view I can say that, although I do tend to get a decent enough edge for slicing onions just going freehand, I’ve never managed to get to the point of being able to slice newspaper edges. It’s always been a bit hit and miss too, and I’m not too fussed with using a guide if they’re cheap enough. Not sure how kitchen knives compare to chisel sharpening
Hahaha, yes it's a bit of a trip from there! Do you mean woodworkers that far north aren't still using flint scrapers and axes made from antlers? (only kidding, I'm from Up North mesen, so I know it's not as grim as southern softies think). I thought you must be fairly local as you said you'd be going to Axminster
 
Hahaha, yes it's a bit of a trip from there! Do you mean woodworkers that far north aren't still using flint scrapers and axes made from antlers? (only kidding, I'm from Up North mesen, so I know it's not as grim as southern softies think). I thought you must be fairly local as you said you'd be going to Axminster
I may have replied to the wrong message! Maybe it was somebody else who was going to Axminster for a honing guide. But the thread has turned nasty and members are getting annoyed, so I'm out of it
 
Ah, ha ha - no, I meant Axminster tools. (We have them up here now too - and electricity! 😉)

in the end I grabbed a £7.50 honing guide when I was in wickes yesterday, seems reasonable enough. I had a go at doing the no.4 plane blade just using some 120grit decorators paper, a granite cheeseboard and then my 1000 whetstone. Not too bad I don’t think. Tried to attach picture but hard to show the bevel in focus.
I also should have flattened the back of the blade.
Think I’m still leaning towards diamonds stone though - I’d rather keep my whetstone for the kitchen knives I think and want something set up in the garage.

I need to restore the whole plane (handles a bit wobbly) and actually get a workbench built now. Feel I should probably have done that first (fun trying to test out a plane without a vice to hold anything in place!). Probs not get that done till after Christmas now though.

3469F830-EB9E-472F-BD2D-6D806D21CF65.jpeg
 
We had a large diameter hand turned wet wheel, must have been 18" dia 2" thick or more. Perfect really - except the temptation was lazily to remove lots of metal rather than removing just enough on an oil stone.
We also had metal workers sharing the room who used an ordinary powered 6" bench grinder but we woodworkers were banned from using it, which was also a very good idea - in inexperienced hands does more damage to blades than any other cause. Done it myself! Blued edges, bevel nibbled by rats etc.
In fact half the stuff I buy from ebay seems to have suffered in this way!
Re 3in1 I don't know about a problem but anyway I usually thin it with white spirit half n half.

I normally go to France for the winter (bit difficult with the covid and brexit mess) and I see for sale a lot old sharpening wheels, I must admit I am really tempted, I like to do some green woodwork for pleasure with axes and spokeshaves and thought it might work well. I agree with your observation about the temptation to remove too much.
 
I think you did well. If the guide is a cheap version of an eclipse 36 look on you tube under "modify eclipse honing guide", it just makes it a little bit better at holding. I have a cheap version and it works much better.
 
Hagakure The Way of the Samurai

"Human life is truly a short affair. It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like. But it is important never to tell this to young people as it is something that would be harmful if incorrectly understood.

Personally, I like to sleep. And I intend to appropriately confine myself more and more to my living quarters and pass my life away sleeping".


..........
I like the quote. It improves with reading.
There is something zen buddhist about sharpening the minimalist/easy way - quiet workshop, simple materials etc. Practicalities are a feature of zen.

Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
 
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Not what you wanted to hear perhaps. Having spent on Japanese water stones, I eventually bought 8" diamond grit 'steels' and haven't looked back. Stay straight, last longer and do the job easier, with less maintenance.
 
The oil stone will last a lot longer, and you know you are retro when the sharpening action makes your bell bottoms sway...:D

I read an interesting article about 3-in-1 for sharpening. I will see if I can find it. They said the ingredients had changed and it made it more waxy which blocked the stones pores. I told my friend this who works restoring old cars and he brought me in a unopened old tin, I keep meaning to try it to see if it has changed! Seriously, sewing machine oil is excellent, and cheap.

I suspect that I can beat your sewing machine oil in terms of price, but have just realised that I am a limited breed in that I have no gas so have oil central heating. So the latest quote I've got for heating oil is 34p per litre including 5% VAT, and it works fine for me. So what's than then - about 0.01p per sharpen?
Rob
 
Not what you wanted to hear perhaps. Having spent on Japanese water stones, I eventually bought 8" diamond grit 'steels' and haven't looked back. Stay straight, last longer and do the job easier, with less maintenance.

Hi Dave. Not at all. The Japanese quote is just a great quote, that resonates with me. I try to draw from every culture. If anything I am more attracted to Scandinavian Sloyd,Danish design, American folk, and the English Arts & Crafts movement, and poor attempts to draw Celtic designs!

I tried water stones as well. Yes they are good, I see why people like them, are they for me? No. I found using water cold for the hands in winter and in summer I was getting flash rusting as I was using them. I got some oil stones and I think they will outlast me.
Have been tempted to buy an expensive diamond set (monocrystalline rather than polycrystalline), but always spend my pocket money on saws (Western I might add...LOL). I have a cheap diamond stone for dressing which works well as it does not get much abuse.

Picalilli wanted a starter set, and I think some used oil stones from somewhere like eBay a good choice. They will not break the bank, and keep flat for quite a while. I do believe that if you are going the diamond route for all your sharpening then you have to be prepared to pay for a good set as you have. I tried some cheap ones, and while they lasted they were good, but too quickly wore out, especially using with carving gouges.:)
 
Yo
I suspect that I can beat your sewing machine oil in terms of price, but have just realised that I am a limited breed in that I have no gas so have oil central heating. So the latest quote I've got for heating oil is 34p per litre including 5% VAT, and it works fine for me. So what's than then - about 0.01p per sharpen?
Rob
You will be getting the Scots a reputation if you say things like that....o_O
 
Ah, ha ha - no, I meant Axminster tools. (We have them up here now too - and electricity! 😉)

in the end I grabbed a £7.50 honing guide when I was in wickes yesterday, seems reasonable enough. I had a go at doing the no.4 plane blade just using some 120grit decorators paper, a granite cheeseboard and then my 1000 whetstone. Not too bad I don’t think. Tried to attach picture but hard to show the bevel in focus.
I also should have flattened the back of the blade.
Think I’m still leaning towards diamonds stone though - I’d rather keep my whetstone for the kitchen knives I think and want something set up in the garage.

I need to restore the whole plane (handles a bit wobbly) and actually get a workbench built now. Feel I should probably have done that first (fun trying to test out a plane without a vice to hold anything in place!). Probs not get that done till after Christmas now though.

View attachment 98435

That's generally what an edge should look like the rest of your woodworking hobby or career. You can adjust angles and polish levels at the tip, but if the finer work looks much further up the bevel than that, you'll be wasting your time and making edges that would look bad under my microscope.

I use a test here in the US to see if people are getting good edges (everyone says they are). I encourage (or sell at cost) use of a washita stone and freehand honing a single angle. Quite often, people using jacob's method will come back and state that a washita is finer than whatever fine synthetic stone because they're getting edges that are sharper than they've ever gotten. What's really happening is they're not getting the polishing stone to the edge in a routine with more steps.

If you were just to improve the polish on that edge (1k stone, right?) with autosol, and work the back and do the same - bias some pressure right at the edge so that the edge looks like the one in the picture I linked to you, you'll be working with better edges than most people who are woodworking for a longer period.
 
We had a large diameter hand turned wet wheel, must have been 18" dia 2" thick or more. Perfect really - except the temptation was lazily to remove lots of metal rather than removing just enough on an oil stone.
We also had metal workers sharing the room who used an ordinary powered 6" bench grinder but we woodworkers were banned from using it, which was also a very good idea - in inexperienced hands does more damage to blades than any other cause. Done it myself! Blued edges, bevel nibbled by rats etc.
In fact half the stuff I buy from ebay seems to have suffered in this way!
Re 3in1 I don't know about a problem but anyway I usually thin it with white spirit half n half.

People who remove "just enough" usually come up short and leave some damage in an edge or worse.

The simple solution when grinding to avoid wasting away a tool is to grind just shy of the edge, and maintain the edge with stone or stone and polish. Very easy.

It also generally prevents burning of edges except in the most impatient. Burning an edge can be done trying to refresh the bevel in 10 seconds. with light pressure and about 30 seconds, an edge is refreshed and never too hot to pull across the palm to check temperature. Two things make for cool grinding at high speed (beyond light pressure) - coarse wheel, and a dressing tool to make sure the wheel is sparking off steel instead of just rubbing a tool and leaving the heat in it.

I'm starting to make chisels and knives. In the last month or so, I've bought two 1350 watt high speed 8 inch grinders with very inexpensive A36 tool room wheels. 8 inch high speed grinders aren't well thought of for beginners, which is fine - they have almost double the wheel surface speed of a 6" high speed grinder. I figured as coarse as the wheel is and as high as the speed is, with a light touch, they'd work very well to refresh a bevel without making the tool too hot. I've found that to be the case - not suggesting it for a beginner, but it's not very difficult. On the fence about selling my 6" grinder and just using the 8" high speed grinders, but I have a CBN wheel for the 6" grinder and a bunch of older japanese razors to refresh and sell - so maybe down the road.

Not a huge fan of power grinding at slow speed with wet wheels or machines that use overpriced belts.

I also got a 5000 feet per minute belt grinder (an attachment that fits on one of the above grinders) . With ceramic belts, it can grind very cool, but given the ability to have wide contact along with the belt speed, too much pressure can make things hot quickly. Where's the worst place for heat on a belt grinder? Pushing a tool against a platen- it's worse than a dry wheel grinder by far. Platens are too rigid and can't easily focus on the center of a tool away from an edge.

The cost of one of these grinders (Jet IBG-8) and the belt grinder attachment is $100 more than the sorby pro edge here, but no oddball belt sizes and enough power to make tools rather than just grind them. Another $150 and one could have a variable speed grinder that runs at full speed down to 1/4th of it and then a beginner could use it as a grinder....

...but that's getting far detached from reality, almost as far detached as recommending a beginner blow that much money on a pro edge or tormek to find that they won't use it that much and are captive for abrasives and attachments.
 
https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/threads/ultex-diamond-stones.100153/
Custard is as well regarded as anyone on UKW , Read his account of ultex stones. Cracking quality for the price especially when ITS do a sale. ;)
Get a jig/ guide if you want one. When you get more comfortable and practised you can sell it if it makes you feel more of a man. (Welcome back Jacob). If not you can tuck it away for major reginding of a profile.
Just don't get lost listening to the sharpening brigade.
Some people dedicate their lives to it. Honing compound this, rare oil that.... You can hone with mdf offcut and autosol metal polish. Its basically free.
Bore on.
You just want a sharpedge. Thats two smooth surfaces at the optimal angle for cutting well while taking longest to get blunt. Forget the rest.
This with tinsel and holly on...
 
That's generally what an edge should look like the rest of your woodworking hobby or career. You can adjust angles and polish levels at the tip, but if the finer work looks much further up the bevel than that, you'll be wasting your time and making edges that would look bad under my microscope.

I use a test here in the US to see if people are getting good edges (everyone says they are). I encourage (or sell at cost) use of a washita stone and freehand honing a single angle. Quite often, people using jacob's method will come back and state that a washita is finer than whatever fine synthetic stone because they're getting edges that are sharper than they've ever gotten. What's really happening is they're not getting the polishing stone to the edge in a routine with more steps.

If you were just to improve the polish on that edge (1k stone, right?) with autosol, and work the back and do the same - bias some pressure right at the edge so that the edge looks like the one in the picture I linked to you, you'll be working with better edges than most people who are woodworking for a longer period.

1k stone, yeah. I have a 3000 on the other side which I suppose I could have used too, was just practicing and having some fun for the time being (as I say don’t even have a bench built yet)

when you say some bias in the edge do you mean put a slight curve on the corners? I’ve seen that some people do this to avoid track marks

I think I might de-rust and restore the plane early next week. Off work and will be a relaxing thing to do, so may get some autosol then and have a go at polishing it some more.
 
1k stone, yeah. I have a 3000 on the other side which I suppose I could have used too, was just practicing and having some fun for the time being (as I say don’t even have a bench built yet)

when you say some bias in the edge do you mean put a slight curve on the corners? I’ve seen that some people do this to avoid track marks

I think I might de-rust and restore the plane early next week. Off work and will be a relaxing thing to do, so may get some autosol then and have a go at polishing it some more.

No, I mean rather than using things like "the ruler trick" or any of that kind of thing, to ensure that your back polishing gets all the way to the edge, put down-pressure on the stone that you're using by pushing down at the edge of the chisel. Chisels and plane irons flex, even though it's not a huge amount of flex. you want to put your fingers more or less where you want the abrasive to do the most work, so right at or near the edge.

When you see videos of someone flattening the back of a plane iron or polishing it, you'll often see them pushing down an inch or so from the edge and all they're doing is focusing the pressure under their fingers.

You have two types of bias with sharpening - angle bias (when you intentionally find the angle an edge is at and then just tip it a tiny bit further more in your favor) and pressure bias.

This sounds like overanalysis, but I have a laziness bias. You want to do a great job as fast as possible with as little effort as possible. That's what makes really sharp practical rather than "i could keep working and get this really sharp, but it's good enough for now". Supreme sharpness with the biases (and eventually no gadgets) is a 1 minute process at the most. When it becomes 3, 4, 7 minutes or whatever, it's a matter of doing work where it doesn't need to be done, and that leads to not doing work where it needs to be done. Focusing all of your hand work just at the tip, to, frees you from the nonsense that you'll see from people about needing a very fast stone (that usually ends up being some kind of small abrasive that's aggressive and could be loosely bound, so you can only use it in one direction).

The significance of really quick but really good sharpening is it will draw you to sharpening often, but it won't take long enough to break your concentration on whatever you're working on.

That in combination with remembering that there is no necessary correlation between money spent and time/speed fineness. All of the most expensive sharpening gadgetry is subpar compared to the loose closely graded abrasives or common pastes (there's no need for special honing pastes or any high priced nonsense). Most of the for-pay gurus will direct you to a retailer that they favor or some kind of stones or guides that they see being successful (maybe both for them and the user when their pocket is involved) in putting students off with something that's workable to start with (but not very good in the long run in the cycle of actual work).

The way you've sharpened your chisel there, you'll soon learn that you can grind the bulk and adjust squareness ever so slightly wherever it's needed honing freehand. When you come to do something like a skew iron, which seems to vex tons of people, or a gouge, you'll do the same thing, and with a skew iron, in reference to the tool, make small easy adjustments if they're needed at all. When you start seeing things like skew grinding jigs, skew honing jigs and fixtures and such things, you'll be glad you avoided all of that and as long as you work all the way to the tip, your edges will be as good (probably better) vs. most guide honed edges. The guide takes away your biases as mentioned above - they work in your favor to increase the edge quality and decrease the effort.
 
Different strokes for different folks I guess... 🥴

I've got to the end of this thread so far and so far I am non the wiser. I think it is one of those subjects where there's no wrong way and there are a lot of right ways that suit different people. I watched Paul Sellers sharpening a set of budget chisels first using 3 grades of wet and dry on a glass plate and not too successfully, then moving to 3 grades of Eze-Lap diamond plates followed by a leather strop. His technique is fast and doesn't include an edge bevel and yet he demonstrated how his technique transformed a budget chisel into a razor sharp tool.
(1) How to Sharpen a Chisel | Paul Sellers - YouTube

For me I was taught to sharpen with oilstones freehand with an edge bevel, then I read various magazine articles and bought waterstones (a lot of messy phaff), a basic honing guide (ok but no better than freehand) then a veritas guide (just couldn't get on with it) so now back to freehand on oilstones and a strop but can't get a really sharp edge hence watching the video and reading this. I can't justify over £200 on a set of 3 Eze-laps but am tempted to try the Vaunt stones from ITS.
 
Two things about paul's "method" (which isn't his at all - I get chisels from japan with the same bevel on, despite the religious fervor that japanese folks use one single bevel - I have gotten one single set of professional chisels in professional use with a single bevel, and they were quite soft for japanese chisels - much more similar to English cast steel chisels in feel):
1) when he uses some budget golly ghee thing on a video and it turns out terrible, he gets away with it - it's misleading
2) while he often demonstrates his own method, I doubt anyone on here has gotten more tools from other people than I have and I still have yet to receive a tool sharpened with the sellers method that isn't either incompletely sharpened or very well finished but without enough clearance to use.

I can sharpen with his method - there's nobody on here who can complete more methods quickly than I can, but it makes no sense to use it compared to using a coarse stone to set a flat bevel (if one insists on using no power grinding) and then working only the back and tip of the bevel on the finer stones (to actually complete the job).

I've been making a glom of chisels, and I have no means to finish the backs flat other than glass plate and a long run of alundum paper. They're initially flattened on a ceramic belt on a hard flat platen, but they do need to be finished by hand. I have gotten to the point where I've drawn temper out of tools manually that don't get drawn on a 5000 foot a minute belt grinder (the result is that the tip gets drawn, the rest of the tool gets hot and my fingertips get blistered...sharpening by hand!!)

I will also (if playing games and cutting a bevel on an iron with the glass plate and al-ox paper) brown the tip of an edge with the lap when working briskly, so it's out as an edge finishing measure when making tools. It's also not faster than a crystolon stone in an oil bath (no heat), which is dandy for bevels, and far less effective than a ceramic belt that's intentionally made to grind cool and dry. It's substandard even to a full speed 8" grinder and a 24 grit tool room wheel.

Everything will work when executed properly. There are many coarse handed workers advocating coarse handed results, as well as methods that someone can demo but I don't personally see acolytes executing. I've seen Jacob's edges close up. I wouldn't work with them at a bench. trimming a door in a house and slashing around? maybe.
 
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