Chisel and Plane Blade Honing Guide Angle Jigs with measurements; Veritas, Marples, and Eclipse.

[BentonTool]

I thought it might save some of you time and trouble if I published the measurements that I used to make my Honing Guide Angle Jigs.
My measurements do not coincide with many of those prior published for these jigs.
I can only state that I measured each angle with my Wixey digital angle gauge and recorded the measurements for each angle as documented below.
I hope some may find this useful.

 

[SammyQ]

Data! Clear, concise, easily peer-reviewed data!! Well done BT; this is a (welcome).departure from the usual assertions without figures. The forum has moved forward!

 

[Orraloon]

You have done the homework BT so thanks. Will save a lot of us some work. I have to admit with the eclipse guide having the projection measurements on the side I have just always reached for the rule. I know a quick set jig would be faster and likely with the marples guide I would have got off my aris and made the jig long ago. These days the honing guide only comes out to refresh the primary bevel so that procrastination record may stand a while yet.
Regards
John

 

[SammyQ]

I would also make the point, that, the angles, in themselves, are totally unimportant. Different workers, different strokes. Ergo, different angles. What IS important is reliable, repeatable, results for any given setup, hence either ruler (longer, prone to slippage) or your jig (faster). I do not subscribe to Jacob's endless s-h-i-t stirring about free handing as it IS a viable method, but needs DAILY practice to achieve the muscle memory needed for accomplishment. Most of us weekend warriors do not have that advantage. Jigs rool.

 

[Berkshire Wood]

Thanks you for posting. I was enjoying using my new Sorby ProEdge for my fingernail turning gouges and wondered if same measuring guide could be applied to my plane and chisels for the occasional regrind and stone finishing. I’ll certainly lift your guide idea. Great pics.

 

[BentonTool]

I would also make the point, that, the angles, in themselves, are totally unimportant. Different workers, different strokes. Ergo, different angles. What IS important is reliable, repeatable, results for any given setup, hence either ruler (longer, prone to slippage) or your jig (faster). I do not subscribe to Jacob's endless s-h-i-t stirring about free handing as it IS a viable method, but needs DAILY practice to achieve the muscle memory needed for accomplishment. Most of us weekend warriors do not have that advantage. Jigs rool.

Yes, I completely agree. Repeatability is the main advantage, not the actual numerical angle itself.
It is also faster and more accurate/repeatable to use this type of jig. BTW, a "microbevel" is readily available using a shim with these jigs as in image below.

I would add that there are times when free-handing is a very simple affair, and fast (e.g. thick blades with pronounced hollow-grinds).

Lately, in many cases, especially when I do not require a super-sharp edge, I have been going directly from the grinder to a 1000 grit diamond plate, to a strop... then on with the work at hand.
I strop again as soon as I feel the edge deteriorating. In that way, I am able to postpone going back to the stone for quite a while.

 

[Jacob]

I would also make the point, that, the angles, in themselves, are totally unimportant. Different workers, different strokes. Ergo, different angles. What IS important is reliable, repeatable, results for any given setup, hence either ruler (longer, prone to slippage) or your jig (faster).

Or freehand. Repeatable, and even faster.

I do not subscribe to Jacob's endless s-h-i-t stirring

Just trying to save people a lot of bother, expense and time! I got diverted into jigs too but managed to find my way back, with great relief!

about free handing as it IS a viable method,

It WAS the only method for several thousand years and even little school kids picked it up

but needs DAILY practice to achieve the muscle memory needed for accomplishment.

Nope. 20 minutes or so and you've got it for life.

 

[BentonTool]

Or freehand. Repeatable, and even faster.

Just trying to save people a lot of bother, expense and time! I got diverted into jigs too but managed to find my way back, with great relief!

It WAS the only method for several thousand years and even little school kids picked it up

Nope. 20 minutes or so and you've got it for life.

Jacob,
it is very difficult to argue the points you make...
I am sure Ian Kirby would entirely agree with you, as he was known to have said (about certain woodworking aides) "No, there is no virtue in that"...
There can be no substitute for skill...

 

[Eshmiel]

Jacob,
it is very difficult to argue the points you make...
I am sure Ian Kirby would entirely agree with you, as he was known to have said (about certain woodworking aides) "No, there is no virtue in that"...
There can be no substitute for skill...

There certainly are "substitutes for skill". Every tool one can name bar perhaps a rock is designed to have some degree of jigging to it that obviates the need for a human skill that would otherwise provide the jigging. A simple example is a chisel, which can have a flat back to jig the edge so it rides parallel to a workpiece surface being chiselled. A plane holds the blade just-so and applies various means to prevent tear out. Etcetera. Or you can just use a knife to carve a flat surface instead .... if you have the skill.

There are folk who eschew even those simple jigs. I know a fellow who works mainly with a couple of knives to achieve cuts that most of us might make with a chisel or a plane. In fact, I've been using something of the low-jigged tools myself in making spoons. Its surprising what you can shape with just an axe after a lot of practice. But even axes are jigged, with their "cheating" handles and grinds. And they do have a limit as to what they can carve, no matter how skilled the axe-wielder.

Sharpening can rely on the skill of the human holding the tool to be sharpened correctly at all times ..... or a guide can do a bit of helpful jigging to stop the human wandering away from the right angle as the tool is hand held. No one needs to call the WW inquisition to persecute, torture and execute those who prefer one method over another or who lack a super-steady hand. Of course, some would-be inquisitors are always ready with their dogma-books and red-hot verbal-irons. "No primitive skills, as specified by The Holy Woodworker of London, 1784!? Burn the heretics!!

 

[Bingy man]

My mate kindly dropped off his hedge trimmers and spare blades for me to clean and sharpen and replace any worn / missing parts . It’s taken several days of stripping down , cleaning . filing the teeth was all done by hand , most of the blades are double sided and were in poor condition where he has hit wire and nails and god knows what else - the edges of the blades were in places badly rounded over . why am i posting this you might be thinking if there was a reasonable priced jig available I’d buy it . If these blades were £20-£30 each I’d tell him to buy new ones but they are approx £100+ the vat . The only pleasure in doing these by hand is they are all done and should last him a year at least. A jig would take all the uncertainty and guess work out of the equation.

 

[mudman]

Or freehand. Repeatable, and even faster.

Just trying to save people a lot of bother, expense and time! I got diverted into jigs too but managed to find my way back, with great relief!

It WAS the only method for several thousand years and even little school kids picked it up

Nope. 20 minutes or so and you've got it for life.

Do we have a facepalm emoji?

Ah yes, there is is:

 

[Jacob]

There certainly are "substitutes for skill". Every tool you name bar perhaps a rock is designed to have some degree of jigging to it that obviates the need for a human skill that would otherwise provide the jigging. A simple example is a chisel, which can have a flat back to jig the edge so it rides parallel to a workpiece surface being chiselled.

Main reason for a flat face on a chisel is so that you can see and guide where the sharp end is going as you belt it into your mortice, or whatever. Most things you could cut just as well with a double bevel but you'd need to look more closely to see and control where the cut is actually going.

A plane holds the blade just-so and applies various means to prevent tear out. Etcetera. Or you can just use a knife to carve a flat surface instead .... if you have the skill.

There are folk who eschew even those simple jigs.

I don't "eschew" jigs at all, it's just that some things are easier without them, particularly sharpening, and dovetails. Come to think, most woodwork is itself more difficult than sharpening, and done without jigs by and large. A lot of working to lines.

I know a fellow who works mainly with a couple of knives to achieve cuts that most of us might make with a chisel or a plane. In fact, I've been using something of the low-jigged tools myself in making spoons. Its surprising what you can shape with just an axe after a lot of practice. But even axes are jigged, with their "cheating" handles and grinds.

That's extending your definition of a jig a bit too far!

And they do have a limit as to what they can carve, no matter how skilled the axe-wielder.

Some axes are sharpened with a single bevel and flat face, for carving I believe.

Sharpening can rely on the skill of the human holding the tool to be sharpened correctly at all times ..... or a guide can do a bit of helpful jigging to stop the human wandering away from the right angle as the tool is hand held.

"Correctly" is a term which crops up a lot with modern sharpeners. I guess I do mine incorrectly - angle fairly close to 30º near enough to make no difference. But I don't care - it seems to work OK.
The right angle thing seems to be a prob with jig users: https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/threads/veritas-mk2-honing-guide-issues.151124/#post-1792504

No one needs to call the WW inquisition to persecute, torture and execute those who prefer one method over another or who lack a super-steady hand. Of course, some would-be inquisitors are always ready with their dogma-books and red-hot verbal-irons. "No primitive skills, as specified by The Holy Woodworker of London, 1784!? Burn the heretics!!

No the dogma is with the modern sharpening boys and all their "correct" gadgets and other details; there own very modern terminology; micro/primary/secondary bevels and similar nonsense. They do not like their rituals challenged!

 

[Lons]

Not again.

 

[Eshmiel]

Not again.

Jacob seems to employ alternative woodworking - a bit like actual woodworking but with a rather different interpretation of what's happening at the tool. Of course, what matter is what emerges from under the tools. As long as we all end up with the intended bits of furniture or whatever ...... .

Yet there can be a route to achieving the emergent wooden things that's, how shall we describe it ..... more efficient? Faster? Having more inherent accuracy? On the other hand, for many of us the journey is the thing and, from that point of view, the longer and more difficult it is, the more interesting the experience. And then there's the pleasure of a tradition that's followed not because its faster or more efficient etcetera but just because we like doing it that way, out of habit or just sheer perversity.

Myself I do enjoy a difficulty and its overcoming. But there's enough newly-found of them that occur naturally without having to insist on retaining those that have long ago been overcome by the world at large. Yet somewhere there'll be someone greatly enjoying the making of a stool and a box out of a dead rowan, to keep the bit of slate used as plate for the roast wild goat leg, employing a chunk of flint knapped half way up a fell and held at the end of a found-branch with a twist of goat gut. May the farce be with them!

 

[Jacob]

Jacob seems to employ alternative woodworking -

I'm interested in "traditional" woodworking, which is what I've been doing for most of my life. Nothing "alternative" about it.
I see "modern" woodworking, as reinvented steadily over recent decades, as being "alternative".
There's a simple explanation for modern sharpening in that it seems to have been re-imagined by people from an engineering background, rather than woodwork itself. Hence the emphasis on control for fine tolerances and letting the machine do the job.

..... And then there's the pleasure of a tradition that's followed not because its faster or more efficient etcetera but just because we like doing it that way, out of habit or just sheer perversity.

Not at all, it's the other way around - trad crafts tend to have evolved to produce the fastest and most efficient way of producing things, with the materials and technology available. And the most beautiful..etc.

 

[Eshmiel]

I'm interested in "traditional" woodworking, which is what I've been doing for most of my life. Nothing "alternative" about it.
I see "modern" woodworking, as reinvented steadily over recent decades, as being "alternative".
There's a simple explanation for modern sharpening in that it seems to have been re-imagined by people from an engineering background, rather than woodwork itself. Hence the emphasis on control for fine tolerances and letting the machine do the job.


Not at all, it's the other way around - trad crafts tend to have evolved to produce the fastest and most efficient way of producing things, with the materials and technology available. And the most beautiful..etc.

The traditional of a great deal in our British way of life appeals to me too. (A lot of other traditional doesn't - but we pick & choose from a large range of such traditions, eh). The value of a well-developed tradition is that many "best ways" have long ago been found and honed to an efficient, well-understood and do-able set of practices.

But tradition is not the ossified remanent of a way of doing things, set in stone for ever. The best traditions are dynamic and evolve along with the environments in which they thrive. If such traditions are not allowed to evolve - to change their details as new circumstances arrive and depart, they turn to dust. Consider those lifestyles preserved in aspic by the likes of The Shakers and other such sects, who adopted a C17th way of life then went to ridiculous lengths never to change one iota of it, until the evolving world around them ground it all down to historical dust.

Hand sharpening in woodwork, a small matter, is still a relevant and enviable skill. But other methods, often involving other but different skills, have evolved. They work, despite you own inability to get them to do so. Why not allow both?

As the post modern world completes its own destruction, leaving us (if it leaves any of us alive at all) in a primitive condition without the vast tech that allows our current lifestyles, we may have to accept hand sharpening (perhaps on the ruins of a cathedral step) as the only available method. All well and good.

Until then, there are sharpening gubbins! They are exciting and pleasurable in learning to use, just like with any tool. Some take time, effort, skill and money. Ah well, these are all pleasures too, for we Eloi cavorting on the edge of extinction.

 

[Jacob]

..........

Hand sharpening in woodwork, a small matter,

Sharpening is absolutely central to the whole craft

is still a relevant and enviable skill. But other methods, often involving other but different skills, have evolved.

Devolved in my opinion, as with other craft skills lost over time.

They work, despite you own inability to get them to do so. Why not allow both?

Both are allowed - you don't have to ask permission!

 

[Amplidyne]

I'm interested in "traditional" woodworking, which is what I've been doing for most of my life. Nothing "alternative" about it.
I see "modern" woodworking, as reinvented steadily over recent decades, as being "alternative".
There's a simple explanation for modern sharpening in that it seems to have been re-imagined by people from an engineering background, rather than woodwork itself. Hence the emphasis on control for fine tolerances and letting the machine do the job.

Cynic that I am, it struck me a long time back, that an awful lot of the so called "improvements" made in woodworking tools and techniques over the years were made to flog us more stuff, rather than actually "improve" anything.

I've never used any bought in sharpening jigs or guides, just the crudest guide I made for regrinding blades that I've mentioned before. I've got lots of bits and pieces I've fabricated myself mostly out of wood to make life easier though. They cost very little.

Most operations in woodwork, unless you really are batch or mass producing items, are as quickly, easily, and accurately done by hand in the traditional way.

People get lost in the need for machines and jigs.

 

[SammyQ]

But tradition is not the ossified remanent of a way of doing things, set in stone for ever.

Bravo, Eshmiel. Best summarative sentence and best descriptive adjective on UKWS in a long time. I quite agree with the tenor of your post, though my family postulate that I am more of a Jabba the Hutt than Eloi...

 

[Gardener]

What ever works for the individual to get a sharp enough cutting edge is all that matters, how ever that is achieved...