Beginners chisel sharpening help

[adt]

Hi,

I’ve recently been buying up some older hand tools from eBay as a first proper set For me to use. I’ve picked up some footprint chisels as part of this which are mostly in good nick but there are a few in there that either have chipped tips or have been very badly ground in the past. So, whilst I’m happy putting an edge back on most of these with my water stones, I’m not sure that this would be the best option for grinding away large amounts of material to get a good bevel back on the rest of them.

So, can anyone recommend a good (ideally cheep) way for me to do this? Would a few sheets of wet and dry paper, on a flat surface, be my best bet or should I start looking about to see if I know anyone with a grinder I could have ago on? Alternatively, Feel free to tell me if this is something that can be done using the water stones without getting their surface too far off flat.

 

[Trevanion]

You're going to have about 600 different answers to this question as sharpening seems to be the most hotly debated topic on this forum.

Personally, if I was using what you probably have on hand I would just rough in the bevel on a bit of sandpaper to get rid of the chips without touching the back of the chisel and then revert to using the waterstones to refine the bevel and flatten off the back properly.

 

[AndyT]

As with so many tool related questions, there are different options, each with a different mix of initial cost, ongoing cost, time, effort and skill required.

Coarse abrasive on a flattish surface would work and be cheap.

There are many other options if you want to spend money or save time/effort.

 

[woodbloke66]

As with so many tool related questions, there are different options, each with a different mix of initial cost, ongoing cost, time, effort and skill required.

Coarse abrasive on a flattish surface would work and be cheap.

There are many other options if you want to spend money or save time/effort.

Agreed, loads of different ways of doing this sort of thing. For coarse abrasives, I'd suggest wet n'dry paper(s) starting off with say 100g which could be stuck down with spray mount adhesive to a piece of 6mm glass. Using a simple honing guide would enable you to maintain and replicate a bevel, which ought to be around 25deg. This is probably the most economical method, but it won't be the quickest - Rob

 

[Just4Fun]

For coarse abrasives, I'd suggest wet n'dry paper(s) starting off with say 100g ..... This is probably the most economical method, but it won't be the quickest - Rob

That would be slower than a grinder or similar but I would not expect it to take significantly longer than any other non-mechanised method.
I have just done this with an old chisel that had a serious nick where I guess someone hit a nail with it. I started with 80 grit and it didn't take too long to eliminate the nick.

 

[Andy Kev.]

Four replies in and it's still civil? Good Lord!

Where's Jacob when you need him?

 

[adt]

Thanks everyone, I think I’ll be giving this one a go tonight with the 180 grit paper I know I have somewhere in the cellar. If it’s all a bit slow I can always splash out on something a little corser at the weekend.

 

[MikeG.]

If you've got a lot to remove, then 180 grit isn't coarse enough. I'd start with 120 grit, or even 100......and for the primary bevel, I wouldn't bother with gluing the paper down. Just trap it under the edges of a suitably sized piece of MDF, or staple it if you prefer. Personally, if it was in pretty poor nick I'd be taking it to the grindwheel first.......then the coarse paper........then to something like 180 grit. If you use a grindwheel, then have a jar of water with you, and dip the end of the chisel in it every so often to prevent it getting too hot.

 

[Lons]

Four replies in and it's still civil? Good Lord!

Where's Jacob when you need him?

He's OK, a bit busy packing up his "toolbox, underpants and toothbrush" and "effin off" to Europe. :lol:

 

[custard]

I'd also recommend going the abrasive paper route.

I don't have photos of doing this on a chisel, but I did it on a plane iron which is the same principle.

Here's a plane iron with pitting, if you're hoping to have a quality tool then you'll have to remove those pits,

Don't underestimate how big a job it is to manually remove significant amounts of hardened steel by hand. You should do everything possible to make things easier on yourself, in the case of this plane iron that meant using double sided tape to attach a little "handle", for the bevel of your chisel it might mean using a cheap honing guide like the Eclipse.

The arrangement I use is to stretch a belt of 80 grit paper over a flat sheet of float glass which in turn was supported on a piece of MDF. The abrasive paper wasn't glued, it was clamped in place. If you stretch the paper really tight you'll be able to both push and pull to remove metal from the bevel on your chisel, if you can do that without tearing the paper then you'll have virtually doubled the efficiency of the process.

This is a long job, which is why you want to use a coarse grit in the range 80-120. Faff around with something like 320 grit and you'll lose the will to live! After many, many strokes you can see there's progress, but still not there, and you'll find it's removing that last little bit of pitting or edge chipping that takes most of the time!

Persevere and eventually you'll get there,

Only after all the metal removal has been done and the problem has been fixed, should you think about moving on to finer and finer grits.

I'll emphasise that on wider chisels with deeper chips this is a major undertaking if you don't have a power grinder. Doing the job by hand might take you the best part of an hour or longer, and leave your fingers pretty sore and cramped! The real lesson is to be selective about choosing used tools in the first place! I only did all this work on this plane iron because it was an old and relatively rare laminated Record iron. If it had been a run of the mill Record plane iron with pitting then I'd have left it for some one else to buy, the bottom line is that in most cases it's just not worth the hard graft of fettling.

Good luck!

 

[D_W]

I've done a fair bit of tool making and tool restoring. For what you're doing, I use a glass run like custard shows, and 80 grit PSA stick down paper (4" roll here in the states, anything decent quality - not junk, but it doesn't have to be a specific brand) and aluminum oxide paper rather than silicon carbide. SC wet and dry fractures easily, and you don't want that in this case. You want the toughest paper you can find, because no paper fares well under slow speed and high pressure (which is what you're doing).

I keep two rolls - 80 and 220 grit. You can go from 220 or from dull 80 grit paper directly to a 1000 grit stone.

That's it, period. No coarse diamond plates for tool steel and this kind of work, save them for something else.

Narrower chisels, you can hold flat and work on a diagonal that is mostly in the direction of a chisel's length.

Plan irons, I put in a holder made out of a piece of scrap pine, so that I can lean on the tool and not get my fingers burned by the heat generated (there will be plenty of heat, even doing manual work - if you're doing several chisels, get them all out at once and work on one until it gets hot, pick up another, rinse, repeat until all of them are flat enough to go to the stones).

PSA paper stuck down properly with adhesive is necessary to avoid dubbing and not create a bunch of follow up work on the stones.

The very first new plane iron I prepared on a king stone took 45 minutes (I followed the process in a well known video, it worked, but was suitable only for tools in good shape). The last set of mifer chisels that I prepared (which were new, but not remotely close to flat) took 25 minutes for all of them.

For glass, you can go to a glass shop and ask if they have pre-cut pieces 10 or 15mm thick for cabinet shelves. If they do, they're usually cheap (a piece 8x42 inches here was $20).

 

[ED65]

...there are a few in there that either have chipped tips or have been very badly ground in the past.

This is your key issue and I think it determines the route you should take.

With old tools, any pitting from heavy rust will take some concentrated effort – proper pits, not a sort of 'speckling' from surface rust that will come out naturally during any normal sharpening procedures – but anyone who has had to re-shape an edge with a chip or with rounded edges or corners entirely by hand (been there, bought the T-shirt) will advise you to use a grinder, unless you want to do it manually to say that you've done it entirely by hand as I've just done, or because you're just that masochistic

In case you don't know the routine is you grind the end square and flat, then do the bevel. Even if you're doing it manually this is the way to approach it.

If you buy or get access to a grinder it's also the best way to recreate the bevel. Although it is entirely possible to do primary bevel shaping in a reasonable amount of time on a quality coarse abrasive paper/cloth, a Norton Crystolon or on a properly coarse diamond plate (150# or lower), it's not nearly as punishing on your fingers with even a cheap grinder. And usually, but not always, faster.

Now pitting, if you do happen to have any serious pits bear in mind you only need to deal with them if they're right at the edge. If they're even half a millimetre from the cutting edge you can ignore them for now, and your normal honing will slowly reduce their severity and may remove them entirely by the time you've shortened the chisel by 0.5mm. If you did want to tackle them now though I recommend a coarse diamond plate for doing the job on a budget and in a small space, again 150 grit at least. It'll cost you less than a fiver from a seller in China on eBay or AliExpress. Even the cheap plates seem to last and last, and it will eat steel of any hardness.

If you have the space for a long run on abrasive paper I highly recommend you check out this video from user D_W, where he shows his setup for flattening the backs of plane irons. It's titled The Best Way to Flatten Plane Irons and I don't think that's an exaggeration!

 

[ED65]

You're going to have about 600 different answers to this question as sharpening seems to be the most hotly debated topic on this forum.

Yeah but that's 10 actual answers and then 590 posts arguing the point :mrgreen:

 

[Jacob]

....no paper fares well under slow speed and high pressure (which is what you're doing)..... paper stuck down properly with adhesive is necessary to avoid dubbing and not create a bunch of follow up work on the stones. 

It works OK with cheapest paper-backed wet n dry well wetted down to a flat surface. I use white spirit and my planer bed. The paper lies very flat once it's flooded and soaked, more so if you've kept it flat between boards when you stored it. 80 grit for wet grinding, then straight to fine side of oil stone.
But for a chisel I'd just use the coarse side of a two sided oil stone. Has to be freehand - you can't get the speed and pressure with a jig. Has to be kept very wet and cleaned often. Surprisingly quick once you get going and put some force behind it. Keep it slightly below 30º - doesn't matter if it gets a bit rounded as long as you don't exceed just below 30º at the edge.
Then hone at 30º as near as you can guess.
I wouldn't go to much trouble to take out pits and nicks unless they are seriously going to affect the work, which is rarely the case.
Ignore all advice about flattening the face! Completely unnecessary, beyond the little fettle you have to do to take off the burr.
If you use power a belt sander is best, a purpose designed linisher like the Pro-edge is even better

Feel free to tell me if this is something that can be done using the water stones without getting their surface too far off flat.

Replace them with oil stones - they are cheaper, stay flatter and last very much longer (100s of times longer - they tend to last for life). If you use them carefully they never need flattening.

 

[adt]

Well, it turns out I did have some 80 grit paper in the cellar and I also found some spare 600 x 100 mm sheets of toughened glass that were left over from the new kitchen. So, the 6mm chisel with the overly generous and wonky secondary bevel was taken back to a flat primary relatively quickly. However the 25mm one with an “interesting” grind to it is still not quite there after an hour a fair few feet of fresh abrasive. I’m in two minds about going back at this one (and the others I’ve not started yet) with the same setup or looking about for a mechanised system to save my time and fingers.

If I were to get something to do this is there anything better than a bench grinder that doesn’t cost silly money?

 

[AndyT]

Again, it's up to you to pick your own compromise between first cost, running costs, capabilities and ease of use.
For occasional use to regrind a chisel and similar, I think all you need is a simple bench grinder with a coarse wheel at one end and a fine one at the other. My own one came from Wickes about 20 years ago. Unless you get into turning, you'll only need it to reshape a bevel. The properly sharp cutting edge will be maintained on your abrasive paper or honing stone. (If you try to sharpen ordinary steel tools right to the edge on an electric grinder you will almost certainly overheat the edge and spoil it.)

A quick glance at the Wickes website shows a similar model at £40. I expect you can find the same thing elsewhere for less.

 

[MikeG.]

........If I were to get something to do this is there anything better than a bench grinder that doesn’t cost silly money?

If you haven't got a bench grinder, then get one. That'll be £30+ well spent. For £50+ you can get one with a belt sander built in, and with a home-made guide you'll be making precise grinds to whatever angle you choose.

 

[Bm101]

Hi Adt.
Posting a link to these for when you have finished restoring your sharp edges via more suitable means as others have mentioned.

For maintaining and refreshing your new edges these diamond stones are excellent value for money when (quite regularly) on sale. Personally I'd go for 4 single sided stones-coarse/ medium/ fine/ very fine if you can stretch to it. And then sell the Waterstones. Personally that is. Simplify. You did ask.
These are excellent value for money long term. Even at full price you have a decent option to hand sharpen. Bit of mdf or leather and a tube of autosol etc and you have your hone.
Not saying it's the best option by any means but it's an economically viable one.
Also. Just opinion again. But get a sharpening guide, ignore anyone who says you shouldn't use one. A cheaper eclipse type or the veritas one.
When you are ready you can do it freehand (if you want) but what you are after right now is consistency. Later on you can sell it or keep it or give it away. By that point you will have muscle memory and be worried by more interesting matters. If you stay doing woodworking long enough to forget what it's like to start out with little hands on advice or training and trying to take a lot in all at once you too can tell some beginner in 20 years they don't need a sharpening guide. If you want to be that person.
If you do go for the stones below, remember to check them for flatness before you unwrap them. Remarkable value for the price but these are not high end products. Just be aware.

Ultex link:

https://www.its.co.uk/Misc/Ultex-Diamon ... 2147483647

A fair and decent product review with good feedback by someone who knows what he is doing (as opposed to me).
ultex-diamond-stones-t100153.html

Good luck. Keep at it.

 

[ED65]

However the 25mm one with an “interesting” grind to it is still not quite there after an hour a fair few feet of fresh abrasive. I’m in two minds about going back at this one (and the others I’ve not started yet) with the same setup or looking about for a mechanised system to save my time and fingers.

If you're an hour in and still not done I think you'd be well served by looking at a power tool to help, and even a cheapie grinder or belt linisher will make a world of difference to this type of operation. You can also do quite a decent job of this with a standard belt sander, either bench-mounted or hand-held (clamped upside down).

I don't have a permanent station for my small grinder so I don't always dig it out when I'm reshaping a bevel, but every time I do use it I'm grateful it's there as I'll be doing a task that you really really wouldn't want to try to do by hand. Like removing a full 5-6mm of steel from a chisel edge to get past decades of abuse :shock:

If I were to get something to do this is there anything better than a bench grinder that doesn’t cost silly money?

Possibly the cheapest ones on the market are from Lidl and Aldi, at between 25 and 30 quid. But you have to wait for them to come in. One previous year Aldi had grinders in during March so that may be soon, they vary their schedule year to year though so it could just as easily be some months away.

 

[Jacob]

....
If I were to get something to do this is there anything better than a bench grinder that doesn’t cost silly money?

Not as cheap as a bench grinder, but belt sander or linisher is better. Produces much neater bevel than a bench grindstone and runs a bit cooler.
n.b. the trick with hand grinding on wet n dry paper is to keep it very wet - it cuts better, faster and lasts a lot longer. Cheapest paper-backed best (lies flatter), flooded in a pool of white spirit on an impervious flat surface.