# Share your sharpening secrets!



## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

i'll go first ...

i'm a cheapskate, so here is my method of sharpening ...

i was originally doing it free hand with chisels and an oil stone i got from home depot, but my results were not nearly as sharp as the blade on the plane dave sent me, so i decided to try the inexpensive robert larson honing jig.

i also picked up a bunch of different grits of dry sandpaper cheap (i work for 3M) and a buffing wheel and polishing compound from a clearance table at sears.

my sharpening station is simply a piece of melamine-covered piece 1 1/4" thick particle board, like what they use for desks. it is flat enough for me. if i really wanted to be anal about a flat surface, i guess i could get a few of the tiles marble tiles at home depot, or go to a kitchen place for a piece of granite countertop, but this thing is definately flat enough for my purposes.

i set mine to give me a 28 degree bevel, what i consider a good compromise between the 25 and 30 bevels that are so common for chisels and plane irons. i simply glued a piece of a free paint stirrer to a scrap 1x4 to make it easy to insert the blade.

i hold the sandpaper down with a weight or my left hand and run the blade one direction only (away from the sharp edge) to help keep it from wearing down the sandpaper as fast.

i also put a magnet on the blade to catch the metal shavings/dust which helps keep the sandpaper clean. every so often, i wipe the grey dust off the blade onto a paper towel, which i throw away when it gets nasty. that is also when i check my progress.

on a new blade, i start with 100 grit paper to make sure blade is square. when it is square, the sandpaper will touch the whole bevel every stroke. you can put marker on the bevel and run it a few times to see that, but after you have done it a while, you will be able to tell without having to use a marker. depending on how out of square the blade is, this part can take a while, but at least you can see progress as you go, and eventually it's square.

also on a new blade, i make sure the back is flat.

once the blade is square, it only takes about 10-15 passes each on the 220, 500, 800 and 1500 grit papers to get it ready for the buffing wheel. i have 400, 600, and 1000 grit too, but they don't really add anything, so i skip them. plus, i have 50-100 packs of the ones i use, so they are what i use most.

between each grit, i run it on the back/flat side a few times to get rid of any burr. on the 800 and 1500, i alternate between the bevel and back sides a few times with only a few passes per side to make sure the burr is as small as possible.

then i use the buffing wheel with my drill. the sears didn't have the green buffing compound, only the red stuff, so that is what i use. but it still puts a great mirror polish on it.

for a strop, the cardboard from cereal boxes and the like is a good option. again, i'm a cheapskate, and we have an endless supply of cereal boxes.

now my blades are so sharp that i can shave the hair off my arm with them. even the home depot chisels and the buck brothers plane iron.


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## timetestedtools (Aug 23, 2012)

I do 90% of my sharpening with a $60 home depot grinder, a $55 aluminum oxide wheel for the grinder and an $18 flea market oil stone. I made a strop for stripping the burr.


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## Joeb41 (Jun 23, 2012)

Chris, I pretty much do the same as you with a couple of variations. I use a piece of 1/4" plate glass i got free from a local glass shop. I put two grits on each side. I attach it with a light spray of 3-M #77 adhesive which is easy to remove with a heat gun or blow drier. I finish with a fine India oilstone. After using a few of the $15.00 honing guides I bought the Veritas MK II, pricey but well worth it if your'e in this for the long run. I like your tip on the magnet, I'll try it next time.


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## ACP (Jan 24, 2009)

To each their own. If it works then you have a good system going. I'd try to get some green paste for the wheel though. The green stuff is like .5 micron and I think the red is not as fine. I found my Lowes has the green made by Porter Cable. I had a stick that came with my old Worksharp's leather pad but I used that up. I cut up an old leather tool belt that I got in a box of misc. at an auction. I then attached it to a flat piece of plywood with staples in the "endgrain". I put sandpaper on the backside with adhesive spray. I keep this strop on my bench now and every so often give a few polishing passes free hand during use of my planes and chisels to refresh the edge. Works great.


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

ACP said:


> To each their own. If it works then you have a good system going. I'd try to get some green paste for the wheel though. The green stuff is like .5 micron and I think the red is not as fine. I found my Lowes has the green made by Porter Cable. I had a stick that came with my old Worksharp's leather pad but I used that up. I cut up an old leather tool belt that I got in a box of misc. at an auction. I then attached it to a flat piece of plywood with staples in the "endgrain". I put sandpaper on the backside with adhesive spray. I keep this strop on my bench now and every so often give a few polishing passes free hand during use of my planes and chisels to refresh the edge. Works great.


I will keep my eyes open for the green stuff.

ACP, please share your sharpening process, thanks.


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## ACP (Jan 24, 2009)

Sure Chris.

I used to use a WS3000, then sandpaper on a granite tile, and am now a waterstone user. 

I have the Norton combo set. 220/1000 and 4000/8000. I flatten them with an x-coarse diasharp stone. It also creates a slurry that helps the stones slice through my A2 irons. I use a Veritas MKII for my guide, though I have a Robert Larson for cambered irons. 

If I get a used iron that is rough, I will regrind the primary bevel on course sandpaper on my granite plate with the MKII. I'll then use the 220 stone and the 1000 stone on the primary. I'll stop there and go back to the 220 and set a secondary bevel. I'll then work my way up the grits 220, 1000, 4000, 8000 on the secondary. I will rub the back a few times each grit also. Once I have completed the 8000 there should be a very nicely honed secondary bevel. I then take it to the strop. It's an old carpenters pouch leather on plywood. Green chromium oxide compound. If the irons in the MKII I'll just leave it there and strop it on the pull stroke about 10 times then do the back about 5-10. At this point it should shave the arm, slice the paper, etc. In use I will continue to strop every so often. Keeping the strop on the bench and using it often prevents me from having to break out the waterstones as much. 

You can use the cardboard or cereal box cardboard too, but I have found I like the feel of the leather more. The green crayon is 3 bucks at Lowes by their buffing wheels in my store. Lee Valley has it too for like 12 I think. Might be a bigger chunk, I don't know. 

Oh, I will free hand strop, no guide for that. It's really easy to draw it across the strop a few times quickly without dubbing over the edge. 

I liked sandpaper, and if I had an unlimited source I would use it still probably, but the sandpaper added up. I also got tired of cleaning off the 77 adhesive for the next grit or a new sheet. The WS3000 was a major PITA cleaning the plates off and putting a new disc on. 

SO that's how I've come to do it. Thoughts?


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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

I never do the same thing, sometimes I would use paper on a granite stone, sometimes I would use water stones, sometimes I would use diamond plate, then to paper or water stone.

I always use the Lee Valley guide with angle tweeking.

For carving chisels I hone with a fiber wheel on a bench grinder.

Last plane iron I did the main bevel on a wet grinder and a few strokes back on water stones.

What is nice about paper is it stays flat, what is bad is one has to replace the paper and it gets messy.

Water stones are nice, but they have to be maintained and dressed very carefully to maintain flat accuracy.


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

Thanks ACP. I know what you mean about the PITA aspect of the adhesive thing. That is why I have gravitated to just holding it down with a weight or my left hand. I find it doesn't require much downward pressure to get the paper to do its thing on the bevel, and the jig keeps it square, so using one hand to hold the paper down does not seem to affect the results.

The next time I'm at Lowes, I am going to pick up some of that green stuff.

What angles do you use for the primary and secondary bevels? Are they different depending on if it is a plane iron versus a chisel, or even depending on the plane's usage (fore, jack, smoothing, or block)?

Also, what angle(2) do you use for your low angle block planes?


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## sawdustfactory (Jan 30, 2011)

If you're doing dry sandpaper, just lay the next grit on top of the old one, it (usually) will hold it on place.


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

sawdustfactory said:


> If you're doing dry sandpaper, just lay the next grit on top of the old one, it (usually) will hold it on place.


i'll try that, thanks

can you share your sharpening process with us?


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## ACP (Jan 24, 2009)

Chris Curl said:


> Thanks ACP. I know what you mean about the PITA aspect of the adhesive thing. That is why I have gravitated to just holding it down with a weight or my left hand. I find it doesn't require much downward pressure to get the paper to do its thing on the bevel, and the jig keeps it square, so using one hand to hold the paper down does not seem to affect the results.
> 
> The next time I'm at Lowes, I am going to pick up some of that green stuff.
> 
> ...


My bevel down planes are 25 deg and the micro bevel is set by the MKII, I think it's something like 2 to 5 deg. My bevel ups I will move around sometimes. My low angle block is likely around 25 with the secondary bevel making 27-29ish. My chisels are 25 ish too. I think a couple are 30, like the 1" and higher. I try to not get too complicated with bevels. My plow plane's are 30 or 35, I didn't change the factory bevel on those, nor did I put a secondary on them. They are easier to hone free hand that way. My BU Jointer is 35 with a secondary set by the MKII. 

I think the rule is with chisels, the lower angles for smaller chisels b/c they can take the force like a nail would. Standard angles for middle size and higher like 30 for larger. Someone can correct me if wrong, but that is what I use. Bevel downs I try to stay around 25, and bevel ups sharpened for their main task. Higher for smoothers, middle road for jointers, lower for shooting planes and the like. I pine for a Veritas BU Jack......


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

timetestedtools said:


> I do 90% of my sharpening with a $60 home depot grinder, a $55 aluminum oxide wheel for the grinder and an $18 flea market oil stone. I made a strop for stripping the burr.


rockler has aluminum oxide wheels, but the highest grit it talks about is 150.

does such wheel make it unnecessary to go through all the different grits, so you can go straight from the wheel to the strop?

if so, i'm very interested in that


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## timetestedtools (Aug 23, 2012)

I go from the wheel to either my hard oil stone or my 3 Micron dmt. No need to go thru the grits, but a stone is necessary. I typically only use the strop on the back to remove the burr. I've tested stripping after. It may help very very little after the dmt but nothing after the oil stone.

I've also found it best to never end stripping the back. Always hit the bevel a few strokes last.


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## sawdustfactory (Jan 30, 2011)

I actually now sharpen on Norton water stones. Im trying to "train the hand" and use Rob Cosmans little device and sort of freehand. I have a Veritas jig for fixing things if the hand misbehaves ;-)

I have a grinder, but have not been using hand tools long enough to have to regrind yet. Only use it for turning tools.


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## timetestedtools (Aug 23, 2012)

Chris, the other nice thing about a hollow grind is the added ability to free hand. Start with thicker irons or chisels. Set the iron on the stone and rock it. You'll feel a "click". This tells you the iron is "flat" to the bevel. You can then sharpen at the bevel and its easy to see your front - back progress because your not touching the hollow. As you get better you can free hand even the thinner irons.

I put my index finger from both hands close to the stone on both sides of the iron and push down. If you push hard enough the bevel will ride level. Its hard to push that hard for that long, so just let your hand "help" the iron ride at the right level.

I know its easy to just grab the guide and you know you got it right, but when your in the middle of a project, being able to just swipe the iron 4 or 5 times and go back to work is a bit of a physiological advantage. Besides its cool to say "I sharpen freehand".


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## Brian T. (Dec 19, 2012)

"Carving Sharp" is a concept. Different from "wood working sharp" and different from "kitchen sharp".
1. I use oil stones for repairing gross damage, changing bevel angles, making a tool edge and tuning up my 40 degree knot-busting chisels. I wouldn't dream of starting here with wood carving tools.
2. I use waterstones if and when I can see "sparks" of light along the edge of a gouge = must have hit sand particles, the edge is crumpled.
3. I can tell when the tools get "hard to push". My edges rarely last more than 30 minutes. I have a hard leather strop on a stick with chrome green honing compound.
4. Everybody has their favorite total included bevel angles. These work for me in both softwoods and hardwoods:
Knot busters and my kitchen bone cleaver = 40 degrees.
Wood carving gouges, skews & V-tools and good kitchen knives = 20 degrees. 
Wood carving knives, straight and crooked = 12 degrees.
5. I am deadfully hopeless at estimating angles. So, I have cards with my useful angles on them, standing by the sharpening medium, whatever it may be.
= = = 
There really are several tricks:
a) paint the bevel with black felt marker so you can really see where the metal is coming off.
b) match the angle of the tool shank to the angle on the card for the pull stroke. No need to press hard.
c) Before the stroke, lock your elbows to your sides. This sustains the tool shank angle. Also, it helps to prevent sweeping the tool edge up off the sharpening medium = that action will round off the tool bevel to something totally useless. Particularly important with the knives.
= = =
So. An assembly of kit. All stones ride in "cages", clamped to the bench.
Angle card(s)
Rolling a 5/35 to do the sweep in one pass
Finishing the 5/35 at the end of the pass. Then reversing the direction of the roll. Easiest to see on a 4K waterstone.
Some knives.


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## Brian T. (Dec 19, 2012)

Crooked knives are a slightly different matter for me. 4 of the 8 knives have double bevels. I found that it was easier to clamp the knife and move the sharpening medium.
1. I sharpen with 1,500 grit automotive finishing paper wrapped around a piece of 3/4" aluminum tubing.
2. The strop is cereal box cardboard, wrapped around another piece of tubing, charged with chrome green. I go straight to that from the 1500 grit with excellent results.
3. Same deal with the angle cards and I use 12 degrees total included bevel for all of these.


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## STAR (Jan 1, 2008)

WillemJM said:


> I never do the same thing, sometimes I would use paper on a granite stone, sometimes I would use water stones, sometimes I would use diamond plate, then to paper or water stone.
> 
> I always use the Lee Valley guide with angle tweeking.
> 
> ...


I do almost word for word what Willem does. It depends on the condition of the blade I am working on.

When I first started to get serious about sharpening I had to unlearn nearly everything I did. But the most important thing is this quote I was told by a University Professor when I was studying.

It has nothing to do with woodwork but applied to my field of working with Animals. 

*His Number One rule was " Do no damage, don't make things worse and then try to improve on that. "*

That same rule applies across nearly everything we do, especially sharpening. When first starting to learn how to sharpen efficiently I was going to say correctly, but their is no one correct way. But many incorrect ones.

I believe using mechanical power sharpening systems should be banned until one has some rudimentary idea of what one is trying to achieve and why. Sure it takes longer doing it by hand but mistakes take longer to form also.

The next most important thing as far as I am concerned is to know ' How sharp is sharp. " If we do not know what we want to actually achieve, how do we know if we have achieved it.

That is why I believe we should do it by hand until we reach some degree of proficiency and then we can move on. I have seen tradespeople who believed they could sharpen but , infact, it was difficult to know which end of their chisels to use.

Pete


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## BKBuilds (Jan 12, 2013)

This thread is really going to help me. My order of stones and strop shipped today. I can't wait to sharpen my chisels and plane... the plane I think Dave sharpened already but I'll dull that soon enough =)


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## STAR (Jan 1, 2008)

Thanks to Robson Valley.

I am always fascinated by Robson's sharpening threads. His clarity, photos and advive have helped me tremendously since I have had the good fortune to meet up with him on these internet forums.

It is like doing a refreher course to maintain and upgrade ones professional skills. And yes, with sharpening to me, it's a case of use it or lose it.

I have to keep my hand in otherwise I find bad habits creep back in. That is why I like sharpening all my friends chisels and goughes etc. They are more talented then me but hate sharpening, so it is now a good symbiotic relationship.

Pete


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## Brian T. (Dec 19, 2012)

STAR (Hi Pete) Brings up the most basic of points = there are a bunch of different methods for sharpening tools. For the job that the edge is expected to do, pick a method. Use it, learn it.

The strop and water stones (1K & 4K) have worked very well for me for years.
But, as I began to make more and more use of crooked knives, all that goes out the window
and I had to pick up another method to deal with the progressive sweeps in those blades.
The very best strop, in those cases, is a strip of cereal box cardboard, chrome green, wrapped around a stick. Any wheel, any flat strop = useless.
Hindsight tells me now that those knives were the real learning experience. Even then, I show you some old, 15 degree pictures. Too much chatter so I've recently changed every one of them to 12 degrees.


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

WillemJM said:


> For carving chisels I hone with a fiber wheel on a bench grinder.


Willem, can you post more info about these fiber wheels? I don't think I am familiar with them.


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## Brian T. (Dec 19, 2012)

I bought a Stanley (England) #64 Spokeshave. My intentions are to make some spokes, some kitchen tool handles, in the range of 0.75" - 1" diameter. I'll explain later.
For the price ( $36.00) , this is an indescribable piece of crap.
I can repair it. I will repair it. I will be breathing FIRE if I ever have to speak to that venerable company. What are they thinking?
In this day and age, any fool wanting a spoke shave is unlikely to be repairing 16th century wagons.
Don't hold your breath, but I will document every step of the repair.
There's a divot out of the bevel edge that even a dog could find.


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## EricD (Jan 17, 2013)

I tried the low cost way; free hand with a combo water stone. I quickly understood that I lack the skills to get the edge I wanted. I bought a set waterstones, a diamond steel to flatten the stones and a Veritas guide with built-in micro bevel offset. Never had another issue sharpening chisels, planes or whatever.


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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

Chris Curl said:


> Willem, can you post more info about these fiber wheels? I don't think I am familiar with them.


Once a chisel has the main bevel grinded on a normal 8" bench grinder wheel, I go to one of the wheels below to hone the secondary bevel and flatten the back. I almost never go back to the grinder. It takes seconds to re-sharpen. If I do wood carving, this is a great effortless way to keep chisels razor sharp all the time and depending on the pressure one puts on the fiber wheel one can get a micro bevel that works really well.

http://www.grizzly.com/products/G5939

http://www.grizzly.com/products/T24201


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

WillemJM said:


> Once a chisel has the main bevel grinded on a normal 8" bench grinder wheel, I go to one of the wheels below to hone the secondary bevel and flatten the back. I almost never go back to the grinder. It takes seconds to re-sharpen. If I do wood carving, this is a great effortless way to keep chisels razor sharp all the time and depending on the pressure one puts on the fiber wheel one can get a micro bevel that works really well.
> 
> http://www.grizzly.com/products/G5939
> 
> http://www.grizzly.com/products/T24201


willem, thanks for that link.

i have a homemade grinding wheel setup, but it is incomplete in that it doesn't have a way to hold something (like a chisel) at a set angle. i should try to figure out a way to incorporate something like that into it. then the problem i have with the robert larson jig for chisels would be addressed.


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## Bonka (Mar 24, 2011)

*Sharpening*

I became OCD with sharpening. I used guides, honing wheels on a grinder, you name it.
Now I free hand both the primary and microbevel. I touch up the microbevel using Veritas diamond paper. About three swipes and I am good to go again.
It did not take long to get free hand down once I quit being anal about it and realized what I was doing showed up as damn good in the finish and fluffy shavings.


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## amckenzie4 (Apr 29, 2010)

I find that the more I think about sharpening and trying to get a perfect edge, the worse the edges get. Here's my current routine.

1) For REALLY BAD edges. Big nicks, incorrectly skewed blades, and chisels with inconsistent bevels.
I hate bench grinders (though I'm thinking about trying to find a good hand-cranked one), so I don't use one. I have a collet that's designed to attach flat sanding disks -- almost cutoff wheels -- to an electric drill. I put that in my drill press, and hold the blade to a ramp bolted to the drill press table. The ramp is cut at whatever angle I want to grind at. The disk is about 80 grit, and leaves the blade a huge mess, but it also cuts fast, and it's easy to make short, controlled cuts by lowering the disk onto the blade.

2) Until the last month or so, I used an old, old Brookstone oil stone. The company no longer has any record of ever having produced it, by my father had it for well over 20 years before he gave it to me. It's still flat to within the limits of my ability to test. It's got a coarse side and a fine side, and it works well. The coarse side is good for starting out a badly dulled blade -- or one that was ground with my drill press jig -- and the fine side gets a blade almost sharp enough to use. 

I still have that in my travel kit, but I was given a DMT three-stone diamond set (one of these) which has replaced the oil stone for bench work. My shop has been packed up to move, so I haven't had a chance to play with them much, but I suspect they'll remain the replacement for quite a while.

3) Finally, i have a strop for final polishing and mid-job touch-up. I'm currently using a yellow compound the guy at WoodCraft talked me into, and it seems to work. He claimed it was far better than the green stuff, but I really don't know.


As for technique... I've written about this a couple of times recently, and I'm beginning to think I should just type it up as a blog entry and start posting links to it. I started out trying the scary sharp sandpaper method with a side-clamp jig. Yeah, it worked, sort of, but I had a lot of trouble with consistency, and it never felt like I was getting things as sharp as they really could be. Fortuitously, I attended a talk given by Paul Sellers at a Wood Show about a year ago, and he talked about how he sharpens. I figured it couldn't be worse than what I was doing, so I pulled out the old oilstone and gave it a try. Go look up "Paul Sellers sharpening" on YouTube for his explanation, but the short version is this, with the same technique on the fine and coarse stones (he has three, I had two until the end of December).

Start the blade at the edge of the stone nearest you, with the blade at about a 30 degree angle to the stone. Push forward, letting your hand drop until the blade is around 20-25 degrees to the stone. Pull back and raise it to 30 again. Repeat. When you're done with the coarse stone, do the same thing with the medium and the fine.

When you're done with the three stones, pull the back of the blade across the stone once to remove the burr. Then move to the strop: hold the bevel down hard against the charged strop, and pull back 30 times. After that, put the back of the blade flat against the strop, press down hard, and pull it across a few times.

Using this method, I've been getting a better edge every time I sharpen for a year or so. As I said, most of my shop has been packed up for quite a while so I haven't gotten perfect results, but it's clear that the tools work better each time I sharpen them, so I'm going to keep on with this method.


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## Brian T. (Dec 19, 2012)

Thanks Alex: perfect example of my point = pick a method. Use it. Learn it.
I don't use oil stones unless there's been a disaster. 
BUT for you, you get edges that you like, if/when you start there.


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## tc65 (Jan 9, 2012)

For me, I try to keep it simple. Wet/dry paper on two panes of glass glued together if I need to flatten a back, correct a bevel or flatten water stones. Honing is done on a combo water stone of 1000/6000. I use one of the inexpensive guides with the single wheels in the back for plane blades. For chisels, I free hand them with no problems even down to my tiny 1/8" chisel.


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## amckenzie4 (Apr 29, 2010)

Robson Valley said:


> Thanks Alex: perfect example of my point = pick a method. Use it. Learn it.
> I don't use oil stones unless there's been a disaster.
> BUT for you, you get edges that you like, if/when you start there.



Exactly. And if the method you're using doesn't work for you after a fair shake, move on.

That said, I'm not doing precision carving or anything... mortises and dovetails are pretty much what I use my chisels for, so I don't need quite the fine edge that a carver does. If I start doing carving, I may find that I want a different system.


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## Brian T. (Dec 19, 2012)

It's a myth that one system/method is far better than all others. What are the tools? What are those edges supposed to do?

I comprehend "carving sharp" as just a slightly different way of thinking about the edges: flat, curved, Vee. 30 minutes max and it needs tuning up.

I have learned one thing about my carving tools = if I have to, I can start with 1,500 grit and go to the strop from that. 4,000 grit and up is not necessary. I still get glassy cuts in mahogany, birch, rosewood, and my favorite, Western Red Cedar. Don't believe the softwood hooey. Some WRC is a whole lot tougher than birch.

If I held my wood carvings in one hand and carved with straight-bladed knives better than scalpels, TomZ or Tormek could be the power way to go. But, totally useless equipment for crooked knives.

I really admire dovetail corners. The appearance. Ignorant of the mechanical properties. I'd want good edges for a nice fit.


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

To address the problem of holding chisels with the Robert Larson guide, I am making one of these this weekend.

It uses a wedge to hold the blade in place, very much like the old planes. If a wedge can hold it in place during planing, it damn well better be able to hold it in place during sharpening.


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## Kraeik (Jan 24, 2013)

I am still new to the forum but one thing about me is that I think I enjoy sharpening my tools a bit more than I do using them. I also think I am much better at sharpening than I am at woodworking. 

I love using my whetstones but about 2 years ago I purchased 3 different grits of Diamond plates. 

I love those things. 

I usually use a bit of dish soap in water as a honing solution, depending on the task, so cleanup of the plates is usually a matter of running them under some water and hitting them with a dish brush. For the longest time this is how I kept my plates clean. 

Then I saw a video of a different brand of diamond plate that came with a little cleaning block. I wasn't sure what the block was but I was curious about it after having seen it used and the results it produced. 

I looked around at some reviews of the plate and finally found someone who commented on the cleaning block. They claimed that it had appeared to be a regular old pencil eraser. 

Well, whether it is or isn't I thought I would try a pink pencil eraser on one of my older more beat up looking plates. 

So, without even believing the results I got and not even being sure if what I used was the same thing the diamond plate looked bright as the day I bought it and the cutting surface was back to a condition that I hadn't even realized it lost. 

So given that there are so many tips in this thread on sharpening and so many techniques I thought I would offer my little trick on cleaning those diamond plates should you have any that need it. 

I didn't invent this but was so excited about the results I got with just a standard pink eraser I had to share. 

also, I did not proofread this. Sorry.


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

Here is a home made honing guide for plane irons.

It works great.


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## nbo10 (Jan 26, 2011)

What is the strop used for?


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

Here is my honing station. I secure the paper at the front for a couple of reasons:

- it helps keep the edges from curling up as much
- I can use both hands
- That is the only place where I can easily put clamps
- I can also hone the back of the blade with it open in the front

I start at the front with the edge of the blade on the paper closest to me, and push it away from me.

This is, right to left, 100, 500, 800, and 1500 grits.

nbo10, the strop would be used with a bar of polishing compound to put the final mirror polish on the blade. I recently got a cloth wheel for my drill and polish on clearance at Sears, so now I use that.


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## Woodwart (Dec 11, 2012)

If I need to grind out nicks or square up a blade, I use my belt sander, with the blade riding in a honing guide I got in a kit from Stanley for $10,95. I run the sander away from the point of the tool, until if has a nice clean edge at about 25º for a plane, less for a chisel. With a new chisel or plane blade, or one I've just ground as above, I put the blade in the honing buide and set it about 3º higher than the original setting. I rub this on a 1000x waterstone untilI have a good, even secondary bevel, then I put the guide on a 4000x waterstone until it is very shiny. I then turn the blade over, lay it along the stone and put a thin ruler or other piece of metal under the top of the blade, and rub in small circles until there is a slim polished edge on the back of the tip of hte blade. When I get a wire edge, I take the blade and rub the wire edge off without removing the blade from the guide. I can take shavings down in the low thousandths of an inch, so it must be OK.


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## Brian T. (Dec 19, 2012)

nbo, to me, the "strop" is the object and to "hone" is the action part.
I use a hard leather strop with chromium oxide honing compound. 0.5 micron nominal particle size.
Many say that's about 50,000 grit. Don't really care.
Besides putting a nice finish on a bevel, the honing process makes my tools "carving sharp." That is the part that concerns me most. That edge will last about 30 minutes.
For crooked knives, I use a 3/4" piece of aluminum tubing wrapped with cereal box cardboard and scrubbed into the chunk of chrome green. Flat sharpening gear is not at all useful.


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## Islandguy (Dec 28, 2012)

For chisels once the bevel is established, 25-30 degrees I use a 1000 grit waterstone. I raise the chisel up a few degrees from the original bevel and take enough swipes on the 1k waterstone until I feel a burr going all the way across. Then I change to a 8k waterstone and raise it just a little bit more and take a few swipes...tough to feel any burr but I take a look and see if the "shine" is going all the way across the bevel...if so then I rub the back over the 8k a few times and call it done. This only takes a minute to do...very fast.
Now with plane blades I do the same but I use an old eclipse jig....


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## cowtown_eric (Feb 16, 2013)

To me the whole thread covers the whole spectrum of sharpening, from the cost effective "scarey sharp" method of using fine grits of W/D sandpaper and cardboard to a fair representation of expensive water stone. 

All I can add is that there was an omission of "deburring" wheels, not so far removed from Cratex. I find them useful in rehabbing the "rough shape mildly surface rusted chisels and carving tools prior to investing time to try and establish a keen edge. I do like to be frugal, and odd sharpening gizmos do tend t0 be on the pricey sidel 

At gsales, nothing differentiates deburring wheels from normal grinding stones except for three characteristics..
1. They are lighter than what you would expect
2, They dont have a ring to them (which with a normal girding wheel would indicate a fracture and you should avoid them)
3 they feel a tad rubbery.

One of my local industrial suppliers stocks em and sells them at 150 a pop, just a tad more than normal grinding wheels.

In the last 6 mos, since I've been tuned into what thy are, I've picked up three of em for about 5 bucks each, simply because they look like normal used grinding wheels, which ain't worth more than a couple of bucks if that much!

The sellers were likely laughing at me for buying them at 5 bucks, but I had the last laugh eh?

BTW, I don't mount them on a grinder, just mount them on an arbor and chuck em in the drill press (nice slow speed)

Other weird sh*t around the sharpening bench is a jool too (another garage sale find-just another piece of plastic crap to some folks I guess with a bunch of attachments.) And a barbers razor strop. Diamond stones of various grits too!

I must confess I ventured into the "carvers" sharp spectrum a while back and while most of my day ti day sharpening is less demanding, It is a ramp up the off-the-shelf items from the normal chisel and plane blade requirements for day to day work, I grok that aspect of the sharpening world entirely now! Outside of sharpening stones, polishing compounds, another item which seems to NOT be commonly mentioned in discussions of sharpening methodology and tools is a simple dissecting microscope. Which lets you see real close up what the edge looks like after all yer efforts.

It's not a OCD tool, just helps you ID and will hopefully understand and solve sharpening problems (does yer buffing wheel round off the edge or not? is my TS blade still sharp ?) On kijiji or craigslist 20-50 bucks will do the trick. Some of my watch/clock maker friends actually have one of these mounted over their precision lathe

Eric


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## tonylumps (Dec 20, 2012)

I wish I could sit and sharpen tools by hand. But I can't. Not enough Hours in a day. Can not afford to spend more time sharpening than I do using my tools .Since I got my Tormek last year I have sharpened everything from large Chipper Blades, Wood Chisels, Plane Irons,Knives, and you could shave with them all. But you need shaving cream. The Tormek saved me a lot of Money and Time. I needed to replace all of my Sharpening gear anyway.


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## amckenzie4 (Apr 29, 2010)

A note on the Scary Sharp method... one of the concerns I had with it which was realized was cost. I was given my diamond plates as a gift, but they're a package that I could have got on sale for around $65. I paid $5 for a piece of leather for a strop, and had some MDF and spray adhesive already. Call the total price $75. That rig will probably work correctly for years, possibly decades: I don't know about the longevity of diamond plates, but I doubt they'll fail anytime soon. Oh, and I paid about $5 for a stick of polishing compound for the strop, and I may run out sometime before the turn of the century.

I was buying my wet/dry paper at WoodCraft, since it was the cheapest paper I could find that didn't tear as soon as I got it wet. There I think I was paying about 70 cents per sheet, though the price may have changed -- five packs are listing at $5.29 on their website. I could sharpen all of my tools once on a single sheet of each grit I used, if they just needed touchup. If we average the two prices and figure I went two grits each time I sharpened, that's about $2 every time I sharpened. Think about how often you sharpen... $2.00 doesn't sound bad, but if you've got enough tools to need more than a sheet of each grit, or just if you sharpen weekly, that gets pricey fast. Sharpening weekly means you're spending $100/year. Going up through the grits starting at 80 means six sheets of paper. That's six dollars to get a new tool sharp. Not bad, really, unless you do it a lot....


Anyway, I'm not going to tell people to use some other method. But I just saw Eric's mention of it as a "cost effective" sharpening method, and wanted to point out that if you sharpen a lot, it may not be as cheap as you think. It's certainly not absurdly expensive, but averaged over a couple of years it's almost certainly going to be cheaper to buy an inexpensive set of diamond plates or oil stones.


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

alex, i hear you on the cost of the paper. fortunately for me, i work for 3M, and every so often my office has pallet sales where they sell the sandpaper and all sorts of other 3m stuff at pennies for the dollar.

as an example, at the last pallet sale, i grabbed a 100 pack of 500 grit 8x11 sheets for $2, and about 10 other 5-packs of different grits, all for $8. there is another sale today. i am going to stock up like crazy this time.


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## Gilgaron (Mar 16, 2012)

Chris Curl said:


> alex, i hear you on the cost of the paper. fortunately for me, i work for 3M, and every so often my office has pallet sales where they sell the sandpaper and all sorts of other 3m stuff at pennies for the dollar.
> 
> as an example, at the last pallet sale, i grabbed a 100 pack of 500 grit 8x11 sheets for $2, and about 10 other 5-packs of different grits, all for $8. there is another sale today. i am going to stock up like crazy this time.


So, once you're fully stocked... would they frown on you for sharing the wealth on here some with some S&H? I know some businesses do and some don't care...

Also, I've found recently that a quick wipe on an uncharged leather strop I made keeps me from having to sharpen very often at all.


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## amckenzie4 (Apr 29, 2010)

Chris Curl said:


> alex, i hear you on the cost of the paper. fortunately for me, i work for 3M, and every so often my office has pallet sales where they sell the sandpaper and all sorts of other 3m stuff at pennies for the dollar.
> 
> as an example, at the last pallet sale, i grabbed a 100 pack of 500 grit 8x11 sheets for $2, and about 10 other 5-packs of different grits, all for $8. there is another sale today. i am going to stock up like crazy this time.


That'd help with the price, all right!

And like I said, it's not that ridiculous anyway. For someone who sharpens as much as I do it's maybe $50-75 for a year of sharpening. That's not bad, on an objective scale.


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

Gilgaron said:


> So, once you're fully stocked... would they frown on you for sharing the wealth on here some with some S&H? I know some businesses do and some don't care...
> 
> Also, I've found recently that a quick wipe on an uncharged leather strop I made keeps me from having to sharpen very often at all.


i don't think they'd care, or if they would even have a way to determine that i was being generous.


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## ryan50hrl (Jun 30, 2012)

I'd buy some off of you.....


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

all they had this time was 50 packs of the 500, 240, and "medium" cloth sheets that feel like around 100 grit. i grabbed a bunch of those.

i grabbed a bunch of it. there were a few of the 1/2 sheets of the higher grits that i grabbed too


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## nbo10 (Jan 26, 2011)

Chris Curl said:


> alex, i hear you on the cost of the paper. fortunately for me, i work for 3M, and every so often my office has pallet sales where they sell the sandpaper and all sorts of other 3m stuff at pennies for the dollar.
> 
> as an example, at the last pallet sale, i grabbed a 100 pack of 500 grit 8x11 sheets for $2, and about 10 other 5-packs of different grits, all for $8. there is another sale today. i am going to stock up like crazy this time.


Ya gotta rub it in.  I recently paid 6 something for four half sheets.


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

so i was wrong about how cheap they were. it was $3 for a 50-pack, not $2 for a 100-pack. still pretty good.

the cloth stuff was more expensive.

today i got six 50-packs of the 500 grit, four 5-packs of the 240 grit, seven 4-packs of the 1500 grit, and one 50-pack of the 100-ish grit cloth stuff.

pm me if you'd like some; i'll share the wealth so long as you cover the shipping and a kick in maybe a little to help offset my costs.


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