# Preferred method to sharpen chisels, hand plane irons.



## mrdupfx (Oct 25, 2011)

Hi all,
I've been taking my blades to a store to have them sharpened and am tired of the wait time. I'm considering sharpening myself. Curious as to who prefers which method, water stones, sandpaper, ws3000, etc. I'm mainly interested in chisels and hand plane irons


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## jkristia (Feb 6, 2009)

I just got my first waterstone last week, I bought Norton 1000/8000 combination stone, and a granite block (Woodcraft) and some wet/dry sandpaper for flattning the stone. I first got the cheap $14 honing guide, but the chisel did not sit properly in it, so I got the Veritas MKII guide instead and so far I'm happy with the setup. It is the first time I have been able to get a razor sharp edge on a chisel.


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## Upstate (Nov 28, 2011)

I have 6 old marble tiles with sandpaper adhered to them. Same as glass but not so fragile. Quick, easy, and more importantly, cheap. Built a quick jig to keep the chisels at the proper angle.


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## EagleTa2 (Jan 2, 2012)

Im too cheap to buy a fancy sharpening gizmo too...

I really want to sharpen lathe tools... but what IS the correct angle? I can also forget about freehanding it - I have tremors...its a good thing I didnt want to be a brain surgeon!


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## STAR (Jan 1, 2008)

You will get many replies and because I have a fetish for sharpening I will weigh in.

I have used nearly every system available or have friends who have. I have been told by the guns that there is no one correct way to sharpen. There are many systems available but what is important is what works for you.

When you start to learn, doubts creep in because you wonder if it is you that is at fault and maybe you just that new beaut sharpening jig, water stone., grinding wheel etc. is the key to the Nirvana you are looking for.

Then off course you have to have the leather Strop and do not forget about the abrasive powder, but then again diamond powder abrasive is better then Aluminium oxide and the Chrominium Oxide powder. initially, it will do your head in but to come out the other side is a fantastic feeling.

I believe the best system to start off is the "Scary Sharp" method which actually is a fancy name for wet and dry silicon carbide abrasive paper. many times I will revert back to it when doing up some stubbon chisel or plane blades before moving onto the water Stones.

The disadvantage the experts will tell you about Wet and dry paper is that while it is cheap replacement costs build up and in the end it would have been cheaper to go the more expensive initial water stone way.

But, when learning, it is better to mess up some cheap paper than screw up a water stone. As you become more confident you may move on. You will not get any sharper tools but then you too can become a tool snob also.

Pete


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## Pirate (Jul 23, 2009)

I went with the $17.95 method. Picked up a WS3000, when Sears was selling them for $17.95. Even I can sharpen a chisel with this machine!


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## bob talk (Jan 17, 2012)

if you want to spend money, a tormek (water cooled grit wheel with leather honing wheel as well) can get you edward scissor hand sharp blades. You can also do well with fine grit water stones such as 8000 grit. If you can, don't hassle with jigs. You can grind a hollow into your blade if you have a grinder (just don't overheat the metal) and then you have two points at tip and butt to reference off instead of potentially one rocking fulcrum in the middle of the bevel.


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## rrich (Jun 24, 2009)

bob talk said:


> if you want to spend money, a tormek (water cooled grit wheel with leather honing wheel as well) can get you edward scissor hand sharp blades. You can also do well with fine grit water stones such as 8000 grit. If you can, don't hassle with jigs. You can grind a hollow into your blade if you have a grinder (just don't overheat the metal) and then you have two points at tip and butt to reference off instead of potentially one rocking fulcrum in the middle of the bevel.


Superb advice about not needing honing guides.

There is a rule that can't be ignored.

The back of the chisel must be flattened to the same grit or finer than the grit that is used to sharpen the bevel.


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## STAR (Jan 1, 2008)

Well, we have given the Original Poster the complete range. from cheap Wet & Dry Silicon Carbide paper to the Festool of the sharpening world the Tormek.

I know when started to seriously learn how to sharpen I went the Scary Sharp way, then on to a white grinding wheel then, an after market Veritas Grinder Tool Rest and then a 1000 and 6000 Water stone and then a veritas MK 11 Sharpening Jig System.

Even then , I sometimes go back to good o'l Wet and dry paper. 

One poster even said he bought the Work Sharp 3000 for $17.95. Surley he missplaced a decimal point and even then he got a bargain for what the sell here.

Maybe i am a bit different but to me it is too much a leap of faith to go from getting somebody to sharpen for you and then on the the Tormek.

Even when you have finished with the Tormek in my opinion you still have to do the honing. otherwise the sharpness you get is only short lived after the saw edge and burr is broken down.

Pete


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## Pirate (Jul 23, 2009)

STAR said:


> One poster even said he bought the Work Sharp 3000 for $17.95. Surley he missplaced a decimal point and even then he got a bargain for what the sell here.


No missplaced decimal point on my part. I think Sears missplaced it. They advertised it on their site for $17.95. Someone posted about it, and I ordered 2 of them. Hours later, my local store called and said they had 1 in stock, and would order the other for me. I ran to the store and picked up the first one. A few days later, I got the 2nd one. $17.95.

Then a year or so later HD advertised them for $67. +/- I ordered 4 of them (over $250 got free shipping)
I got an email saying they were cancelling the order.
I called, and the person pulled my order up, and I told her I had them promised to friends for christmas. She said she couldn't sell me 4 of them, but would send me 2 of them.
The best part! I asked if she needed my credit card to pay for them. She said, no, they would send them to me for free!!!!!
Then later, I got a call asking me if I still wanted the 4 units I had ordered! sure why not! 
Thanks again for the people who posted the sales.


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## STAR (Jan 1, 2008)

Thanks for clearing up the $17.95 Pirate. Sometimes you have a win.

Pete


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## bob talk (Jan 17, 2012)

STAR said:


> Even when you have finished with the Tormek in my opinion you still have to do the honing. otherwise the sharpness you get is only short lived after the saw edge and burr is broken down.
> 
> Pete


Pete, would you mind expanding on this? I'm just curious as to what you mean. Are you including the leather strop honing wheel on the tormek (with the green honing compound and all) as part of the 'finishing with the tormek' or as the honing yourself part? If you mean to say you need additional honing, what method would you use? Also what do you mean by saw edge? Thanks,

-T


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## MaxPower (Dec 19, 2011)

Starting simple seems like the most reasonable way to go. I'm just getting into hand planes now and am starting out with the Scary Sharp Method. Get a honing jig and some sandpaper from an auto body shop and get busy. The Veratis MK II is really nice and you can get a second roller for cambers. Once you get the hang of it you can graduate to the investment of some sharpening stones. I'd also suggest a book or two on the suject, but I'm a bit of a bookworm. Hand Tool Essentials from Pop Woodworking is pretty good as it shows numerous methods. There's no shortage of DVDs either. I can't speak at all about any of the machines as I've never seen one in action.


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## haugerm (Nov 19, 2009)

Wood magazine just did an article comparing different hand sharpening methods. They looked at general speed and cost. Not counting the expensive machines, their conclusion was that the best method was edge shaping with diamond grit stones followed by polishing with waterstones. 

Personally I use sandpaper on a granite tile, then a waterstone for high grit. But that article's got me thinking about investing in one of those diamond grit stones.

--Matt


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## STAR (Jan 1, 2008)

haugerm said:


> Wood magazine just did an article comparing different hand sharpening methods. They looked at general speed and cost. Not counting the expensive machines, their conclusion was that the best method was edge shaping with diamond grit stones followed by polishing with waterstones.
> 
> Personally I use sandpaper on a granite tile, then a waterstone for high grit. But that article's got me thinking about investing in one of those diamond grit stones.
> 
> --Matt


--------------------
I have read recent articles that give a different view on the Diamond grit. Apparently, the jury is now out on how benefeficial the expensive diamond grits are. the cheap ones are rubbish anyway.

Again, it amounts to personal preference. Once you hit on a method you are happy with, stick with it. if you keep changing , except scary Sharp to the next level, you will have to start the learning curve all over again. Once you are reasonably competent sharpening is no big deal.

Pete


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## STAR (Jan 1, 2008)

bob talk said:


> Pete, would you mind expanding on this? I'm just curious as to what you mean. Are you including the leather strop honing wheel on the tormek (with the green honing compound and all) as part of the 'finishing with the tormek' or as the honing yourself part? If you mean to say you need additional honing, what method would you use? Also what do you mean by saw edge? Thanks,
> 
> -T


-----------------------------------------

No I was not talking about the leather honing wheel part of the Tormek. I might be wrong but I thought that the Honing wheel is another add on extra to the Tormek.

What I was saying is that after you come of the grinding wheel, be it the Tormek or any other wheel all you have done is the primary bevel. Going straight to a leather strop or honing is way too big a step.

After achieving the hollow grind from the grinding wheel ( say it was 25 degrees ) you have a few steps to do.

1. From the hollow grind of the wheel you either use progressive grades of W&D or do as I do and set the chisel in a jig so thet the toe and heel of the primary bevel touch the sharpening medium.

Then I put some permanent felt pen ink on the bevel, ( Sharpie ) and then use sone 240 grit W&D paper. I put the chisel in a sharpening jig. they can be as little as $12 or as much as the veritas Mk 11 jig which I have as well.

Then i balance the heel and toe of the hollow grind bevel so it is positioned in the jig and flat on the paper. I give it a few rubs possibly up to ten and the same amount of ink should be removed as the heel. Too much of one means that myou have not centered the chisel correctly.

2. Then it is over to the 1000 grit waterstone. remarking the bevel with the Sharpie. Again about ten strokes should be ok. Then you have to do the back of the chisel, keep it flat and get a nice shine, that is called polishing the back.

3. Then on to the 6000 grit waterstone and repeat the process.

4. Now, you have to do the secondary bevel which is about 28 degrees. The Veritas does this for you but all you have to do is to change the angle in your jig so that the chisel sits a bit higher and the tip has about 1/16 th of inch removed.

5. Give the back of the chisel, keeping it flat about ten rubs and you will be finished.

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Now about the Saw edge and the burr. When you come of the grinding wheel the chisel may appear sharp, but what you are really feeling is a serated edge or burr. This has to be removed by the W&D or the stones, Each grit you use causes the chisel to have a little burr, this has to be removed after each rise in grit size.

The higher the grit used means the smaller the burr, many have found that 6000 is as high as you need to go, but it is a personal choice.

You can do all this with W&D but after you have a play i think you might like to investigate a water stone. I started witha 1000 and later bought the 6000

The reason you have to try to remove the saw edge or burr 9 infact you never really do, just reduce it ) is that once you use the chisel or plane blade a few times it will bend over or break and you will have a real blunt edge behind it. by reducing the burr with higher grits the burr actually becomes smaller so the chisel remains sharper for longer.

You can see this under a microscope, but take my word.

Pete


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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

There are many different ways, each prefer their own.

This is how I do it for a plane iron.

http://www.woodworkingtalk.com/f13/help-me-build-table-pic-heavy-31932/index2/

For all my bench and carving chisels, I use a wet grinder and finish on a buffing wheel, with touch-up on the buffing wheel.

For lathe chisels I use a normal bench grinder, with touch up on a wet grinder.


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## trevarthan (Jan 14, 2013)

No, I don't think the leather honing wheel is extra on the Tormek. Pretty sure the T7, at least, comes with it. You have to buy the charging compound periodically though, I'm sure.

I've tried most of these methods in the short two months or so as I've learned to sharpen my planes and chisels. I'm not done with my journey yet, as I haven't found sharpening nirvana, but I feel like I'm dangerous enough to weigh in.

First, I think jigs are really useful. Reproducibility is key if you want to remove as little material as possible from your tools.

I'll list the equipment I own, in the order I bought it:



$115 - Porter Cable 8" Grinder
1000/6000 water stone (unknown brand)
150 grit roll of aluminum oxide adhesive backed sand paper
Eclipse plane/chisel jig for wet stones and sand paper
Protractor
thin metal ruler
$60 - the above five items came in a kit
$25 - Smith's 750 grit mono-crystalline diamond stone from lowes
Hand made jig for setting the plane/chisel blade protrusion in the Eclipse jig.
I learn best from reading, then applying. It's been my way for 15 years. It's effective, but I make a lot of mistakes along the way.


I originally bought the grinder because I thought I might want it to sharpen lawnmower blades. When I bought my planes and chisels later, I decided I was a purist and didn't want to mess with hollow grinds, so I bought the wet stones and sand paper.


I own three Lie Nielsen planes, a junky Stanley block plane, and an even junkier Harbor Freight "bench" <--- joke plane. I also own some of those cool new Stanley 750 socket chisels.


I bought the Lie Nielsen planes because I hoped they would be the least expensive to maintain. Maybe I was right, but not by much. They still require a lot of work.


My No 8 jointer's blade has a huge high spot on the back of the blade. I tried for literally hours to remove it using the 150 grit sand paper. No luck. It got a lot better, but never went away and I finally gave up. That was how it happened for most of my sandpaper work, btw. It took so long to remove a lot of materials that I eventually settled for less than perfect work in an effort to save my sanity and actually get some real work done working wood.

As another example of how LN blades are not as perfect out of the box as they would lead you to believe, my No 4 1/2 smoothing plane actually shipped with a concave blade profile. Typically you want to round the corners on a smoothing plane so the strokes blend together. A concave profile is the exact opposite. My corners stick out in sharp points, which makes blending strokes pretty difficult. Probably there is a way to reshape blade profiles using sandpaper, but it would be sure to take a lot of time and maybe require a custom jig.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's see... how did I go about this?




I tried sharpening exclusively with wet stones
When I needed to remove lots of material, I found the wet stones weren't aggressive enough to do the job quickly.
I bought the diamond plate to flatten the wet stones, but when I discovered the wet stones weren't aggressive enough I tried the diamond plate out sharpening metal. I think this was a huge mistake. I'm pretty sure I ruined the diamond plate doing this. It has long visible streaks in places now that do not appear to glitter in the light, so I think I probably stripped the diamonds from huge areas of the plate.
I next tried the adhesive backed sand paper, stuck to my table saw's top surface. Work, work, work, then work some more. I ALMOST flattened two chisel backs this way (they're not perfect), reshaped two chisel bevels, tried to flatten three plane backs and reshaped three plane bevels. I probably spent 25 hours doing all of that work. I'm a little slow, so it took me a while to come to the conclusion that hand shaping on sand paper just isn't worth it. I was out of 150 grit sand paper, I couldn't find a cheap supplier nearby to get more, and I needed a power solution if I wanted to keep my sanity.
At this point, I thought I would just buy an aluminum oxide white grinding wheel for my porter cable 8" grinder. This seemed like a reasonable solution. These wheels are only about $50, and if you're super careful you can probably avoid bluing or burning your blades. It might not help when you need to flatten the back of something, but it would hollow grind edges all day long for cheap (labor and materials). The only problem is that I'll need to spend a few days fabricating jigs to hold my tools. I bought a book on sharpening, so I had the plans for said jigs in the book.
Then I saw the Tormek. Damn. That's perfect. Slow speed, wet grind, so you can't blue the blades. And I wouldn't have to make jigs. They make a complete array. As a bonus, you can use the side of the wheel to flatten backs. I'm not sure how well that works, but I've never seen anyone recommend that technique for white aluminum oxide dry grinder wheels. The only problem is the price (not just the machine, but the grinding wheels too).


In the end, I decided that the number of tools I own would only increase and the Tormek was a good investment because I can teach my children to use it without worrying that they will screw anything up or hurt themselves. I skipped the white aluminum oxide dry grinder wheel entirely.


My Tormek has been ordered, but hasn't arrived yet. I feel a little guilty about the purchase. It's a lot of money. Am I being silly? You know, buyer's remorse. Ha. But I think it was the right decision. I think I probably could have gotten by with a dry grinder, but this way is a little more refined and bullet proof. I like that. The Tormek is rated for continuous use, so who knows, maybe I can find other people in my area with tools that need sharpening and start a little sharpening service.



I don't think the Tormek is the end of my journey. But I do think it's a good tool for speeding up part of the equation. I may end up buying some granite in the future and more sandpaper, especially if I decide to refurbish some old antique planes.



Tools don't make anything possible. They just make it easier and faster. Hope that helps someone. Here's an article I wrote with some links to some of the products I mention, in case anyone is interested in buying them: http://woodworkbyhand.blogspot.com/2013/02/norton-grinding-wheel-code-38a80-h8vbe.html


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## Brian T. (Dec 19, 2012)

I prefer any method which gives the tool an adequate edge for the intended function. I squared off the entire end of a 1/2" skew and reshaped that with a 10 degree bevel each side for what's called a 1/12 carver's stop chisel. Narex steel is good and I made exactly what I needed.
The initial grinder was running 3750rpm so I had to really take my time to avoid cooking the steel.
Stationary 6" belt sander to establish the basic bevels. Oil stones, water stones and final honing.
There isn't a power sharpening system made which can deal with crooked wood carving knives. Has to be hand work. Papers and cardboard strop wrapped around aluminum tubing.

I see that there are a whole bunch of different methods and there's a learning curve to every one of them. Gotta pick one and use it, learn it.


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## Islandguy (Dec 28, 2012)

Oh boy....many ways to sharpen...everyone has a way that works (or not) for them. You can go completely motorized or partially 
Grinder to set the primary bevel or just a jig with some sandpaper and flat surface...your choice.
From there I use water stones...1k and 8k. 
My primary bevel is between 25-30 degrees. Then I freehand my chisels using a 1k waterstone. I lift the handle up slightly to give me ~28 degrees and rub the chisel until I feel a burr across the back of the bevel. Then I move on to the 8k water stone...Again I raise the handle a little higher then the previous setting ~ to 30 degrees. Rub it a few times on the stone until I see a complete line of shine across the tip...the 8k shine is brighter than the 1k shine! Then I rub the back of the blade on the 8k to remove the burr...of course before doing any of this you have to flatten the back of the chisel with progressively higher sandpaper and waterstones...I do a similar with my plane blades but I do use an eclipse jig to hold them while honing...I finish off the back using the "ruler trick"...google that to see a complete description.


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