Whetstones & Hollow Morticer Chisels

[pollys13]

Watching The Wood Whisperers video, hollow chisel mortiser - purchase, use, and maintenance.

In the sharpening section, he uses whetstones on a factory fresh chisel to remove the machining marks on the outside, says makes easier to withdraw the chisel. He is using two separate stones 1000 and 5000. I see a combination stone of 1000/4000 is available. Would the 4000 grit be alright to use instead of the 5000?

I have a Scheppach Tiger 2500 wet stone grinder, ( Is a clone of the Tormek 7) leather honing wheels and jigs for holding my woodcarving tools, also have a neat planer knife sharpening jig to fit on it. So, at the moment, anyway I don't see myself looking into diamond stones. From what I understand the whetstones wouldn't be used lots for cleaning up the chisels. So doesn't warrant the, potential huge expense of quality diamond stones. In the video he also covers up touching up the auger.
I'll be getting a flattening stone for the whetstones.
Cheers all.
Peter.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I'd have thought for a morticing chisel a few sheets of wet and dry and maybe a buffing wheel then on - mine don't stick and I didn't buff mine. You can flatten a wet grind stone with a devil stone with a home made jig. I think you are over complicating things and looking for excuses to spend.

 

[Beau]

I do clean up the outside of my chisels to remove the burr but 1000 grit waterstone is more than enough IMO. It's not like the internal sharpening can be done to a fine grit.

 

[custard]

I used to swear by Clico square chisels and on those I took the outside to quite a high level of polish. Maybe it did make them operate more smoothly, maybe I just kidded myself it did, but that's the practise I followed and whenever I used the morticing machines in other workshops they never seemed to work quite as slick as mine.

But Clico are no more, so I followed the advice of a craftsmen I respect and tried the Japanese chisels sold by Scott & Sergeant. Not cheap but they work beautifully, better in fact on many timbers than Clico. But here's the rub, those Japanese square chisels have a relief machined into them a few mill up from the edge, in other words they're minutely tapered. So on those you definitely wouldn't want to set about them with a 1000 grit stone!

In any event, I tend to agree with Phil on this, whatever you do don't fall into what is yet another woodworking rabbit hole! Crack on, use your kit, and if you can make incremental improvements over time then all well and good.

Good luck!

 

[pollys13]

I used to swear by Clico square chisels and on those I took the outside to quite a high level of polish. Maybe it did make them operate more smoothly, maybe I just kidded myself it did, but that's the practise I followed and whenever I used the morticing machines in other workshops they never seemed to work quite as slick as mine.

But Clico are no more, so I followed the advice of a craftsmen I respect and tried the Japanese chisels sold by Scott & Sergeant. Not cheap but they work beautifully, better in fact on many timbers than Clico. But here's the rub, those Japanese square chisels have a relief machined into them a few mill up from the edge, in other words they're minutely tapered. So on those you definitely wouldn't want to set about them with a 1000 grit stone!

In any event, I tend to agree with Phil on this, whatever you do don't fall into what is yet another woodworking rabbit hole! Crack on, use your kit, and if you can make incremental improvements over time then all well and good.

Good luck!

OK thanks, I'm aware of the dangers of becoming a shiny tool collector, rather than cracking on and getting on with the job in hand.

 

[bugbear]

...those Japanese square chisels have a relief machined into them a few mill up from the edge, in other words they're minutely tapered. So on those you definitely wouldn't want to set about them with a 1000 grit stone!

If the relief is a machined "step", you're right, but if they're tapered, you could polish them (but surely there's no point, since the taper should already be doing the friction reducing job).

BugBear

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Mine are only cheap ones (they do what I need) and I have cleaned them up - but there is a taper on them. They still stuck as supplied though.

 

[Argus]

Some of my mortise chisels are years old and tended to get a bit warm...... In fact I have a mixture of allsorts by different manufacturers.

A tickle with some fine abrasive helps the insides and the auger gets a file-wipe from time to time.

Whilst I do wipe the burr off the outside edges on a fine diamond plate, an occasional drop or two of chain-saw oil inside the auger helps to quieten things down and keeps the temperature in the moderate range. Not enough oil to tarnish the work, but enough to keep rotating metal happy.

It does mean that I have to take them all apart and clean them out - but it is basic housekeeping.

 

[bugbear]

IIRC Fine Woodworking did an article on hollow chisel tuning. I didn't take a lot of notice of the details, since I'm hand tool only, but IIRC it involved the fairly traditional concepts of making the flat flatter and the smooth, smoother.

BugBear