# Stanley 750 Chisel Usage



## trevarthan (Jan 14, 2013)

Hello,

I'm self taught and making my first workbench.

I bought the 8 piece set of Stanley 750s this past week. They arrived yesterday, and I went to work sharpening. I figured these chisels are very similar to Lie Nielsen chisels, so I watched their sharpening video and used it as a guide: 




Let's see... I have three water stones. A 1000/6000 combination stone, and some blue stone I bought at a hardware store. Not sure what the grit is on that stone, but probably pretty rough, like 400 or 200. I also have a diamond plate that I use to flatten my stones. I don't have slabs of granite laying around, or sheets of glass I can spare, so I just make do with these three.

I also have the honing guide they use in the video and a protractor.

I started on my 1" chisel, but I found it was too big for the benchdog holes I'm cutting in my 2x4s for my new workbench, so I switched to the 3/4" chisel.

I spent about 2 hours alternating between the rough blue stone, and my 1000/6000 stone. I tried to flatten the back:










Eventually I gave up and called it "done" because it was taking so long. As you can see, the scratch pattern isn't even, and I'm not sure I would call the blade polished. You can see the machining marks all along the blade still.

Then I put a secondary bevel on the tip of the chisel:










The weird thing about this is the near corner. Clearly it had a good bit less material there. Or else I screwed up it's orientation in the roller jig. I ground it down enough on the blue stone so that there was at least some polish in that corner, but I didn't take the time to make it even.

Here's my first couple of attempts removing the waste from my benchdog holes:



















Definitely not as flat as a plane or hand router. You can see a large chunk removed by accident in the second photo. Maybe that had something to do with the chisel angle. I'm not sure.

This is my first time using chisels like this for woodworking. Is this good work? These cuts are across the grain, so I doubt I should expect too much.

If not good work, what should I be seeing? Finally, if not good work, is this a problem with my technique, or with the half ass sharpening job I did on the chisel?

Thanks!


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

re flatness of the back. only the last 1/2 inch or so (near the bevel) should be flat. the rest can be flattened if and when the chisel gets short enough for that part of the back to come into play.

re the cleanliness of the groove floor. with pine, it is so soft and the fibers as loosely enough bound that tear out is very easy. the sharper the chisel the better in that case.

when cleaning like that, i try to have the chisel as parallel as possible to the surface i'm trying to clean up, with the flat part of the chisel basically riding on the surface. if that is not possible, you can flip the chisel over and ride the beveled edge on the surface and use the angle of the the handle to control the cut as you slide it back and forth across the wood.

so, i would say to really learn how to get your chisels as sharp as possible, and then play with both techniques on a few scrap pieces to get a feel for how they behave and which would better on your case.

i just got a honing guide for $11 from amazon, and in the first night, i was able to make my chisels and plane irone so much sharper than before that i cannot believe i waited so long to get one.


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

oh, and if you are doing it with the flat side down, if it is not parallel to the surface, it can easily go in too far and result in taking out chunks like you have in your 2nd pic. especially with something soft like pine


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## trevarthan (Jan 14, 2013)

Are you saying that after all of that wet stone work, my chisel isn't sharp?


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

i was not accusing you of anything. i was merely saying that the chisels being sharp is the single most important factor.

you said yourself, "The weird thing about this is the near corner. Clearly it had a good bit less material there. Or else I screwed up it's orientation in the roller jig. I ground it down enough on the blue stone so that there was at least some polish in that corner, but I didn't take the time to make it even."

there is also the question of if there was a burr, did you remove it? 

so, maybe it is not as sharp as it could be ... ?

in your estimation, how sharp did you get the chisel?


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## trevarthan (Jan 14, 2013)

So, you don't see anything obvious from the photos, except that the chip that came out was probably due to incorrect chisel angle. I'll keep that in mind.


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## SeanStuart (Nov 27, 2011)

No need to be snide. If you bought Stanley thinking you would get lie-nielsen, no one else is to blame.


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

trevarthan said:


> So, you don't see anything obvious from the photos, except that the chip that came out was probably due to incorrect chisel angle. I'll keep that in mind.


no, nothing else. 

try this experiment: after sharpening a chisel (or plane iron), see if you can use it to shave a little of the hair off your arm. if you can, then it is sharp enough.

if not, then keep working on it.

sean, don't knock the stanley 750 chisels .. they are regarded as some of the best vintage chisels you can get.

that said, they do often require a good bit of work to get them ready to use. 

the ready to use aspect of the lie-nielsens is what makes them cost more, not how sharp you can get them


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## SeanStuart (Nov 27, 2011)

I'm not knocking them. I've never used them. I think he is talking about new chisels, and I got the impression that the whole point of the thread was to knock the Stanley 750s and not really to get any help with sharpening them. 

I am probably wrong and will just keep myself to myself for now.


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## Woodenhorse (May 24, 2011)

Trevarthan, Ideally you want the secondary bevel even across the chisel. What matters most is that it is sharp. I personally use a guide but I know people who sharpen freehand and get their chisels as sharp as any. More critical is practice. Do not expect your first cuts you ever made to be perfect. It's all about technique and practicing proper technique. You will improve with practice. Look into a local woodworking club and perhaps you can find someone willing to spend some time with you to hone your skills (pardon the pun). 
Aside from all that, take your time and remove small amounts of wood and sneak up on your cut when working with a chisel.


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## Woodenhorse (May 24, 2011)

Sean, What did good woodworkers use before Lie Nielsen was born? As long as the steel can hold an edge and is sharp enough I doubt you could tell what kind of tools a craftsman owns looking at his work. So what I'm trying to say is it doesn't matter. Lie Nielsen puts more effort in finish than mass produced tools. So if you buy a set of Stanley 750's or Narex or Marples etc. you may spend a little more time flattening the back and grinding and honing but in the end it's the result that counts. Not everyone can afford the "better" brands so please don't dismiss what can be a very serviceable tool based esoteric criteria. We've all fallen into that trap at one time or another, myself included.


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## trevarthan (Jan 14, 2013)

SeanStuart, you have the wrong impression. I own Lie Nielsen planes. I didn't buy them because I think they're the best. I bought them because I wanted something that mostly worked out of the box. I did the same thing with my first motorcycle. I bought a new machine so I could focus on learning to ride. It's a pretty good policy, I think, when going into new territory. Limit the variables. For my next motorcycle, I plan to buy a beater and fix it up.

I bought the Stanley 750s because they got good reviews. I already own Lie Nielsen planes and I figure a chisel is just a big fat plane iron you hit with a hammer. I don't wish I bought Lie Nielsen chisels instead. If I wanted Lie Nielsens I would have just bought them. I figure the Stanleys are good tools and should do the job nicely for a long time to come.

Frankly, if Stanley made their planes with the same quality as the 750 chisels these days, I would have bought Stanley planes instead of the Lie Nielsen planes. I think the Lie Nielsens are overpriced. They're excellent, but they're unnecessarily excellent. Still, you'll have to pry the LN planes from my cold dead fingers, yo. I paid for them and they're mine and I'll use 'em as long as I can.

Anyway... this thread is about not knowing what a properly cut chisel line should look like. If it should look better than mine... is it my technique, or is it my sharpening? I can always do both better. I know that. They question is ... do I need to?

Chris, thanks for the shaving a hair trick. That's a good tip. I'm listening, I promise. I just get frustrated when people ask questions without making statements. It makes me wonder if I should trust them, because they're not really giving me any evidence that they know what they're talking about first.

For the record, I went back and resharpened the chisel. It was a little dull after cutting four or five bench dogs. It did not cut noticeably better after I sharpened it. Also, despite my best efforts, I still ripped chunks out here and there. Maybe that's technique. Maybe it's because the chisel isn't as flat as it needs to be. Maybe that's just how chisels work. This is what I'm trying to determine.

BTW, Sharp is different from Flat. Everyone is telling me to sharpen. Nobody has told me to flatten. It has me wondering if flatness really matters as much as everyone says it does in these sharpening videos.

I finished off the rest of the bench dog holes on that sharpening. The chisel needs sharpening again, but I don't have any more chiseling to do, so I just put it back in the pouch.

Anyway... if anyone can look at those photos and tell me, "Jesse, I know you're cutting pine cross grain, but those cuts look like crap and when I do it they look like this:" 








(Except maybe include a real photo of chiseled wood)

THEN I'll happily try to figure out what I'm doing wrong. But nobody has said that yet, so I'm thinking these cuts are pretty standard and that's just as good as it gets with a chisel. Amirite?


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## Woodenhorse (May 24, 2011)

Wood cut with a chisel should be smooth even when cut across the grain. If I have some time tomorrow I'll try to duplicate your cut and post a photo.


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## trevarthan (Jan 14, 2013)

Arg. Ok. I guess I'm doing something wrong then. :-/


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## tc65 (Jan 9, 2012)

Trevarthan, you didn't really say exactly how you were removing the waste from the dog holes (or I didn't see it). When removing a lot of material, you can start by really hogging the material out, but when you get close to your final depth, you want the back of the chisel almost flat on the surface and remove very thin shavings, almost like you would with a smoothing plane. The pictures look to me like you were taking a thick cut and you got some chunks with it. 

As to sharpening and your micro-bevel -you really want to focus on keeping that consistent across the width of the blade. Some tips - Check and recheck that the chisel is square in the guide, many guides are great for plane blades but don't all hold a chisel as well. Keep pressure even on the blade when sharpening. Work the blade over the whole surface of the stone from side to side when sharpening to prevent uneven wearing of your water stones. It's possible that if you spent a lot of time sharpening the chisels that you could have worn some unevenness into the water stone causing the uneven bevel. Do a quick check and re-flatten your water stone if necessary. Finally, put away that course stone. It really shouldn't be needed unless you need to remove chips in the blade or need to re-establish/change the bevel of a blade.

Hope some of this is helpful.


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## tc65 (Jan 9, 2012)

Another thought that will help you when removing large amounts of wood like you are doing for your bench dog holes. Rather than just making a cut on both outside edges of the dado, make as many saw cuts through the waste area as you can. This will not only make it much easier to chisel out, it will also lessen the chances of "chunking" out pieces when removing all that waste.


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

you are right: sharp is different than flat. the reason why the back needs to be flat is that if it is not, then the cutting edge will not be uniform; some spots will be duller than other spots.

but again, the only part of the back that needs to be flat is that part near the cutting edge.


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## trevarthan (Jan 14, 2013)

Tim, it's possible the sharpening jig I'm using is putting the chisel at an angle. It looks like it is cast. Maybe the tolerances aren't great. When I insert it, the chisel seats well on one jaw, but poorly on the other. I can tell because there is a lot of air gap on one side but not the other. I DID check to make sure the chisel was firmly seated in the jaws though. There is some overhang on each jaw and it grabs the chisel on both sides.

I did sharpen one other chisel with this jig and I don't think the edge was as crooked. I'll re-check and see if it's the jig or the chisel. My money is on the chisel. I actually had the same thing happen (a corner being low, not the jig fitment issue) with a (gasp) Lie Nielsen plane blade right out of the box. Apparently it's more difficult to make precision metal parts than people would have you believe.

BTW, I can make very fine shavings when trimming the walls that I originally cut with the saw. However, when I try to make fine shavings on the bottom where I'm removing material, the fibers just sort of flake off in chunks.

My technique was to remove the material in thirds. I started with the bevel toward the bottom of the dog hole. Then, on the third cut (the thinnest, maybe a quarter of an inch thick) I flipped the chisel to have the bevel up, away from the bottom. I found pretty quickly that I had to be careful of the angle of the chisel. Too far to one side and I would dig into the bottom of the dog hole. Too far the other way and I wouldn't remove much material. Still, fine cutting usually just loosened fibers, rather than shaving off material.


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

i still think that is pretty much par for the course with the soft woods like pine. hopefully woodenhorse will chime in some more and tell us how he does it.


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## trevarthan (Jan 14, 2013)

Fair enough. I'm interested in photos too.


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

mine is flat on one side and convex on the other side. i think it is made that way on purpose to be able to pinch the blad better. so long as it is held flat against the flat side, it should be square.

were these stanley 750 chisels brand new, or used? if new, i would think they'd be pretty dang close to square ...


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## trevarthan (Jan 14, 2013)

BTW, I made 34 cuts with a dovetail saw to define the sides of the bench dog holes. I have 17 bench dog holes.

Tim's suggestion of dividing the area up with more saw cuts to avoid chipping sounds good, but those 34 cuts would become hundreds, which is just a bit too much for hand tool use, I think. I guess I would have to use a tablesaw at that point. My power miter saw doesn't slide and doesn't have a depth stop.

Makes me wonder if my time would have been better spent making a router jig. Ha.


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## trevarthan (Jan 14, 2013)

The 750s were new. I was expecting a bit of work from the reviews on Amazon. It's good steel though, and they're beautiful tools. Just require a bit of work to setup.


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

what roller jig do you have? i just got one from robert larson, and the smaller jaws for the chisels do not hold the chisel well at all. they can slip and the chisel can easily be held out of of square

it is perfectly fine with plane irons, because they are not thicker at one end than the other.

that makes me wonder if yours has a similar problem, or maybe you got the same guide ...


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## ACP (Jan 24, 2009)

You watched the sharpening video from Lie Nielsen and that's a good one. Did you watch their video on tuning the side-clamp "eclipse style" gauge? If you are using this gauge it could also be finger pressure as it has such a narrow wheel that maintaining even pressure on the thin bevel can be tough. Paring wood across the grain flat and even can be tough in soft woods. Do you have a router plane? I think you'd find that it would excel at this cut. The chisel will work fine for it, but the 750's are shorter, and really good at chopping vs. the longer paring action. I'm NOT saying they can't do it well, but some other styles seem to work better for me at least.


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## trevarthan (Jan 14, 2013)

link to the video?

I don't have a router plane. It's next on my list. I have a regular router. blah.


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

i think he's talking about the video you linked to in your first post in this thread.

those router planes can get expensive ... you can make a poor man's router like this:


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## Woodenhorse (May 24, 2011)

Here's how I would cut this dado using a hand saw and chisels. The chisels I used are a set of Irwing Marples I picked up for $60 and replaced the blue plastic handles with wood. I also had to do a fair amount of flattening, honing and grinding to remove the factory tool marks. But hey, they were $60.


First I marked my perimeter with a knife and highlighted with a Sharpee.









Here is one of the chisels. This is 1" wide but I did not use this one for this project. Instead I alternated between a 3/4" and 1/2" chisel depending on how the cutting felt.









I cut the boundaries and then kerfed in with the saw. This makes waste removal easier and more controllable.









If you cut across the grain I find the 1/2" works best. 









If skewing I will use either the 3/4" or the 1/2" depending on how easily it cuts. Please make note of grain direction and remove the waste gradually. Generally hogging out massive amounts of wood at this stage can chip out in huge chunks and can run too deep. I use light taps with a wooden mallet.









After I get down to about the last 1/8" the mallet gets put away and I prefer to pare down to the final depth. Skewing when I can and paying careful attention to whether I'm cutting with, against or across the grain. Take your time and don't rush or you'll take out chunks.









Here are the two chisels I used with the finished product.









It is not completely perfect but will still be a nice solid joint. The small knot had to be worked carefully so it didn't chip out. I figure that after taking out all the interruptions I had it took about 5 minutes start to finish. Of course, if you use a router to clear out the waste it goes considerably faster.


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## sawdustfactory (Jan 30, 2011)

I just want to throw into the mix that chisel backs should be flat along their entire length, not just near the cutting edge (plane blades it's ok to flatten just the edge). 
http://www.popularwoodworking.com/techniques/hand-tools-techniques/sharpening_a_chisel

A nice trick to see if your back is flat is to catch the refelction from a flourescent tube on the polished back. If it doesn't angle off the tip of the chisel, you did good.


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## Midlandbob (Sep 5, 2011)

The right tool for this is a shoulder plane?

I'm not sur about your sharpening discussion but is the bottom/back of the plane sharpened as polished as the bevel? Improbably missed that you did but sharp is the intersection of two polished planes. The bottom needs to be sharpened not just flat. Sorry if I missed a point.
I use the same technique as polishing the end of a plane iron


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## sawdustfactory (Jan 30, 2011)

Shoulder plane is for cleaning/truing the shoulder of a tenon, hence the name.


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## Midlandbob (Sep 5, 2011)

When i think about it, cleaning a dado is like cleaning a tenon. You are utting flat across grain. i use a shoulder plane. A chisel is much harder to control and not well designed for the needed task.
i must have misunderstood what is trying to be done.


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## Midlandbob (Sep 5, 2011)

I just occurred to me that maybe you thought a shoulder plane was only for the end grain part of a tenon?

It's main feature is that the blade goes right to the edge. I is used to clean up and is most valuable foe cleaning the tenon faces and does this very well to fine fit a tenon.
The above cleanup is really the same as a tenon and I stand by my recommendation that that is an ideal tool for the job.
If a chisel is to be used, then sharpening the back is important.


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## Woodenhorse (May 24, 2011)

Midlandbob said:


> I just occurred to me that maybe you thought a shoulder plane was only for the end grain part of a tenon?
> 
> It's main feature is that the blade goes right to the edge. I is used to clean up and is most valuable foe cleaning the tenon faces and does this very well to fine fit a tenon.
> The above cleanup is really the same as a tenon and I stand by my recommendation that that is an ideal tool for the job.
> If a chisel is to be used, then sharpening the back is important.


I use a chisel and see no need to recommend anyone buy additional tools when they have all they need. There is more than one way to skin a cat.


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## ACP (Jan 24, 2009)

Many ways to skin the cat. Chisel, shoulder plane, router plane, rabbet block plane....

Personally, I'd chisel the majority and clean the bottom with the router plane. I think woodenhorses method is perfect if you only have a saw and chisel. Just be careful. I also believe in a flat chisel back, more than just the last inch. Flat or hollow. Never convex. I don't think flattness is the issue here, I just don't think it's sharp enough. Also, softwood can be more of a PITA than hardwood since it likes to crush instead of shear. Sharp is very important.


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## Midlandbob (Sep 5, 2011)

Talking about other ways to skin a cat.
I talked with a college woodworking instructor on this topic last evening. The technique used there is to use a wood file. THis is also a specialized tool that does the job well. I do use them too but the shoulder plane is quicker. A good mill file only costs < 50$.
http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=56529&cat=1,42524Many ways to to most jobs as has been said.
bob


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## trevarthan (Jan 14, 2013)

Woodenhorse,

That tutorial is awesome. Clearly, your work looks much better than mine.

I decided to pick up "The Complete Guide to Sharpening" by Leonard Lee, shamelessly listed on my blog, since I just finished documenting the books I found most useful while getting into wood working: http://woodworkbyhand.blogspot.com/

"The Complete Guide to Sharpening" has an entire chapter dedicated to skewing the chisel as an effective countermeasure for cutting across the grain, right at the beginning of the book. I was like... "DOH!" I didn't see much else in there that I'm not doing already, except that I'm using a 1000/6000 water stone and may want to upgrade to a 1000/8000 stone to help achieve a sharper edge.

Unfortunately, I read that book AFTER I finished my mortises and dog holes, so I haven't had a chance to try the skew technique yet. Maybe I'll grab a piece of scrap and practice later tonight.

I did try cutting slots at regular intervals to divide the material into smaller chunks. It seems to be easier to remove material that way, but my end results weren't much better.

I had a really hard time cutting the additional dividing lines accurately. Most of my saw lines extended way below the final depth of the joint. I'm using a hand dovetail saw. I only just yesterday realized I could have built a depth stop to assist me this whole time. Double "DOH!"

I suspect my problem is mostly one of technique at this point.


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## trevarthan (Jan 14, 2013)

I bought a Tormek wet grinder to see if it would be easier to use than sandpaper and wet stones for sharpening these Stanley 750s and flattening their backs.

I spent literally 8 hours today with the Tormek trying to flatten the back of my 1" chisel on the side of the Tormek grindstone. I finally got it pretty damn close, though I admit I broke down and used a few scraps of sandpaper at one point.

They really should make a jig for this operation. The Tormek does an excellent job on bevels, but it's not any more efficient than sandpaper at flattening.

Anyway, I ended up feeling more than a little incredulous that anyone ever spent this much time working the backs of chisels in the hey day of hand tools when all they had were crude grind stones. So I went looking on Google and found this article: http://logancabinetshoppe.com/blog/2011/08/chisel-backs-stop-lapping/

If you believe that article (and I'm leaning that way at the moment), nobody gave a damn about flat chisel backs when chisels were used to put food on the table. I think that's pretty interesting. It seems technique is all important.

Oh well, back to sharpening the remaining 7 chisels and 3 plane irons. I'll probably flatten the backs a bit, but I probably won't do a full flattening job like I did on the 1". It's just too much work for no return on investment.


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## Midlandbob (Sep 5, 2011)

i think this ruler "trick" was posted early in the thread. Lee Nielson gives out9Or sells) the 6 inch by 1/2 inch stainless rulers so plane blade back polishing can be done easily as mentioned. it works well. A new blade has the last few mm. honed & polished initially taking 10-20 minutes. it's minimal work for the rest of its life. For touch up honing, few strokes starting at 1000 grit etc. keeps the edge polished on both sides=sharp. the amount of "back bevel" seems insignificant.
The water adhesion almost holds the rule but I usually use a very small clamp to hold it on the near edge of the stone, especially if if working a few new blades.. The granite block is still good for truing the water stones.
6000 is good - 13000 is better. Stroping for carving tools but not plane irons.


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## trevarthan (Jan 14, 2013)

I read online that prepping the tormek wheel with a diamond T tool (like this Commando Grinding Wheel Dresser with Flat Diamond Coated Surface for Truing Grinding & Deburring Wheels - Amazon.com ) works better than using the dressing stone the T7 ships with. I had one of these T tools laying around for truing my dry grinder, so I gave it a try last night.

Turns out they were right. It works perfectly now. If it glazes and stops cutting, I just press the T tool against the wheel for a few seconds with even pressure and the cutting action of the wheel is completely restored.

Makes you wonder why they don't just ship the T7 with one of these T tools. Sheesh.

Anyway, I flattened and sharpened three chisels last night in about two hours. That's a record for me. This system works very well. I'm relieved I finally found something that isn't overly time consuming.


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