# Honing Guide and Squareness



## Saint Simon (20 Jul 2009)

I have been happily honing away with my Veritas Guide mk11 without too much worry about squareness of the sharpened blade until I recently bought a large shoulder plane. With this, despite repeatedly checking the setting of the blade against the guide, I am repeatedly sharpening in enough out-of-squareness to make setting it correctly in the plane almost impossible. Does anyone have any experience of this and any advice to resolve this problem?


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## marcus (20 Jul 2009)

If you grind the blade properly square before honing then you should only need to hone a tiny amount to get it sharp - not really enough to put it out of square unless you are putting way too much pressure on one side of the blade. 

If the blade is, as it should be, truly square after grinding, then make sure that you are not putting more pressure on one side of the blade than the other during honing.

Cheers,

Marcus


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## bodgermatic (20 Jul 2009)

I'm only a sharpening newbie, but the advice I have read (and it bears out in my brief experience) is that the honing guide is responsible for bevel angle, you are responsible for squareness. I regularly stop and check the grind and hone for square, and then apply more pressure to one side or the other as required.


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## Paul Chapman (20 Jul 2009)

With odd-shaped blades, I think you need to make up a wooden setting block rather than using the metal blade projection jig that comes with the honing guide for setting the blade projection. I made up one to hone the blade of a Veritas skew rebate like this 







The front face of the honing guide registers with the edge of the setting block. Insert the blade so that it rests level with the edge of the block, like this






That way, the edge of the blade will always be parallel with the roller and the edge will stay square. You will, of course, need to get your present blade square first.

Hope this helps.

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## bugbear (20 Jul 2009)

Saint Simon":f9a4bnk4 said:


> I have been happily honing away with my Veritas Guide mk11 without too much worry about squareness of the sharpened blade until I recently bought a large shoulder plane. With this, despite repeatedly checking the setting of the blade against the guide, I am repeatedly sharpening in enough out-of-squareness to make setting it correctly in the plane almost impossible. Does anyone have any experience of this and any advice to resolve this problem?



Is the blade "not square" or does the blade not "fit the plane"?

In planes with low bedding angles, the tiniest side-to-side angle in the bedding results in the blade need some skew in order to project uniformly.

I encountered this having sharpened a blade square to very fine limits when restoring a rebate plane. The blade projection was a county mile away from parallel, and I had to "empirically" rework the blade until the blade projection was parallel. 

BugBear


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## Saint Simon (20 Jul 2009)

The blade is sharpening not square. The cutting edge comes up not square to the side. Putting aside the projection jig and making my own to set the blade more accurately square to the roller sounds good but as you say I will have to get it square again first. Thanks.


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## Pete Hughes (20 Jul 2009)

Hello Paul, how did you get pictures on this forum???


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## Paul Chapman (20 Jul 2009)

Pete Hughes":1jmnm4v7 said:


> Hello Paul, how did you get pictures on this forum???



You need you host your pictures somewhere and then it's easy to copy them to the forum. I use Photobucket http://photobucket.com/?link=topmenu

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## woodbloke (20 Jul 2009)

Paul Chapman":3tajh9ch said:


> Pete Hughes":3tajh9ch said:
> 
> 
> > Hello Paul, how did you get pictures on this forum???
> ...


Once you've copied them into PBucket, right click on the lowest url (img) to copy it and then paste it into your reply. I always use 'Paint' to reduce the image size to 25% before download it into PB - Rob


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## Paul Chapman (20 Jul 2009)

woodbloke":2285m3zr said:


> I always use 'Paint' to reduce the image size to 25% before download it into PB



Or you can re-size them in Photobucket - I reduce mine to 640 x480 (I think :? ).

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## woodbloke (20 Jul 2009)

Paul Chapman":233yx49n said:


> woodbloke":233yx49n said:
> 
> 
> > I always use 'Paint' to reduce the image size to 25% before download it into PB
> ...


Paul - it then takes a *lot* longer to load up the original image. If you make it smaller (by 25% or so) re-name it (I usually call my pics small1, small2 etc) you can download them into PBucket from My Pictures far more quickly - Rob


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## Paul Chapman (20 Jul 2009)

Thanks, Rob - I'll try that.

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## Handrubbed (20 Jul 2009)

With the MkII jig it is not so much a matter of getting the blade square initially as it is keeping it square during the honing process. This is true primarily with any blade or chisel that falls into the narrow category. The clamping pressure on the jig is so far outboard that there is insufficient grip over the blade to keep it in position. For the shoulder plane or narrow chisels a side-clamping jig would be the ticket.


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## Paul Chapman (20 Jul 2009)

Handrubbed":1resn9yo said:


> For the shoulder plane or narrow chisels a side-clamping jig would be the ticket.



Or you can use the Veritas Mk1, which clamps from the top with a single screw, so is quite good for shoulder plane blades






It has the adjustable roller, like the one on the Mk2, so you can add a 1 or 2 degree micro-bevel.

You can never have too many honing guides  

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## Steve Maskery (20 Jul 2009)

It's very easy with te Veritas MkII, despite the setting gauge, to set the blade incorrectly, simply by applying clamping pressure more on one screw than the other. It's a weakness in an otherwise excellent design. The thing to do is grind to an edge then hone just a couple of strokes. It's enough to see if you getting into trouble or not.

TBH, except for high-angle blades, I've gone back to sharpening by hand. It's like riding a bike, you never forget, just get a bit rusty.

Cheers
Steve


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## matthewwh (22 Jul 2009)

FatFreddysCat":1h1p7d5o said:


> There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell for a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only, are this man's lawful prey.



...and for everyone else, there's Richard Kell !!!

(sorry)

Seriously though, a guide that registers against the back of the blade to give the correct angle, clamps the blade from the sides, and has rollers that are 'outboard' of the blade cannot fail to produce a square edge*. 

With only three simple principles to follow I'm constantly amazed at the number of products that only satisfy one or two of them.

Cheers,


Matthew

*assuming that the sharpening media is flat and the blade sides are parallel.


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## DaveL (23 Jul 2009)

matthewwh":21dwaqo9 said:


> *assuming that the sharpening media is flat and the blade sides are parallel.


Matthew,
These one of these assumptions causes lots of problems, I am thinking of old woodie irons that where often tapered, making it tricky to set them up in a jig. Paul shows a good jig setting guide, but if you already have a skewed edge, correcting it is hard.


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## woodbloke (23 Jul 2009)

matthewwh":2rpkq4nr said:


> ...and for everyone else, there's Richard Kell !!!
> 
> Seriously though, a guide that registers against the back of the blade to give the correct angle, clamps the blade from the sides, and has rollers that are 'outboard' of the blade cannot fail to produce a square edge*.
> 
> ...


Just to go slightly OT a bit Matthew. I know you're a big fan of Richard Kell's guides, and I have to concede that they are beautifully engineered, but they simply don't work on a standard width stone that's raised off the working surface (ie DMT) without installing some kind of parallel outboard runner arrangement for the rollers. I did try a couple of Steve Hamlin's guides last year, but for my sharpening set up, they were just not practical.
That said, if you sharpen using the 'scary sharp' system then the Kell series of guides is ideal - Rob


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## bugbear (23 Jul 2009)

There's a presumption here that an accurately straight edge is a design goal.

I'm not so sure about that.

In the case of chisels and bench plane irons, it doesn't matter, as long as you're within "reason", since chisels are used by hand, and bench planes have lateral adjustment.

In the case of low bevel angle planes, it requires extreme machining precision to get the bed such that a straight across edge gives parallel projection. In some shoulder planes without any (significant) lateral adjustment, the only way to make them work is with an accurately skewed blade.

BugBear


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## Paul Chapman (23 Jul 2009)

bugbear":1db3hkmy said:


> There's a presumption here that an accurately straight edge is a design goal.
> 
> I'm not so sure about that.



It depends what planes you are using, BB. On most shoulder planes there is very little lateral adjustment possible and with combination and multi-planes, none at all, so the ability of a honing guide to give you a dead sqare edge can be important. I'm finding that Trend guide particularly good for combination and multi-plane blades, as well as chisels.

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## bugbear (23 Jul 2009)

Paul Chapman":ngqizgy6 said:


> bugbear":ngqizgy6 said:
> 
> 
> > There's a presumption here that an accurately straight edge is a design goal.
> ...



Err. I know. 

That's why I gave examples, with detailed reasoning.

BugBear


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## Paul Chapman (23 Jul 2009)

bugbear":14ej69du said:


> Err. I know.



Err. I know you know :wink: Just thought it would be helpful to give some examples of where a straight, right angle edge is important.

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## mickthetree (23 Jul 2009)

To the OP I have the MKII guide and I cannot fail to get a skewed blade every time I use it to regrind a bevel (using abrasve on float glass). 

I set it using the supplied guide and it even looks out of square to my eye. After grinding I check it and its not square, put the guide back on and it says its fine!!

So I'm obviously doing something wrong, but it doesnt seem to be the blade moving. Something more fundamental than that.

I also find that it holds a wide plane blade so flat that I cannot get a radius on the bevel even when applying more pressure to one side, so I've gone back to using my cheap wickes guide (with the narrow wheel in the middle) which does just the job I'm after.

Hope you get it resolved.


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## matthewwh (23 Jul 2009)

Dave, 

A valid point, but blades made in the last 120 years are almost certainly going to have parallel sides. At what point should we accept that things have moved on? I would even venture to suggest that mastering the contemporary honing method, freehand, is another enjoyable part of the experience of owning and using antique tools. 

If you do want to use a honing guide with such blades I would reccommend filing the jaws of an eclipse type guide to suit the taper in width and thickness of the iron and adding referance plates to the top (so that the guide is regisering from the back) as recommended by David Charlesworth.

Rob,

Again I take your point, but if the nominal effort requred to screw two accurately planed pieces of wood to a board yields a system that will deliver fast, accurate, repeatable results almost indefinitely, it is surely time well invested. 

Bugbear,

Squareness is not necessarily a goal, but more of a key. Once your guide and blade together are producing square results you can adjust the whole assembly by shimming to produce accurate, repeatable skews and cambers to your hearts content.


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## woodbloke (23 Jul 2009)

matthewwh":2uc63qwi said:


> Rob,
> 
> Again I take your point, but if the nominal effort requred to screw two accurately planed pieces of wood to a board yields a system that will deliver fast, accurate, repeatable results almost indefinitely, it is surely time well invested.


Agreed...may have to have a re-thunk :-k - Rob


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## bugbear (23 Jul 2009)

Paul Chapman":2komliyv said:


> bugbear":2komliyv said:
> 
> 
> > Err. I know.
> ...



Sorry - I thought you were contradicting (with a *narrow* sample!), as opposed to widening the scope with *additional* samples.

Now back to your usual program 

BugBear


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## Benchwayze (24 Jul 2009)

Of course you will know if the blade isn't square across its width, as you'll have checked it. 

But sometimes when you have to move the lateral adjuster on your plane more than a fraction, to get the blade square in the mouth, it could be the frog isn't square to the mouth. 

This could be due to sloppy adjustment of the frog, or it could be inaccurate machining of the frog or bed. 

HTH. 
John


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## ivan (24 Jul 2009)

I have several LN blades that do not have // sides. Presumably this is a result of polishing the edges - looks nice but not always helpful. Judicious bit of grinding needed for LV Mk2 (which I like) setting guide to work.


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## studders (1 Aug 2009)

FatFreddysCat":f980froo said:


> Of course for the more basic approach there's always something like this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Not sure where to put the blade. Any pointers?


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## Doctor (1 Aug 2009)

studders":148ahd3b said:


> FatFreddysCat":148ahd3b said:
> 
> 
> > Of course for the more basic approach there's always something like this:
> ...



I've got a pointer after seeing that honing jig :lol: :lol:


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## BradNaylor (1 Aug 2009)

I just blurted a mouthful of Black Sheep all over my keyboard!

:lol: :lol: :lol: 

Brad


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## Screw Loose (1 Aug 2009)

That saddle must be razor sharp


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## BradNaylor (2 Aug 2009)

To paraphrase Prince Charles;

When I die I want to come back as that saddle!

:lol: 

Brad


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