A couple of advice questions really.

[Mutley Racers]

Sharpening, do people use honing guides or is this throwned upon for the experienced wood worker? I am a beginner mind you and I am mainly referring to chisels.

Jigs, mainly dove tail jigs. Would people recommend them and if so, which ones. Magnetic? Is Veritas the best?

I did read a post some where on here which stated that there are loads and loads of posts on Sharpening but I do not know how to search on here so forgive me.

Regards Lee

 

[MikeG.]

Sharpening, do people use honing guides or is this throwned upon for the experienced wood worker? I am a beginner mind you and I am mainly referring to chisels.

Ask 3 woodworkers and you'll get 4 different answers. I suggest for a beginner that you use a jig initially, until you gain some confidence. I use a jig every so often for restoration of the correct angles, but sharpen by hand most of the time.

Jigs, mainly dove tail jigs. Would people recommend them and if so, which ones. Magnetic? Is Veritas the best?

No. Just no. Dovetails can be cut at any old angle. The tails don't even need an angle marking, nor do they have to be at the same angle even on the same piece unless you are making a show piece in contrasting timbers. Just cut them by eye. Otherwise, use a bevel gauge. Honestly, the dovetail jig idea is one of the most outrageous bits of marketing in my lifetime. Goodness knows how so many people have fallen for it.

 

[AJB Temple]

Who cares if people frown? if it's sharp enough for you, it's good enough and the means is irrelevant.

I use a dovetail jig. It's a bit of plastic cut to replicate angles for marking out. I think it came free with a magazine. I could use my adjustable square thing, but the piece of plastic has provided excellent service for about 2 decades. Agree with Mike. Keep it simple and cheap. Dovetails are easy and quick once you can use a saw and chisel. Some use a marking knife. I usually just use a pencil. Basic and easy manual skill to pick up.

If I am doing lots I might use the router. Normally I am faster and better by hand. So will you be too when you practice for a while.

 

[nev]

How to search for something:

Click the magnifying glass icon in the top menu bar

then select 'Advanced search'

Enter your terms to search for e.g. honing guide

if desired Fine tune with the other options

Go to bottom of page and click search

click on any result to go to full post.

 

[thetyreman]

I use a dovetail jig but not the metal magnetic type, it's a block of wood with a 1:7 pitch and it comes in as a handy square like the one in the first pic on this blog https://paulsellers.com/2019/06/george-said/

I use the block of wood (dovetail template) just for marking out, then from there on it's pretty fast cutting the pins first,

if you use the magnetic or clamp on and saw type jigs you may as well throw it through a machine, it's not going to improve your sawing skills because it's impossible to make a mistake, mistakes are very important to learning.

 

[Mutley Racers]

Hi all and thank you so much for all your great advice.

A honing guide it is then. Would anyone recommend a good one to start out with. I have the marples chiselnset and see they do a honing guide so thought I would go for them.

I get what you mean, the angle and shape etc isn't important as long as it fits together neatly. Never thought about it that way before. Will try setting my own up. Tried it watching Paul sellers Christmas box and it turned out pretty bad on plywood.

I do want to be able to cut well by hand and with chisels but with 3 kids, crazy at work and a house for a project I would like to learn to machine these joints for quickness and neatness as well until life does calm down a bit. If it ever does with 3 kids.

Can you actually have a hobby as a wood worker with 3 kids before they leave school? Mine are 4,2 and 8 months!

Can anyone recommend saws for cutting, if I could get away with not paying £70 for a saw it would be good.

Thank you for the search link. I always thought that search bar was to search the whole of Google for some reason.

Thank you all again.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Having young children is good - the mother of invention is necessity, in this case toys. My daughter's most played with toys were a doll's cot made of ply offcuts and a blackboard and easle made from a piece of used ply, a load of salvaged 2"x 1" and a piece of plastic conduit for the chalk tray. Between two children it was used regularly for thirteen years.

 

[MikeG.]

........Can anyone recommend saws for cutting, if I could get away with not paying £70 for a saw it would be good...........

If you can hang on for a week or 3 I'll send you one gratis. I have been buying kit for my son in law, and have a few more tenon saws now than I wanted/ needed (I won some auctions I didn't expect to). However, they all need some work, and they won't get done immediately. Remind me towards the end of the month if I haven't remembered*. None of them cost more than £4.

As for "machines for quickness"........... Unless you are making multiple joints, you will be quicker by hand. Seriously. It takes a good while to set machines up accurately, but you get that time back if you are making multiple copies of the same thing. If you are just making, say, a box or a drawer, you'll beat a machine doing it by hand.

I'd say to any beginner......start with simple basic tools and learn to use them well. Once you run into their limitations, then get the next bit of kit, but kit doesn't replace skill. Learn the skills first.

*Seriously. I have so much on the go that I forget stuff.

 

[transatlantic]

A lot of negativity towards the sawing guides

So is a shooting board outrageous too? I mean it's not going to improve your sawing skills, so you may as well just use a mitre saw ... :roll: :roll:

 

[LancsRick]

A vote here for the veritas mk2 honing guide. Not the cheapest, not the most expensive, but will see you right for any long rectangular blade.

If you can score a flat piece of marble from somewhere (worktop offcut or mantelpiece) then with some bits of sandpaper you have all you'll ever need for flat chisels or planes.

 

[thetyreman]

A lot of negativity towards the sawing guides

So is a shooting board outrageous too? I mean it's not going to improve your sawing skills, so you may as well just use a mitre saw ... :roll: :roll:

then come up with a better solution ffs, you're an IT guy so you should be a genius, all you do is moan and criticise other peoples suggestions. lol

 

[MikeG.]

......So is a shooting board outrageous too? I mean it's not going to improve your sawing skills, so you may as well just use a mitre saw ... :roll: :roll:

Are you deliberately missing the point so that you can invent an excuse to whinge about someone's post, yet again? Or was the point (about the redundancy of having a fixed angle guide for a joint which a/ doesn't require a fixed angle and b/ can be set out with a bevel gauge anyway) really lost on you? Your unremittingly negative and hostile posts become quite wearisome in the end.

 

[Ttrees]

It's probably a good idea to buy an eclipse style honing jig for a fiver, to get that knowledge of what sharp is, and get a visual memory of the correct angle, which will help down the road.
For me, one of the most annoying things about them, is you can't set your plane iron, or a wide chisel to the same stop block or line as before, because the secondary bevel gets larger every time
you sharpen.
If you persist to use the same setting, this will eventually lead to having to spend an awfully long time to sharpen your tool.
You need a really fast easy way of grinding your primary bevel, so a bench grinder will be a priority tool to have regardless if you choose freehand sharpening or jigs.


About the dovetail guides
If you think you have a specific reason for needing one then you can justify it, I suppose.
If you don't, then there's so many other things you probably should be buying instead.
There was an essential tool kit thread here not so long ago, you will more than likely find a far far more useful tool than one of these jigs.

Did you think about making a similar thing from wood, Sellers has made a video about it.

Tom

 

[Fitzroy]

I use the veritas mk2 also when resetting angles/bevels after my hand sharpening has put the out of square/true. It’s a nice piece of kit.

Fitz.

 

[thetyreman]

I use the veritas mk2 also when resetting angles/bevels after my hand sharpening has put the out of square/true. It’s a nice piece of kit.

Fitz.

+1 I also use it, great honing guide very well made/engineered.

 

[Honest John]

+1 for the Veritas Mk 2. I sharpen by hand without issue, it’s not as difficult as some seem to want o make it, but I use the jig every now and then as required to square everything up and restore my bevels. That then makes my hand honing easier. If you take pleasure from what you do in your workspace then it’s worth doing.

 

[Mutley Racers]

Having young children is good - the mother of invention is necessity, in this case toys. My daughter's most played with toys were a doll's cot made of ply offcuts and a blackboard and easle made from a piece of used ply, a load of salvaged 2"x 1" and a piece of plastic conduit for the chalk tray. Between two children it was used regularly for thirteen years.

I am excited to get into making toys and gifts for people with my hobby. I have lots and lots and lots and lots and lots (you get the picture) of ply off cuts so a use for them would be great.

I am not sure why but on this thread I started the LIKE symbol has gone but I can see someone has LIKED a post?

 

[Mutley Racers]

........Can anyone recommend saws for cutting, if I could get away with not paying £70 for a saw it would be good...........

If you can hang on for a week or 3 I'll send you one gratis. I have been buying kit for my son in law, and have a few more tenon saws now than I wanted/ needed (I won some auctions I didn't expect to). However, they all need some work, and they won't get done immediately. Remind me towards the end of the month if I haven't remembered*. None of them cost more than £4.

As for "machines for quickness"........... Unless you are making multiple joints, you will be quicker by hand. Seriously. It takes a good while to set machines up accurately, but you get that time back if you are making multiple copies of the same thing. If you are just making, say, a box or a drawer, you'll beat a machine doing it by hand.

I'd say to any beginner......start with simple basic tools and learn to use them well. Once you run into their limitations, then get the next bit of kit, but kit doesn't replace skill. Learn the skills first.

*Seriously. I have so much on the go that I forget stuff.

Wow, thank you Mike. This is very generous of you! I can wait no problem. I don't mind giving you a few quid for it though and paying the postage.

I have been watching the Paul sellers videos and enjoy them so trying to do as much hand work as possible. I do love power tools as well though!!

 

[Mutley Racers]

Before everyone recommend the veritas guide I had purchased the marples honing guide and stone. It was 15 quid. It only does chisels though. I see the veritas you have the option to do wider blades like plane blades but this with the chisels is over 100 quid. Quite expensive but I guess you get what you pay for.

Thank you all for your comments. It really is very much appreciated.

Oh, and I shall look out for the tool list on here someone suggested.

 

[BigMonka]

Before everyone recommend the veritas guide I had purchased the marples honing guide and stone. It was 15 quid. It only does chisels though. I see the veritas you have the option to do wider blades like plane blades but this with the chisels is over 100 quid. Quite expensive but I guess you get what you pay for.

Thank you all for your comments. It really is very much appreciated.

Oh, and I shall look out for the tool list on here someone suggested.

I think that the marples honing guide is just a standard "eclipse" pattern guide, so should be able to do plane blades too - unless they've unnecessarily put in a short screw?