# Sharpening, Steel or both.



## G S Haydon (8 Mar 2021)

With what I've recently seen regarding sharpening, does it mean that modern steels are a waste of time?







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Chisel tests






chisel-test.netlify.app





My hunch is you need to sharpen property, this is the key. And if Buck Bros chisels can outperform PMV11 then woodworkers can divert funds to wood, hardware etc.


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## Bm101 (8 Mar 2021)

So it's a mini pig sticker.


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## D_W (8 Mar 2021)

Three things in order:
* optimal sharpening for speed and time
* hardness and geometry
* alloy

There are two things highly alloyed steels do well in wood:
1) they're more stable and easier to make a tool with less follow-up (and in the rare instance it's needed, things like matrix steels can go ultra high hardness and still be tough). Yxr7 is an example for japanese chisels (but they're not expensive in japan, only to us). 
2) if you're looking to plane long distances of wood, then there's truth that the alloying can greatly increase the length planed. 

But the first bullet point saves the most time in orders of magnitude, and deficiencies for the lower can teach good habits. Have an iron a touch soft? Learn how to plane and take more off each pass so that the thin passes (that rely on high hardness) are just a few. That's a gain all around, free. 

When you start putting blades in ideal situations (in machinery, etc, where the orientation never changes, or industrial process), then 3 (combined with 2) comes into play.


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## Jameshow (8 Mar 2021)

D_W why does thinner shaving put greater strain in a blade? It seems counter intuitive? 

Knots tend to be the real killer! 

I think doing the majority of work and then sharpen or use a different plane for the final passes? 

Cheers James


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## D_W (8 Mar 2021)

Thinner shaving doesn't put more strain on the blade, but takes greater sharpness to lift. It's a sharpness indicator while geometry is an indicator of resistance to damage. 

Knots batter edges for sure - a pointed apex will always have problems. A buffed underside (like described on the woodcentral article) shortens edge life due to clearance loss, but something like 20%. If there's anything causing chipping, it greatly improves edge life - the difference between hypothetical and practical on the ground. That was a surprise. 

Softer irons are brought to life by the buffer because no easily bent apex is left and the buffer finishes them easily while we deflect them a little sharpening and the abrasive bites deeply. 

You can use two different planes, or my preference is just sharpen once there's edge damage. A half dull smoothing plane with a nice fine uniform edge still leaves a great surface. It's the notching and inability to stay in the cut that spoils the surface with lines (nicks) or little ripples (plane not starting cleanly or staying in a cut). 

Heavier shavings don't seem to damage plane edges, and may in some cases help edges start well. 

(there has always been guidance to eliminate notching - even odate's book talks about adding a steep back bevel for chippy irons or planing teak). But rounding the bevel works even more, provides a much brighter finish and much longer edge life (and there's nothing really to remove, the tiny buffed tip is removed with each secondary honing. 

It just feels a little funny because when you buff the lower side of the apex a little bit, clearance is reduced. The plane feels like it will be dull soon, but the surface is bright and it planes on for a while. 

Just another free option in your toolkit. 

All that said, if you really want to gauge just how sharp something is and just how perfect the plane setup, keeping a nice planing test board of a medium hardwood will allow you to compare. Exotic levels of sharpness will make bonkers thin shavings, and there's no way to argue that a 2 thousandth shaving edge and a 3 ten thousandth shaving edge is the same. In practical woodworking, there's not much of either of those - usually the 2 thosuandth type just for a few passes maybe followed up by a couple of passes half that on the very worst of woods. the 3 ten thousandth type is just a confirmation that an edge is very uniform and defect free as it takes little to get a shaving like that to split or fail to lift.


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## Cheshirechappie (9 Mar 2021)

Graham, I'm rather inclined to the view that once you've practiced keeping tools sharp for long enough that it becomes a fairly quick activity you do without having to think much about it, you can touch up a tool that feels it's dulling whenever you want. Also, once you've worked with your tools long enough, you know what they like by way of bevel angle to keep a working edge for a reasonable time. Then, pretty well all edge tools (except the real junk) are good enough for most woodworking, and worrying about exactly what grade of steel it's made from becomes unnecessary. You can concentrate on building the skills of making things, not on 'sharpening sessions'. That said, it's necessary to spend some time practicing sharpening to become reasonably quick and confident at it - but that's no different to planing, sawing, marking-out, or any other woodworking skill. The more you do it, the better you get, generally.

The exception is those few people working very hard or abrasive woods regularly, and for them, perhaps there are some advantages to fancy steels. I think it was Karl Holtey, back in the late 1980s or early 1990s who first used A2, on the grounds that the planes he made were often used by people working tricky timbers, and he wanted to make planes even better performing than the vintage infills he'd studied quite extensively. Since then, various other steel grades have been tried, becoming fashionable for a while in some cases. The problem is that a tool steel that gives an edge that's noticably more abrasion resistant at work is also noticably more abrasion resistant when it needs sharpening, so you need not just fancier steels but fancier stones as well. Pays yer money, takes yer choice.

So, for me, invest some time in becoming quick and proficient with whatever sharpening regime you prefer, and the need for everlasting steels becomes (for most woodworking) far less pressing.


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## D_W (9 Mar 2021)

I'm sure the knife community was gaga about A2 at some point (that's long gone if it was true). I have a friend here who was slipping A2 irons to craftsmen at Williamsburg before they were ever available from Karl or others, but he was also interested in blade making (the coopers at williamsburg were using single iron planes with 1075 or something in it - single iron planes already have a shorter sharpening interval, and something like 1075 will have about 60% of the edge life of A2). 

A2 is far easier to deal with commercially, though, which is probably the reason we see it. LN was using water hardening steel and could not get it quenched all the way to the slot without having warpage problems, so they didn't harden the entire distance below the slot for a lot of their earlier irons. My CW friend mentioned above suggested they switch to A2, and they sort of blew him off and later went to it. I'm sure he's not the only person who suggested it and at this point, they can't get heat treatment for O1, so A2 it is. 

I have done a fair amount of testing of irons, and posted such here. I"ve also made irons out of (the list of what I've used for actual planing is probably 4 times as long as this):
1084
1095
52100
O1
AEB-L
XHP (likely PMV11)

AEB-L is the only one I have a little trouble with - it has the potential to be great, but there's not a lot of wiggle room with it when it comes to heat treatment (unlike XHP and O1, which both turn out to be pretty forgiving and consistent). AEB-L could be thought of as a finer grained steel than V11 with slightly greater toughness, a little less wear resistance, but still approaching 30%-40% more than A-2 (even in irons that I've made that aren't optimized are running around 65% more footage before dullness vs. high hardness O1). 

But does any of it matter? Probably not. The draw for AEB-L in the group above is that it can be sharpened on oilstones, it's stainless and it has extremely fine grain - better than some steels that people consider very fine. No other stainless that I've seen comes close for grain fineness (it's far finer than A2, too). 

what would I choose if I could only have one thing for all plane irons or chisels? 52100 or O1 - their performance is almost identical. The edge life increase with XHP/V11 is novel, but it doesn't show up in chisels (XHP's toughness isn't that great and abrasion resistance in chisels doesn't get you anywhere - but you still have to grind and hone longer with it - even on diamonds - anyone who's convinced themselves that it sharpens as fast as something like O1 is confusing sharpens finely to sharpens as fast - it grinds off slower). 

Geometry, hardness and sharpening speed far far more important than any of the above. For tough woods, I like a soft iron that can be sharpened quickly on a buffer. Exactly the opposite of what I thought would be needed, but if I took a soft iron in truly tough wood, addressed the geometry with rounding, and someone else bought some kind of exotic high carbide high hardness iron and sharpened with a guide, I can better them any time over and over by manipulating geometry rather than switching steels.


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## Jacob (9 Mar 2021)

So rounded bevels OK then! 
I've never claimed that a rounded bevel directly improves planing performance, but it does facilitate sharpening as it's faster and easier to be free handing away, not too carefully, rounding bevels unintentionally, as you gaze out of the window.
This in turn indirectly helps with planing as sharpening gets done more often, being less of a chore.
Conversely the sheer tedium of modern sharpening makes "edge retention" more valuable - it helps alleviate the problem of having to repeat the process of sharpening with jigs, flattening stones, etc etc


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## D_W (9 Mar 2021)

no, not just a rounded bevel

If you try to round over a whole bevel ala sellers, it'll still chip. The modification at the edge is much more drastic, and then no rounding behind it (the angle behind it is shallow). 

The trouble with the idea that the bevel makes strength is that it creates fatness where it's not needed, and it doesn't address where the failure actually occurs. 

Confirmation bias and no actual examination causes people to come up with all kinds of goofy ideas (such as the idea that the convex bevel makes for a stronger edge - it makes no difference). 

The geometric modification is more drastic and occurring over a couple of thousandths. It's sort of a difference between "common sense" and observation. 

There's a good saying that I heard from a guy busting knife myths. You propose an outcome, then you test it and observe. If what you observe differs from what you expect, then the next time you run the experiment, what you expect should be what you have observed. 

To fail to recognize the value of actual observations is a trap. If they're unexpected, you can explain them, and maybe even explain when they're not valid, but if observations don't match your expectations and you can't explain why, then your observations are you expectation in the future. 

Here's another example:
* I planed about 50k feet of wood to test iron durability in the last couple of years. I rarely do this stuff anymore unless I think someone else will do a rubbish test and it will provide false conclusions (like the FWW style reviews of chisels deciding what's good by smashing a chisel an inch deep into a piece of wood - we don't work that way). 

* When I did this testing, it's clear that V11 lasts about twice as long as *good* O1 in clean wood

* When I plane something other than clear smoothing, I don't see the same benefit. I do "actual work" most of the time and never perceived this 2-1 interval occurring, but planed 3 separate tests with V11 vs. various irons and the intervals remained the same in all 3 within literally a couple of percent (e.g., observation one may have been 101%, 2 would've been 98% - there wasn't much there to suspect more trials would change things). 

* going back to regular work, I made a gaggle of XHP irons (they also tested about the same against O1). But when I went back to work, I didn't find them as nice to use in anything other than clear smoothing. 

So, my first supposition was that V11 was marginally better than O1 in a durability test (there were other surprising observations - it does have less resistance through the wood and leave a brighter surface off of the same sharpening stone). It turned out to be 2 to 1 in long grain. Going back to working with it in heavy work seems to prove that OK, the first test is true. But in the cycle of actual work, I don't perceive the same benefit, because things come into play (like knots, silica, dirt). Those types of issues change the outcome because they're not involved in a standardized test. 

I ran into a lot of resistance to the idea that XHP lasts twice as long in clean wood (especially if someone doesn't like Lee Valley), but knife folks have recently run (probably before I did my test) abrasion tests through a standardized machine and found the same thing - it's relatively long wearing, but the flip side is that it's not that tough. 

if you don't care about chips in irons, then it doesn't matter - it lasts a long time, longer than "normal" irons. I hate chipping - at some point, it slows down dimensioning. 

I have pictures of edges that will resist silica chipping, but people usually have irrational reactions like "you can't do things in thousandths". 

We do things in thousandths all the time and have discretion to know where they matter and where they don't - we just don't ever measure them.


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## D_W (9 Mar 2021)

(I hassled LN customer service to try AEB-L, too - I'd like to put my flag in the end of the field to point to later if it shows up in their planes!!)

I doubt they'll listen to me, as that's only half of the problem. The other half is getting someone who will actually harden and temper it properly as it's cheaper than A2, but the hardening and tempering will be more demanding. 

It also benefits from cryo treatment, but not for the same reason as A-2 - A2 has a problem with large grain and dispersed carbide whereas AEB-L has tiny grains and no such problem, but AEB-L has less carbon and the nitrogen/freezer treatment converts more austenite to martensite (translate, the change from really hot to suddenly cold that makes steel hard is done better if the final temperature isn't just open air, but much lower - the process goes further, thus the steel ends up harder). 

The last kicker - AEB-L is extremely cheap, especially for a stainless, as it's in widespread use in your razor blades (or something like it is). It's half the cost of precision ground O1, or about $7 for enough to make a slightly thicker stanley iron. The step up in cost for a shade tree maker like me to get everything out of it, though (get it hard and fine and not chippy at all) is about $1800 for a small temperature cycling furnace though. Out of the question if it's not for profit.


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## D_W (9 Mar 2021)

Statement above shouldn't be missed, though - alloy is the very last consideration after everything else is handled, and by the time the other items are handled, alloy becomes insignificant. Fast sharpening, geometry, and then maybe speculating on hardness (finding irons in a hardness range that you prefer).


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## Jacob (9 Mar 2021)

D_W said:


> no, not just a rounded bevel
> 
> If you try to round over a whole bevel ala sellers, it'll still chip. The modification at the edge is much more drastic, and then no rounding behind it (the angle behind it is shallow).
> ......


That just doesn't make any sense at all. How could rounding of the "primary" bevel have any effect on the strength of the secondary bevel (assuming I've got my modern sharpening jargon right!  ).
Nobody, not even Sellers, tries to "round over a whole bevel" what would be the point of that? You've totally misunderstood the basic freehand process.
They may end up rounded over completely but only after a lot of sharpenings - it's a by product with no bearing on the sharpness of the edge. In any case many would take off the back of the bevel (a.k.a. "grinding a primary bevel") to speed up honing at the edge, so it would only be rounded towards the edge, could be flat or hollow ground further back.
Glad I'm not struggling with modern sharpening hysteria any longer!


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## D_W (9 Mar 2021)

jacob, you don't know what you're talking about. You care about what makes sense to you, not results. 

There's a myth that flat bevels are stronger, or that convex bevels are stronger. They may be on crow bars. 

The tip of a chisel has to be very steep to avoid chipping - much steeper than 30 degrees. Just back from that needs to be much shallower. It can be 30 degrees or 30 degrees convex if you want, but it's wasted energy in everything the bevel comes in contact with. 

Period. 

This isn't modern sharpening hysteria, it's doing something better than what you're doing - less effort, more edge life, sharper. Better all the way around. 

You don't have to do it, but your dismissive attitude is annoying because you can't do fine work so needing to ramp things up to do fine work makes no difference to you. 

There's also a ramp up in edge life for refinement. It's on the order of +50% longevity between starting with something like a fine india stone vs. addressing the tip with an ultra fine abrasive. These things elude you because they're not part of cutting test joints in salvage wood. 

They may not elude other people in terms of usefulness. 

The "hysteria" that I've implemented at low cost has gotten positive response instead from actual period woodworkers here in the states - people I don't know. I'm looking to find useful things for me. Those things will be useful for them. If someone is making fence posts, I've got nothing for that.


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## D_W (9 Mar 2021)

Interestingly, I was reading a forum that I don't post on yesterday, comparisons of expensive chisels vs. less expensive chisels. One of the very avid makers on the woodcentral forum jumped on board with this stuff when he tried the method in the video above and it salvaged narex chisels for work in hardwoods (the narex chisels aren't spectacular at edge holding until you get to their normally quenched and tempered tools - the others are austempered and not quite hard enough to have good edge strength, but the austempering process makes them inexpensive). 

A tiny amount of edge modification (a very tiny amount) makes them stand up fine. 

I saw someone (I don't know who it is) mention yesterday that they "unicorned" two of the lower cost narex chisels to get the edge failure under control. 

What's interesting is that I proposed a method, described it, people use it and get results. I don't have to say that nobody allowed me to do this or that or it will be site work related, I just have to show it, someone else does it, they get results. It's better than free - it saved them money.


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## JohnPW (9 Mar 2021)

Is there any difference when sharpening chisels for hand pushed paring and plane irons?

And also how would Veritas 01 and PMV11 block plane irons compare for planing ebony? Would PMV11 stay sharp longer? It's not for surface finishing, it's going to be sanded, the iron only needs to be sharp enough for a clean cut.


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## baldkev (9 Mar 2021)

D_w, have you studied the edges with a microscope? Im definitely not a sharpening guru ( my site tools get a quick going over on a 1k diamond plate ) a couple of years back i learnt shaving with a straight razor. Part of that is stropping and honing the edge to keep it razor sharp. A lot of the razor guys actually check their edges with microscopes.
I got a couple of good stones and also some lapping film and diamond pastes, my first attempt was rubbish, a new ( cheap ) razor, turned up blunt. I tried and failed to get a razor edge. My second attemp was on an Ern Ator and that with the lapping film and good instruction ( youtube ) got me my first razors edge!!! I was so chuffed with myself!


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## D_W (9 Mar 2021)

planing ebony of any kind, I'd sharpen a block plane iron and a paring chisel similar, figuring you want the total bevel on a block plane for ebony to land around 60 degrees or so (bed plus bevel) if you're planing a surface. If you're planing to remove stock, then you can tolerate a little tearout (esp. on ebony since it doesn't really have any "straws" orientation and when it tears, it just sort of crumbles at the surface). 

Veritas tempers O1 far softer than V11. I'd have no preference on ebony if you sharpen and modify the tip of the iron with a buffer. If you sharpen to a pointed apex, then probably the V11. 

If you avoid chipping, LV's V11 will probably stay sharp more than twice as long as their O1. It would be nice if they offered both at the same temper (hardness), but they seem to position the O1 as soft for people who want it to be really easy to sharpen. 

I sharpen all chisels except mortise chisels with a shallow final bevel (about 25 degree final bevel) and then buff over the tip. It'll stay sharp nearly forever. 

If you want to do this trick to the bevel up iron, then it effectively controls tearout around +5 degrees (as in, if you want to buff the tip of an iron so that it will hold up and stay crisp in a bevel up plane, 55 degree apex total plus buff will behave just like 60 degrees, but it will feel sharper and the shavings will look different, like they're waxed. 

How you get to the 55 degree is just final bevel plus bed. 

The answer isn't quite as simple for bevel down planes as people seem to have some trouble managing clearance on bevel down planes buffing the bevel side, but I do those (when warranted) with a final bevel around 23 degrees, then buff. It sounds very shallow, but the buffing rounds the very tip over abruptly like this:


http://www.woodcentral.com/articles/images/958b.jpg



and damage doesn't occur to the edge. too much buffing and clearance is lost. I never had much of an issue with it, like I said, but it's puzzled a lot of people getting the touch right. 



http://www.woodcentral.com/articles/images/958m.jpg



Note in the same piece of wood with the same iron how much better the buffed iron (buffing over a 23 degree final angle) held up than the 32 degree flat bevel - the apex got battered by silica on the latter - the former ignored it.


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## D_W (9 Mar 2021)

baldkev said:


> D_w, have you studied the edges with a microscope? Im definitely not a sharpening guru ( my site tools get a quick going over on a 1k diamond plate ) a couple of years back i learnt shaving with a straight razor. Part of that is stropping and honing the edge to keep it razor sharp. A lot of the razor guys actually check their edges with microscopes.
> I got a couple of good stones and also some lapping film and diamond pastes, my first attempt was rubbish, a new ( cheap ) razor, turned up blunt. I tried and failed to get a razor edge. My second attemp was on an Ern Ator and that with the lapping film and good instruction ( youtube ) got me my first razors edge!!! I was so chuffed with myself!



Yes on the microscope. the images above are mine - I sold natural stones for razors for a little while and got a metallurgical scope as I thought it was the only ethical way to grade them (Too much woo in japanese natural stones - the microscope sorts out the posers in a hurry). I used a cheaper microscope earlier on to sort out sharpening straight razors for myself - it's funny how a woodworker will go to them and think you can just sharpen them with a plane blade and the edge "ain't having it" at 16-18 degrees - it has to be sharpened first and then "sharpened lightly" for a while to really get the apex crisp, and then the apex has to be stropped or it'll dent easily when shaving or deflect.

I have an article on wood central that shows some of the comparative edges with flat bevels and rounded bevels


Searching For Unicorns In A Field Of Abrasives And Wood



And ran some standardized durability tests for plane irons (it's really only fair if you ensure that all of them are sharpened to the same level at the start as mediocre sharpness only puts edge life around 2/3rds of totally sharpened edges. Those are incidental things learned, not something I was looking to prove.


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## baldkev (9 Mar 2021)

Im going to have to read the unicorn link tomorrow, im a bit bushed for one day! I found it amazing just how much small things affected an edge. I touched up a razor on the lapping film, then ran it over a balsa strop with diamond paste, but i must have done something wrong because it was sharper straight off the lapping film ( arm hair test )


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## D_W (10 Mar 2021)

John, my suggestions above are if you really want to plane something well and eliminate failure (and end up sharpening a lot less). Nothing is obligatory, but it's possible to sharpen less and have more predictable results.


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## Jacob (10 Mar 2021)

D_W said:


> jacob, you don't know what you're talking about. You care about what makes sense to you, not results.
> ......


No it's results I'm after.
Good to see you have discovered stropping, albeit with a buffing wheel. 
Ancient technique; usually by hand on leather, or with added compo, or Autosol on a plywood disc on a lathe etc. etc.
Yes it does make a surprising difference. Not least because the polishing effect will reduce friction between the blade and the shavings etc.


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## D_W (10 Mar 2021)

Jacob said:


> Yes it does make a surprising difference. Not least because the polishing effect will reduce friction between the blade and the shavings etc.



That's funny.


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## D_W (10 Mar 2021)

Polishing the cap iron, maybe. You'd have to strop an iron about 50 to 100 times to duplicate what the buffer does in about three shavings. I've shaved with a straight razor for about a dozen years now, but go ahead and try to tell me about strops.


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## D_W (10 Mar 2021)

baldkev said:


> Im going to have to read the unicorn link tomorrow, im a bit bushed for one day! I found it amazing just how much small things affected an edge. I touched up a razor on the lapping film, then ran it over a balsa strop with diamond paste, but i must have done something wrong because it was sharper straight off the lapping film ( arm hair test )



strange things happen with razors once you get past the point of the initial bevel. I have two microscope that I can use to look at razors, one was $425 and one as $13, I think. The latter is old so it's not comparable to what's out there now -but there must be something in between that's about as cheap as the latter that will help a ton. 

What you find is that you'll either:
1) figure out what's not being done with the balsa strop quite right
2) what's wrong with the balsa strop itself

Shaving is interesting once you get into it - you establish an edge on a razor and then maintain it with a linen and shell strop (if you can find shell - old and unused is better than new and extremely expensive), probably for 200 shaves or so before needing to rehone for a couple of minutes. 

But while you're cutting your teeth, it's tempting to get into super fine lapping films and such and feel like that's going to be a regular process. 

Nonetheless, a very inexpensive scope is useful there to make sure you're not wasting time on things that don't work, and to separate the things that say they're fine from the things that are very fine. It's nice to get to the linen and strop, though, as razor care and shaving can be 3 minutes a day total if you want, with honing happening once or twice a year and a very ideal edge that cuts hair easily but doesn't cut skin at the back of the pore (razorburn) that's propped up by blade pushing the hair.


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## JohnPW (10 Mar 2021)

Is there any differences in steels and bevel angles for tools that are pushed (plane irons and chisels pushed by hand) and tools that are struck with a mallet (chisels for mortising)? 

I meant to ask this upthread but I didn't phrase the question clearly.


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## Jacob (10 Mar 2021)

JohnPW said:


> Is there any differences in steels and bevel angles for tools that are pushed (plane irons and chisels pushed by hand) and tools that are struck with a mallet (chisels for mortising)?
> 
> I meant to ask this upthread but I didn't phrase the question clearly.


Basically 30º does for all ordinary chisels and planes but you may hear differently from the enthusiasts!


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## D_W (10 Mar 2021)

JohnPW said:


> Is there any differences in steels and bevel angles for tools that are pushed (plane irons and chisels pushed by hand) and tools that are struck with a mallet (chisels for mortising)?
> 
> I meant to ask this upthread but I didn't phrase the question clearly.



mortising chisel, higher final angle. paring chisels, you can push low, but they tend to crumble if you do. I think that a malleted chisel has an easier job than the corners of a paring chisel, but eliminating edge failure can be done for all. Pleasant softwoods don't require as much edge manipulation. 

Of course, if you don't mind lines all over your work or sharpening chisels 5 times as often as needed, you can use a single method and single angle for everything. Eventually, you'd get used to dull edges and not notice how well the tool isn't working. 

Bevel angles on steel is a factor of three things:
* hardness
* what and how you're working
* alloy

Anything where the alloy is bad enough for woodworking that it would come in shouldn't be used for woodworking, but that doesn't mean you'll never come across exotic tools with really high carbide large grains (e.g., you can find razors made out of S30V and such things -they're *terrible* and can cost 10 times as much as something made with simple silver steel rod die forged in a pair of dies and ground). 

The effect of hardness is pretty minimal unless something is way too hard or way too soft (chippy or folds easily). 

The angle where edge failure stops at the tip of plane irons and where it stops on chisels is fairly similar (32-34). Not "usability" under any circumstance, but eliminating failure due to anything other than wear so that you a good surface and least effort through wood. The latter is something every hand tool only woodworker I know gets into (brian holcombe was immensely interested in it when he was doing hand tool only, and a carver/woodworker here in the states working in a power-free shop is fanatical about edge condition because finding the elimination of edge failure is just a basic concept in carving and hand tool work that greatly reduces effort). 

(other than prying mortise chisels to break chips, only the very tip of a bevel needs to be addressed at the angle mentioned above (32-34) to eliminate failure. If a chisel still chips/folds at 34 degree microbevel over a shallower secondary bevel, then it's too soft or too hard).


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## D_W (10 Mar 2021)

Rubber hits the road on a pair of parers - I need to send these out sharp with a shallow primary/secondary so they wow the person getting them, and so that the edge on the chisels lasts a long time. That avoids complaining about "i woud've sharpened them a different way"

I had to get a metal hammer out to finish driving the handle onto the tang of the larger chisel and it split two separate large pieces of 8/4 scrap despite being hammered perpendicular to the grain direction.









Not a single chip in the edge.


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## baldkev (10 Mar 2021)

D_W said:


> strange things happen with razors once you get past the point of the initial bevel. I have two microscope that I can use to look at razors, one was $425 and one as $13, I think. The latter is old so it's not comparable to what's out there now -but there must be something in between that's about as cheap as the latter that will help a ton.



I got a small jewellers magnifying glass which isnt anything like good enough, but it gives an indication of how you are getting on when the tip / in my case secondary bevel of the blade reflects light ( i.e you can see if you are polishing out the scratches )

Ive got a cheap leather strop which j started on and thats actually where i get the best results. I had read that balsa strops are very good, especially for pastes, so i made a couple to try it out. I did lap them, however your comment about what i might have done wrong or if there is an issue with the strop itself made me stop and think.

One possible issue is the secondary bevel, in that by the time i tried the balsa and paste, i had *probably* taken the tape off the spine, as i tried the balsa the following evening.

Prior to the pandemic screwing up finances i was going to order a Tony miller pure vanilla, which i shall do soon....


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## D_W (10 Mar 2021)

I've done secondary bevels or tape every once in a while (rarely, but usually in the case of a razor that's having edge holding issues and would be helped by tape). 

The longer term edge life is threatened when more than a layer or so of tape is added (if you start creeping the total bevel to 20 degrees or so, it doesn't take much dullness before it's not thin enough to get through hair easily. Sharpness at the tip is one thing, but thickness of the bevel behind it is another - the fatter you push the thickness, the more dependent the razor will be on the very tip of the bevel.

The best razors are the ones that really tolerate that low angle without modification, which turns out to be the most plain steel that kind of hangs in there at low angles in the low 60s hardness range. Overhard razors lack toughness and don't like a strop, and underhard razors deflect. It's a lot like tools, except the margin of error goes from sort of a range to almost nothing. Any quality issues at all or poor alloy choices with razors and it doesn't work. 

But, definitely something in the 75x optical range or so will lower the amount of work that you do and not increase it. Now that I have the metallurgical scope, when I go to dump something on ebay, lean on it to not do any more than I have to as the light work gets boring. 

The stropping work can really take a well done bevel over the top (the kind of submicron oxides, etc), but if the edge isn't quite there to start, it just won't get it there without gobs and gobs of passes. Not a fan. Too lazy -I just want the result and don't want to pride myself on being able to move a razor across a slow medium 300 times.


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## Jameshow (10 Mar 2021)

I finish my edges with 2000 grit paper should I think about getting a polishing wheel / strop? 

I work mainly pine btw. 

Cheers James


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## baldkev (10 Mar 2021)

The unicorn method looks good, will give it a try. I need to do my chisels soon, its been a while!


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## D_W (10 Mar 2021)

Jameshow said:


> I finish my edges with 2000 grit paper should I think about getting a polishing wheel / strop?
> 
> I work mainly pine btw.
> 
> Cheers James



Something *very* inexpensive like a fine white bar with a drop of oil on softwood used as a "strop hone" (just pull and round the bevel a tiny bit on purpose) will add worlds of sharpness and edge durability. 

Once you learn to nail it, if you do an A/B comparison against an iron sharpened on a 2k stone, you'll notice how much less effort there is with a plane and how much more easily a plane stays in the cut. 

With a chisel, I guess it's up to you. I like good geometry and very high polish to negate dealing with a wire edge. 

As far as cost for this step up, we're talking like 5 pounds -a 2k stone is 95% of the way there in work, you just want to polish the tip of the iron or chisel to get over the top. 

Kid you not that a $1 buff bar that I got on clearance at sears would last several years. softwood or medium hardwood will provide just a little cushion and make a stronger apex than an aggressive small micron stone (also makes it easier to finish the job).


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## D_W (10 Mar 2021)

Here's two pictures comparing edges:
this one I had named "$3" edge. $1 of psa roll to grind, $1 flea market extra fine india, $1 white buff bar mentioned above:





Notice the uniformity at the very edge tip. If the non-grind part of the cycle here took more than a minute and a half to really nail on a dull plane iron, I'd be really surprised. 

Note that the odd scratch here or there is either dirt on the wood or the large particles in the grade of the bar. Note how uniform the edge is (particles like that are common in a buff bar - the grade can be looser than lapidary grit because they're used in a cotton or sisal buff and those big particles can't dig deep). 

Here's a shapton cream (12000), which I think marks the edge more like a 2-3 micron stone (likely the 1 micron grade is an average and there are big particles). It cuts as fast as any 8k stone I've used, so there's some secret there that's not that secret. 

For the comments above re: razors - when you sharpen a razor with a shapton, it always feels tricky to get it right. The "gurus" on the shaving forum will say that the stone is very aggressive, but they're off the mark - it's just coarse. 

But it's fast and practical because of it (and if you buy it from japan, not expensive). 






I don't have a bunch of medium 2k type stones to offer pictures of - I don't finish with them, but you'd probably get an edge similar to this fairly new queer creek norton. 

(the edge from a synthetic stone will be more uniform looking with narrower deeper scratches, but its' the best I've got to compare). 






No, looking at that -I'm wrong, it would be a lot more coarse than that. QC is a sandstone type, so it semi burnishes the steel and also the bigger particles deflect it. That's why they're a budget stone compared to oilstones of novaculite.


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## D_W (10 Mar 2021)

(the uniformity shown at the top will gain at least 50% more edge life in smoothing if you can avoid stuff that damages irons. The buff bar on medium woods takes the place of a leather strop in about the same amount of time and you can ignore stropping after it - palm strop if it makes you happy. 

Here's an illustration of why I say wood and you can't just swap around - here's dursol polish on cast iron:





Note that cast is hard, as is corian, as are very fine oilstones - if you increase pressure to try to finish an edge faster, you'll get little chips like the ones here. It doesn't matter that much, but if they get twice as big as that, they'll spoil a surface. 

Same iron, same dursol, but on yellow pine (subjectively just as fast, and easier with a much better feel - the odd piece of dirt floating around doesn't just batter an edge).


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## D_W (10 Mar 2021)

none of these super fine edges, by the way, are prissy or fussy. They are the product of getting the work done before them properly - at a lower angle, so that you can get all of that fine work done on both sides of a bevel absolutely completely in about 20 seconds. 

inexpensive extra fine india before this for me (norton has a part number for such a stone, but I haven't found it other than flea market stones in other brands, and japan - 2k-ish grit india stones were popular in japan for some reason. They won't finish an edge, but they will clean up the work after a grind with a second bevel and let you treat the tip. Very lazy, extremely durable and every bit as effective as some eons-long routine to treat an entire full flat bevel). 

You need separation of angles to get the edge done like this, else you'll just have big stray scratches coming to the tip and what's the point, then.


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## pe2dave (11 Mar 2021)

Diamond plates, finished with a leather strop. Works for me.
Kitchen knives with the steel.


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## Jacob (11 Mar 2021)

D_W said:


> mortising chisel, higher final angle. paring chisels, you can push low, but they tend to crumble if you do. I think that a malleted chisel has an easier job than the corners of a paring chisel, but eliminating edge failure can be done for all. Pleasant softwoods don't require as much edge manipulation.
> 
> Of course, if you don't mind lines all over your work or sharpening chisels 5 times as often as needed, you can use a single method and single angle for everything. Eventually, you'd get used to dull edges and not notice how well the tool isn't working.
> 
> ...


The effect of hardness is pretty minimal unless something is way too hard or way too soft" is what as known as a tautology, or self evident truth.
So after all those pages and consideration of all possible variables, the answer for everything is 33º plus or minus 1º? 
I'm not convinced - I'll stick with 30º plus or minus 1º 
There's an intelligible answer to the ebony question here Woodworking with Ebony - FineWoodworking
which is very conventional and familiar. I don't believe in magic numbers.


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## D_W (11 Mar 2021)

Jacob, I don't really care what you're convinced about. you're convinced that you don't want anything to change, and that's fine. I don't really care what you believe in, either. I only care what is. 

Hardness makes a fairly significant difference in chisels. 59 and 62 in the same steel will feel like different chisels. But I doubt you have the exposure to know. I tested irons last year and a chinese high speed steel iron honed really crisply. I was very surprised by just how crisp it was (you'd think it would hold a strong wire edge). A chemist here demanded to take all of the irons and have them XRFed and hardness tested if either was unknown, so I mailed them to him. The iron was over 65 hardness. It made it feel like an icy carbon steel. 

I boiled down a final angle for planing and regular chiseling based on observation. 33 or so is what I would say is where to start to eliminate failure. 30 degrees will probably eliminate failure if you only work pine, but in any hardwoods, even simple maple and cherry, failure is there. 

What I found mortising plane bodies in ebony and rosewood is that serious edge failure (e..g, if you found 32 degrees worked for your set of chisels, and then determined that they were junk and it's time to buy something more expensive to work the "hard woods") can usually be eliminated with another two degrees or so. 

Reality only matters if you're shooting for results in reality. 

When you can game reality and results to less effort, then that's beneficial. 

I use a buffer on chisels and round over the tip abruptly. Some people don't want to do that. If they want a sweet working chisel, they're far better to grind at 25 and put a tiny stripe on at 34 than they are to do everything at 30. They'll hone a fifth as much in hardwoods and the chisel will get through the wood faster. That's reality.


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## pe2dave (11 Mar 2021)

D_W said:


> Jacob, I don't really care what you're convinced about. you're convinced that you don't want anything to change, and that's fine. I don't really care what you believe in, either. I only care what is.



seems like a summary. I do wonder why you bother with the forum with such fixed ideas.


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## D_W (11 Mar 2021)

Someone will take my advice (maybe five people) and suddenly find out that their chisels don't get dull very fast and that things get easier. 

That's the point. Changing jacob's mind isn't. I don't think he cares that much about results and think how much of his career was done with heavy hand tool work that would be similar to what someone making cabinets at a bench would do is a bit misleading. 

His advice on routers is probably better.


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## Jacob (11 Mar 2021)

pe2dave said:


> seems like a summary. I do wonder why you bother with the forum with such fixed ideas.


It's not really a summary though is it - it's a scatter of half baked ideas pretending to be definitive.
I don't think honing a default angle of 32º to 34º is a radical "change" compared honing at 30º and then, in the conventional way, adjusting this steeper for difficult woods, or stropping (a.k.a."buffing") if necessary, which may well end up as 32º who's measuring! A "tiny stripe" at 34º is not different from a full bevel at 34º - if that's what you end up with. Or tightening up the cap iron gap as another adjustment, and so on. A slightly rounded micro bevel is what you get when you freehand hone, or strop, or buff on a machine. This may develop into a macro rounded bevel in time! (Not wishing to introduce yet more jargon into the subject - maybe I should delete that promptly!)
Nothing new. Not reinventing the wheel - more a case of D_W rediscovering it as though for the first time!
My only "fixed" idea is that 30º is a handy starting point (it's easy to visualise etc) but yes 32-34 would do, if that's what turns you on. Not easy to tease out that fixed idea from D_W's long tracts!
It's OK I'll press the ignore button again!


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## D_W (11 Mar 2021)

That was literally what I stated in the original post that started this. I actually test what I said rather than saying "I don't think". I've seen is a better answer. I can give you something you can test yourself and prove, a better idea. 

Apparently when I said you'd be further along to slide the primary bevel down shallower and steepen the tip where damage occurs, it'll:
* last longer
* be easier to nail
* be faster
* eliminate the need for any fast grinding stones

That was just too simple and called rabbit hole. Since then, "I think" is more important than. "I've showed, and you can prove to yourself"

What to see what the difference is chopping slivers of hard maple (like you'd do in half blinds or dovetails) 30 degrees vs. more?

What angle matches the picture to the right? 34. It's not in this picture as it can only get so wide, but 34 stops even the small chipping. 34 is also sharper than 30 within a few strikes due to the lack of damage. Literally takes 10-15 percent fewer strikes to get 32 degrees through an inch of maple than 30, so what do you gain with 30? Nothing. 

How many chisels did this differ for? zero, except robert sorby's softest offerings still get a little damage at 34. 

No chisel holds up at 30. After an inch of maple (a couple of half blind sockets), you're looking to resharpen. 

If you add a few degrees or buff the tip, you'll finish the half blinds (all of them) before you need to sharpen. 

Proof is a bridge too far for some, I do realize that. Especially if it's easier to do the method than it is to do another method - it's just too many things better and irrational responses are the only option left.


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## D_W (11 Mar 2021)

Where does the rubber hit the road with this? 

If you come along asking what you should buy to work exotic woods, I will say "nothing - more expensive will be less better than addressing the problem for free. Sorry if the idea is acquisition for dopamine, you can still do that, but the free option is better and here's what it is". 

A bridge too far, I know. I've always learned a lot more from the people who prove me wrong than the ones who prove me right (especially bad if I'm wrong to start).


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## D_W (11 Mar 2021)

(I can post a softer chisel to compare to the above if anyone is interested - a sorby that is probably around 58 hardness. The lower angle results are pretty drastically different, but you can see the effect of improvement in geometry to a chisel that's otherwise almost unusable in hardwoods. I had put the chisels aside a few years ago - love their proportions and intended to reharden them. 

Those two are kind of the useful endpoints - the japanese chisel is probably a solid 65 hardness - it's no softer than that.


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## D_W (11 Mar 2021)

ok, I'll do it, anyway....






unicorn (buffing) isn't even enough to totally save the sorby, but look at the bending on the 30 degree edge. 

Ouch. 

Just typical maple, not contaminated or anything. Maple and cherry are similarly harsh on edges with maple taking more strikes, so maybe a little accelerated, but anything that holds together in maple generally holds together in cherry, and so on. 

The difference in effort to use the 30 degree bevel vs. the buffed profile to the right was about 15%. AS in, it took 15% more strikes to get through the work, but the effort trouble is more than double that, as you get chisels bouncing out of work when they look like the picture above, which results in annoyance and bad temptations (just start smashing away). 

I took a picture of the test bed to show what comes off of the chisel when it stays sharp and has the right side profile "unicorn" vs. something like pane 2. The "unicorn" test is obviously the picture on the left. stuff just leafs off of the work, the chisel stays in the cut. This is work for the lazy man, just like the sharpening method. 

Things can be physically easy, neat and low risk if you let them be. 

(the little bits on the right will shoot off of the work and hit you in the face, too - they sting. I wear glasses, so no issue there, but they still sting elsewhere)


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## D_W (11 Mar 2021)

In case anyone is wondering where this comes from, I spend about 90% of the time making things, and then about 10% of the time trying to solve something I think is annoying so that it makes the 90% better (as in finer work without more effort, or finer in _less_ effort). 

And simpler. not many people do this, but everyone who works entirely by hand will sort of solve these things if they're not hourly, because they'll get annoyed. Most won't do a good job of communicating them, and that's OK. But we'd sure love to wring this kind of stuff out of them if it can be translated for use to people just starting. 

Like the sorby thing above - if a chisel holds up similar to the right pane at 34 degrees, and takes less effort to use, and you have to sharpen a 5th as much, who in their right mind would write that off as rabbit hole info. Said person needs to get better and faster at sharpening, but they also need to get through that period of time without quitting or they'll have a wrong idea about how "hard" hand work is. Hand work is easier than machine work. The only part that's not is the physical exercise part, but you'll lose *very* little stock doing hand work and get very fast compared to what you think you will in the first year or so.


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## baldkev (12 Mar 2021)

I guess next time we are sharpening kit, just give it a whirl, it wont take long to do. If you dont motice a difference, fair enough, nothing lost.
If you do see a difference then youve gained


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## JoshD (12 Mar 2021)

Given the expertise on show here I hesitate to post; I hand sharpen only, and rather than measure degrees on a big sharpen I just concentrate on mainly grinding what I think of as the heel of the bevel, ie, not the tip, on the coarse grades; if I don't do this the grind angle just goes up and up on successive sharpens; then I sharpen the tip on 1200, allowing the minimal amount of rounding of the bevel that still actually reaches the tip. After a big sharpen I allow myself 2 or 3 small sharpens, only on 1200, which inevitably results in some rounding of the bevel, then it's time for a big sharpen again.

But that's background, it's actually stropping that prompts my question: I use a green waxy stropping paste on a leather and strop both sides of the blade. I do this after both big and small sharpens. Don't get me wrong, I like the results, the polished blade doesn't just cut nicely, it slides smoothly on the workpiece. But after about a year or so of stropping I realise I have added a tiny back bevel, which I don't want and is a major pain to grind out. Is this is an inevitable consequence of stropping, or am I doing it wrong?


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## Jacob (12 Mar 2021)

JoshD said:


> ......But after about a year or so of stropping I realise I have added a tiny back bevel, which I don't want and is a major pain to grind out. Is this is an inevitable consequence of stropping, ....


Yes. You can't "strop" flat. Perfectly OK for a plane. OK for chisels too, though arguably there are rare circumstances when you really need a dead flat face but I'd wait until this arrives before worrying about it!
In any case every time you remove the burr from the flat face however you do it, you are creating something of a bevel - unless you flatten the whole face every time you sharpen. Hence the notorious "bellied" chisel - it's normal, that's how they end up, even though they start out slightly concave (all the new ones I've ever bought at any rate).


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## JoshD (12 Mar 2021)

Jacob said:


> Yes. You can't "strop" flat. Perfectly OK for a plane. OK for chisels too, though arguably there are rare circumstances when you really need a dead flat face but I'd wait until this arrives before worrying about it!
> In any case every time you remove the burr from the flat face however you do it, you are creating something of a bevel - unless you flatten the whole face every time you sharpen. Hence the notorious "bellied" chisel - it's normal and unimportant.


How do you then remove the burr after sharpening the bevel? I've been in the habit of sharpening the bevel on each grade until there's a burr, then doing a few strokes of 1200 on the flat face to clear the burr before moving to the next grade. This no longer clears the burr.


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## Jacob (12 Mar 2021)

JoshD said:


> How do you then remove the burr after sharpening the bevel? I've been in the habit of sharpening the bevel on each grade until there's a burr, then doing a few strokes of 1200 on the flat face to clear the burr before moving to the next grade. This no longer clears the burr.


Either slightly lift as you take off the burr, which makes a bit of a bevel, or flatten a few more mm of the face - which still makes a bevel but shallower so you'd hardly notice, or a bit of both.


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## JohnPW (12 Mar 2021)

I think stropping the flat side of the blade on a flat and hard surface, ie not leather, would prevent a back bevel from developing, or at least greatly reduce it. And you would need to raise a big enough burr to remove the "wear bevel", otherwise the edge won't get stropped.


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## Jacob (12 Mar 2021)

JohnPW said:


> I think stropping the flat side of the blade on a flat and hard surface, ie not leather, would prevent a back bevel from developing, or at least greatly reduce it. And you would need to raise a big enough burr to remove the "wear bevel", otherwise the edge won't get stropped.


I think what I do is take off the burr with the face flat on a fine stone, but with pressure towards the edge end, incidentally encouraging a wide bevel, but then with minimal stropping to the face. 
The danger is in "over thinking" things - you risk ending up down the rabbit hole!


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## D_W (12 Mar 2021)

JoshD said:


> Given the expertise on show here I hesitate to post; I hand sharpen only, and rather than measure degrees on a big sharpen I just concentrate on mainly grinding what I think of as the heel of the bevel, ie, not the tip, on the coarse grades; if I don't do this the grind angle just goes up and up on successive sharpens; then I sharpen the tip on 1200, allowing the minimal amount of rounding of the bevel that still actually reaches the tip. After a big sharpen I allow myself 2 or 3 small sharpens, only on 1200, which inevitably results in some rounding of the bevel, then it's time for a big sharpen again.
> 
> But that's background, it's actually stropping that prompts my question: I use a green waxy stropping paste on a leather and strop both sides of the blade. I do this after both big and small sharpens. Don't get me wrong, I like the results, the polished blade doesn't just cut nicely, it slides smoothly on the workpiece. But after about a year or so of stropping I realise I have added a tiny back bevel, which I don't want and is a major pain to grind out. Is this is an inevitable consequence of stropping, or am I doing it wrong?



Use the paste on medium hardwood or harder softwood instead of leather, or do very little of it on the back. If you strop the bevel side more strongly, you won't need much on the back. 

When you use an abrasive, you're sort of stropping and honing at the same time.


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## D_W (12 Mar 2021)

JohnPW said:


> I think stropping the flat side of the blade on a flat and hard surface, ie not leather, would prevent a back bevel from developing, or at least greatly reduce it. And you would need to raise a big enough burr to remove the "wear bevel", otherwise the edge won't get stropped.



John beat me to It! Leather works best for stropping when it's bare. Honing pastes will be better on a hard surface that has just a little bit of give. Like a harder softwood or mdf.


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## JoshD (12 Mar 2021)

Thanks to all for the stropping advice!


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## D_W (12 Mar 2021)

JoshD said:


> Thanks to all for the stropping advice!



Picture in post 35 (page 2 of this thread) illustrates just how fine something like autosol will be off of wood (above that is iron, corian is similar to that - too hard).

If you use something like that - wood has a bit of give, but less than leather. It is, however, plenty to make the abrasive softer but crisp cutting - the edge is spectacular and if the wood gets out of shape, you can plane it back to flat, scrape it or replace it.

You'll appreciate the speed and control - there's never a need to correct any growing problems.

(top picture is also buffing bar on wood - a fine polishing bar, but not something nutty fineness or expensive - no need for anything expensive - there's no nosebleed priced stone that makes better edges, and expensive natural stones don't make edges as good as either of those two clear pictures).


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## pe2dave (13 Mar 2021)

JoshD said:


> How do you then remove the burr after sharpening the bevel? I've been in the habit of sharpening the bevel on each grade until there's a burr, then doing a few strokes of 1200 on the flat face to clear the burr before moving to the next grade. This no longer clears the burr.


src=Paul Sellers. One pass on the strop, flat or simply cut into a piece of softwood endgrain. Burr gone. Try it.
Once the back is flat and smooth, IMHO no need to repeat it. That's the source of your unwanted bevel?


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## D_W (13 Mar 2021)

you can get away with never really honing the back of an iron, but there's considerable wear on it. If you don't work the back of an iron with something with a good combination of fast and fine, it'll either be coarse or rounded just from wear. 

If a honing regime for an iron takes a minute, it's good policy for 20 seconds of that to be on the back. You can do better than paul's method with less effort, even less cost. But it's a "can" not a "have to".


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## pe2dave (13 Mar 2021)

D_W said:


> you can get away with never really honing the back of an iron, but there's considerable wear on it. If you don't work the back of an iron with something with a good combination of fast and fine, it'll either be coarse or rounded just from wear.


I disagree with this view. Wear is on the edge. Sharpen it one-sided (as with a marking knife) and the back is 'removed' with the honed edge.


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## D_W (13 Mar 2021)

No, it won't. You don't hone far enough back to remove it all. you will chase some of it off each time but about half or so (or more) will remain and you'll get used to the feel of an iron that's rounded and not notice that it's a bit dull.

If you don't do a lot of planing, it probably won't matter.

Marking knives don't plane 1500 feet of wood before they're sharpened.

Here's the wear bevel on a smoothing plane iron just before resharpening. This picture is 2 hundredths of an inch tall, approximately, leaving that wear bevel around 3-4 thousandths back.







This is what it looks like with a cap iron in use. It's blunter at the front and less scooped with larger scratches heading back further than the back edge of this lip if you use a single iron.

The cap iron lifts the chip away from the iron and confines it to a very defined area.

(this is the back flat side of the iron, of course). The "scoop" in this looks deep because of the effect of reflecting light, but it's probably a fraction of a thousandth. )


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## pe2dave (13 Mar 2021)

D_W said:


> No, it won't. You don't hone far enough back to remove it all.



Please don't tell me what I do or don't do.


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## Jacob (13 Mar 2021)

pe2dave said:


> I disagree with this view. Wear is on the edge. Sharpen it one-sided (as with a marking knife) and the back is 'removed' with the honed edge.


And the cap iron limits wear to the very edge anyway, 1 to 2mm. Hence, if really necessary, the "ruler" trick - or flat with just slightly more pressure towards the edge. Normal anyway as you are only going to be working the edge end of the blade.


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## D_W (13 Mar 2021)

you don't. I didn't collect these pictures to prove you wrong, but if you're looking at edges with a loupe or by eye, you don't really know what's at the edge. 

I didn't, either. 

I collected these pictures during edge wear studies, partly out of curiosity and partially for my own purposes (I'll make tools with whatever works best). 

You can measure iron length. What I want you to do to prove me wrong is go hone a hundredth of length off of an iron and see how long it takes. Use digital or dial calipers. I've been down this road much farther than probably anyone on here, and not to measure these things, but to test other variables (and they come up as secondary observations). 

With a finish stone, I noticed that before restarting tests with worn irons, I had about 2/3rds (or more) of this wear bevel length left in stria at the edge. What I said stands - if you don't care, it doesn't matter. Before seeing it, I didn't care, either, but if you're going to test irons from sharpness, they can't have wear in them, so I had to go back for a second go around. 

The bonkers things in forums is armchair types who show up on a thread like this talking about steeling knives walk away with "I'M RIGHT, YOU PROBABLY DON"T WOODWORK" as a response, as Jacob did rather than taking the information and using it or choosing not to. 

If I wasn't removing all of the back wear intentionally removing it and you're dismissing the wear removal process, you weren't either.


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## D_W (13 Mar 2021)

Jacob said:


> And the cap iron limits wear to the very edge anyway, 1 to 2mm. Hence, if really necessary, the "ruler" trick - or flat with just slightly more pressure towards the edge. Normal anyway as you are only going to be working the edge end of the blade.



In order to remove the wear pictured above with the ruler trick, if you use a 0.5mm rule as the method dictates, you won't get the wear out without chasing the back bevel larger. It's probably better to leave it in if you're going to lean on a ruler, or get a slightly steeper ruler. 

When I tested irons, the "charlesworth" method with a 0.5mm rule is actually where I found that all of the wear wasn't coming out with a ruler trick. 

It's smarter in the long term to use a stone that's fast enough to remove the wear in 10-20 seconds on the back - one that would be too fast for the ruler trick. 

You *can* do whatever you want, including leaving the wear in or partially removing it with a ruler trick.


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## D_W (13 Mar 2021)

The above is an open challenge to all - hone a hundredth of length off of an iron, measuring with calipers, and see how long it takes. Divide the effort by two (it's easier to measure a hundredth than 5 thousandths) and see if you can conclude that you hone 5 thousandths off per turn.

The answer will be no - it'll be quite a lot of work just to get a hundredth off with a carborundum stone.

This creates another 2/3rds myth with certain irons - the long wearing types. Long wearing irons don't chip any less easily or deeply (that's determined mostly by hardness), but you hone much less length off per turn, even if it feels like you're doing more. The high wear irons hone half as fast. Honing another 25% more feels like you're really doing "a lot extra".

I wrote these irons off as chippy, but when I did an iron test, what I really saw was that I wasn't honing enough off after an iron chipped to get rid of the full depth of the chipping (usually a couple of thousandths). Even with a couple of thousandths of depth (not 5), we come up short.

Someone here in the states asked me to measure iron length lost as part of my testing, but I didn't do it, because I wasn't aiming to remove large amounts of length and I was testing durability, not hoping to hone an iron, dent the edge by measuring it and hone again.

While all of this testing may come off as dumb, when it's about 2% of the time you've spent making tools, it's far dumber to just blindly build with things and call yourself an expert (like a lot of boutique toolmakers pass themselves off as). I state observations, I'm not an expert. I would love if someone else would spend a small fraction of their time posting observations, but recognize it's far more rewarding to assume something and put your head in the sand because confidence feels better than competence. It always does. Look how proud a salesman will be when they tell you something that's false vs. an engineer who tells you their best estimate of something to date. 

These bits of experimenting that happen for me about once a year or so have paid off greatly making tools. Understanding the tools pays off greatly when working wood.


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## Jacob (13 Mar 2021)

D_W said:


> The above is an open challenge to all - hone a hundredth of length off of an iron, measuring with calipers, and see how long it takes. Divide the effort by two (it's easier to measure a hundredth than 5 thousandths) and see if you can conclude that you hone 5 thousandths off per turn.


What for? Per turn of what? Why bother?


> In order to remove the wear pictured above with the ruler trick, if you use a 0.5mm rule as the method dictates, you won't get the wear out ....


Who's dictating?  You can use any ruler you like.
Easier without a ruler at all and to just lift the blade slightly - or even just press harder at the pointy end, which it was woodworkers have been doing for millennia, to solve the problem you think you have discovered!


> ...
> 
> You *can* do whatever you want, including leaving the wear in or partially removing it with a ruler trick.


OK thanks very much!


> Understanding the tools pays off greatly when working wood.


No really? Working wood pays of greatly with understanding the tools too!


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## space.dandy (14 Mar 2021)

D_W said:


> If you don't work the back of an iron with something with a good combination of fast and fine, it'll either be coarse or rounded just from wear.



I don’t quite get what you’re saying here. How are you suggesting working the back? You presumably are not suggesting working the whole back, keeping the two flat faces parallel, to remove the wear (which would seem a bit daft). Yet you also seem to be dismissing the ‘ruler trick’ as ineffective?


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## D_W (14 Mar 2021)

space.dandy said:


> I don’t quite get what you’re saying here. How are you suggesting working the back? You presumably are not suggesting working the whole back, keeping the two flat faces parallel, to remove the wear (which would seem a bit daft). Yet you also seem to be dismissing the ‘ruler trick’ as ineffective?



In bullet points - if you want to keep using the ruler trick:
* ignore that it can leave a little bit of wear at the edge. If you didn't mind it when you couldn't see it, then don't worry. Better to leave a little wear than chase the ruler trick stripe wider
* this is on a smoothing plane with a cap iron set around 1 hundredth of an inch. I didn't look at this on a plane with the cap set far off, but the wear may be less deep and more rounded out rather than in without a cap - it's not very productive to use a smoother without the cap iron
* In my opinion, the solution with the cap iron used is probably as simple as increasing the rule thickness. I have a 0.5mm rule that I started using early on when I first started sharpening (learned from DC's video on plane sharpening). I'd be willing to bet 1mm instead of 0.5mm would solve the problem

About the ruler trick vs flat surface
* the idea of removing metal on the entire back is a logical trap. Metal bends, even under finger pressure. when you sharpen an iron or chisel, you apply finger pressure at the tip or on one side or the other. Wherever you apply pressure, that's where the back will be honed. If you apply pressure in the middle of an iron, the middle will become well burnished and the edge won't get much honing. If you forgo the rulertrick, think of the term directed pressure
* most people use a very fine stone with the ruler trick (if you don't, you'll get a wire edge. If you're working the back, you can use a coarser stone with directed pressure to speed things up (fingers at the tip, first heavy pressure for 10 seconds, then lighter)
* The first rule of sharpening is completing the job (at least that's my opinion). All of the potential in the world doesn't matter if it comes up short at the tip. 


OK, so here's a picture illustration of pressure. Washita, flat back:

Heavy pressure for ten seconds with finger pressure at the tip (notice, the wear stripe is gone, but the surface looks pretty coarse):





Same stone, 10 more seconds then with light pressure:





20 seconds total. How long does it take to do the ruler trick? I don't know - you can do it quickly and remove a burr, but if you're using a fine stone and doing appreciable work to remove wear, it'll take 20 seconds. 

In the case of this iron, I use a grinder and the washita on the bevel and back, and then buff the bevel side with a buffer (which is why the edge is so uniform). 

Recall this vs. the shapton 12000 without a buffer:





Am I losing anything in sharpness by doing the above and not using the ruler trick? 

I don't think so. compare the uniformity of the initial edge. 

These are the kinds of things you'll do if you sharpen several things a day or maybe several a week, but if you don't do that, then maybe it doesn't make sense to speed up the process. 

I've seen pictures of jacob's edges. They aren't close to the quality of the edges David Charlesworth produces in his instructional video.


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## D_W (14 Mar 2021)

(none of these pictures were taken to prove sharpness, they were taken as part of other studies. The nice thing about studying one thing, is that sometimes the time spent yields learning more than one thing. I took pictures of the edges of the stones themselves to make sort of a library of actual fineness of sharpening stones as there's a rumor that a washita can't create a fine edge, and some fairly drastic differences between stones that sounds like they're almost the same. 

I also wanted to bust the idea that there is something to gain by spending $360 on a shapton 30k if what you really want is fine, but you don't want to spend the money just do indulge). 

Here's an example of simlar numbered stones - refer back to the shapton cream above. 

....now, compare it to the sigma power 13k. look closely at the edge beyond just the size of the scratches. Notice how much more uniform the SP13k. 






Both of these stones are alumina, but the shapton is much faster. It's not hard to see why. The flip side of that is that using the SP13k only to remove back wear is impractically slow (the shapton can do it without issue). 

There's no free lunch. 

One other comment re: the ruler trick above. I can use the washita without stopping to flatten stones. The washita with the bevel side buffed lightly makes for a very uniform edge. It's functionally similar to the sp13k, but the washita used on bevel and back without the buffer will fall a little short. 

So, should I use the 13k instead? No, the washita method is far faster. The buffer removes just a tiny bit of scraggle at the tip and the washita doesn't cut as deeply on the back (larger surface). You can't match the buffer just stropping unless you do a lot of it - like 50-100 strokes on a strop with light compound and heavy pressure - and contaminants in a leather strop will chip/nick an edge (I'm trying to avoid doing more work, not run toward it).


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## JoshD (15 Mar 2021)

JUst to report back, following advice in this thread, instead of finishing up with stropping I switched to finishing off with the same green wax paste (comes in a solid block and you crayon it on) on wood. For wood I used birch ply as a soft-ish hardwood. I've noted the suggestion of using autosol as the polishing compound rather than the green wax and I'll give this a go when I locate the Sensible Place where I put my autosol ...

Took a bit of time because I decided to do remedial lapping grinds to clear the wear bevel from the flat sides of my blades, or at least most of it. I got to the point where flat strokes on the superfine stone remove most, but not quite all, of the burr resulting from sharpening the bevel before I got bored, and that's good enough for me to be able to clear the residual burr with entirely flat firm polishing strokes on the wood, relying on the wood yielding a tiny amount. A combo of flat strokes on the flat side and roundover strokes on the bevel got me to my target sharpness (no points of light on the edge viewed either side when angled under bright light) in pretty much the same number of strokes as I previously did on the leather. Because I'm polishing the flat side entirely flat I'd imagine this technique will keep the flat side flat much longer ... so all in all a success: thanks for the advice!

As regards what the edge angle is, I've no idea! I guess the main bevel angle is in the mid to high twenties on most of my tools, but you've got to add to this the roundover from the superfine stone (probably a couple of degrees after a big sharpen, but much more after quick sharpens) and then the roundover from the wax+ wood ...


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## Fred48 (15 Mar 2021)

I attended a sharpening course with David Charlesworth and his methods work for me. One of my favourite timber is quilted maple. Using A2 irons and sharpening on waterstones with a Veritas honing honing guide and the 'ruler trick' gives me a very sharp blade and very smooth finish on the wood.


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## Jorny (15 Mar 2021)

D_W said:


> Picture in post 35 (page 2 of this thread) illustrates just how fine something like autosol will be off of wood (above that is iron, corian is similar to that - too hard).
> 
> If you use something like that - wood has a bit of give, but less than leather. It is, however, plenty to make the abrasive softer but crisp cutting - the edge is spectacular and if the wood gets out of shape, you can plane it back to flat, scrape it or replace it.
> 
> ...



I did a four day course with Jögge Sundqvist last year, and as a part of that he did a quick primer primer on sharpening tools. One of his tips was to always have a tube of autosol nearby and use scrap pieces of wood to strop tools. 

I don't have a buffer wheel, but I have autosol and scrap wood/MDF/plywood. Could this sharpening technique be replicated with autosol on a flat piece of wood?


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## Jacob (15 Mar 2021)

Jorny said:


> I did a four day course with Jögge Sundqvist last year, and as a part of that he did a quick primer primer on sharpening tools. One of his tips was to always have a tube of autosol nearby and use scrap pieces of wood to strop tools.
> 
> I don't have a buffer wheel, but I have autosol and scrap wood/MDF/plywood. Could this sharpening technique be replicated with autosol on a flat piece of wood?


Yes. Or on leather. Or on a slow spinning ply or mdf disc on the lathe for me. Spread the Autosol thin so it doesn't spin off and keep picking it up, putting it back, with a palette knife.
Come to think - the palette knife is essential! Buy a proper artists' job with a bendy off-set blade. You can buy them in little sets of different shapes - they are handy for glue as well.
PS - also shape the edge of the disc for polishing inside gouges


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## D_W (15 Mar 2021)

Jorny said:


> I did a four day course with Jögge Sundqvist last year, and as a part of that he did a quick primer primer on sharpening tools. One of his tips was to always have a tube of autosol nearby and use scrap pieces of wood to strop tools.
> 
> I don't have a buffer wheel, but I have autosol and scrap wood/MDF/plywood. Could this sharpening technique be replicated with autosol on a flat piece of wood?



Yes - better to do it with wood than with a leather strop (it'll be faster). 

For years, I had a very slow fine final stone that I did this with to stave off edge failure, just rounding the very tip of the chisel. The only virtue of the buffer is that it's so fine and even cutting, there's no pressure spot, but autosol on wood is great. 

If you're not experiencing any edge failure on something like a carving tool, though, you may want to keep it minimal so you don't have to chase it out. For chisels that you pare or mallet with, though, it's wonderful.


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## Jorny (15 Mar 2021)

D_W said:


> Yes - better to do it with wood than with a leather strop (it'll be faster).
> 
> For years, I had a very slow fine final stone that I did this with to stave off edge failure, just rounding the very tip of the chisel. The only virtue of the buffer is that it's so fine and even cutting, there's no pressure spot, but autosol on wood is great.
> 
> If you're not experiencing any edge failure on something like a carving tool, though, you may want to keep it minimal so you don't have to chase it out. For chisels that you pare or mallet with, though, it's wonderful.



I'll try it out on some chisels! To my mind the concept makes so much sense, especially when chopping through pine and old growth spruce and you encounter a knot... If i like it I might even get a very cheap bench grinder and put on a buffing wheel. Any preferences for rpms? Would something with around 3000 rpm:s work for this? I would probably only use if for buffing, already have an old tormek for sharpening knives, axes and gouges. The water is very handy for checking the bevel when freehand sharpening.


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## Jacob (15 Mar 2021)

D_W said:


> .......If you're not experiencing any edge failure on something like a carving tool, though, you may want to keep it minimal so you don't have to chase it out. ....


Translating the above incoherent sharpening jargon; "if it isn't blunt don't sharpen it" 
Hope that helps.


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## D_W (15 Mar 2021)

Jacob said:


> Translating the above incoherent sharpening jargon; "if it isn't blunt don't sharpen it"
> Hope that helps.



Grow up, Jacob. So far, your advice has been "sharpen it dull, use it dull".


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## scooby (15 Mar 2021)

Jorny said:


> I did a four day course with Jögge Sundqvist last year, and as a part of that he did a quick primer primer on sharpening tools. One of his tips was to always have a tube of autosol nearby and use scrap pieces of wood to strop tools.
> 
> I don't have a buffer wheel, but I have autosol and scrap wood/MDF/plywood. Could this sharpening technique be replicated with autosol on a flat piece of wood?



I've tried jewellers rouge and green compound on leather (not the same piece ) and Autosol (or equivalent) on mdf. The autosol method works better for me.

Theres some many contrasting opinions with regards to leather. Hard pressure, light pressure, 30 times this side, 30 times on the other side, etc.
In my experience, hard pressure on leather results in an obvious rounded edge that was sharper before it touched the strop.

A bit of autosol (or equivalent) on mdf/timber, 3-4 light passes and on the bevel, a few on the flat side and that's good enough for me.


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## D_W (15 Mar 2021)

Thanks for the independent comment, scooby. I found the same, thus the recommendation. if abrasive is being used, it's honing. If one is going to hone, might as well keep it crisp and do it faster. 

Bare leather is wonderful for a strop where the objective is to remove the wire edge or any straggling burr without changing what's there at the edge other than burr removal. It (leather) doesn't do much abrading on its own unless it's dirty.


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## Jorny (15 Mar 2021)

Probably sloppy english terminology from my part. What I usually do is that I take few swift passes with the carving knife or gouge on the wood with autosol to refresh the edge, or if needed a few quick passes on a small diamond sharpener. 
I really like that I can use the same simple set up with autosol and a piece of scrap to try this unicorn method. It just makes so much sense, especially with all the spruce and pine I am chopping through right now (renovating my 1950's house).


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## D_W (15 Mar 2021)

The only real change over time to what you're doing is that you'll do work on the bevel with the diamond hone and only on the tip with the autosol. 

There was a lot of bad info when I first started about how having only a few thousandths of bright polish would affect the results or edge life or whatever - it doesn't. As long as the deep scratches from the prior stone don't make it to the edge, there will be no problems. It's very effective and lazy. Which is nice. 

And it's cheap and usable on everything -cuts off the need for some "fast and fine" stone, which is the draw where beginners get sucked in believing there will be something that leaves a 1 micron edge and cuts like a 10 micron abrasive.


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## JohnCee (16 Mar 2021)

JohnPW said:


> Is there any difference when sharpening chisels for hand pushed paring and plane irons?
> 
> And also how would Veritas 01 and PMV11 block plane irons compare for planing ebony? Would PMV11 stay sharp longer? It's not for surface finishing, it's going to be sanded, the iron only needs to be sharp enough for a clean cut.


In my work, I find that planing ebony is where PMV-11 really comes into its own. It stays "sharp enough" much longer than O1. And to cleanly plane the horrible curly grain stuff that's often passed off as "AAA" grade fingerboards these days, "sharp enough" means "pretty damn sharp" ...


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