Does anyone have a sharpening question?

[ED65]

I've been hoping against hope that we'd eventually be able to do this safely and it appears we can now, we're either in the sweet spot or the problem has been rectified permanently =D>

So, does anyone have any sharpening questions they've been holding off asking about?

 

[Nigel Burden]

(hammer)

Nigel.

 

[Trevanion]

Funnily enough, I was also wondering if a thread like this could actually be put up on the forum now without it devolving down into petty arguments, slagging off and eventually being locked.

 

[mynamehere]

when is an oilstone hollowed out enough for freehand sharpening?

 

[AES]

Serious Question:

How do you easily/quickly flatten an oilstone (both sides) that's developed a dip in the middle over the years due to the regular use of an Eclipse honing guide please?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I needed a new bread knife, so I did some research. Looking through custmer reviews, I found one cracker - Do NOT buy this knife. It's a waste of money. It's already started to go blunt and I've only had it for three years.

 

[Trevanion]

Serious Question:

How do you easily/quickly flatten an oilstone (both sides) that's developed a dip in the middle over the years due to the regular use of an Eclipse honing guide please?

I’ve got a cheap faithfull 400/1000 diamond plate which I think I paid £20 for, it’s flattened both an India stone and a Washita stone in pretty quick time. You could use something pretty hard like silicon carbide paper, particles or even diamond particles on a glass plate which might do it too.

 

[Ttrees]

Guessing an angle grinder would be the quickest.
Rubbing a hone off the wall is not fun.
I sorted mine out with the edge of a non laminated plane iron and a block of wood, as I needed to scrape a composite material.
It works fairly quickly.
Glad to be able to get rid of the edges without wastage.
Plane irons make great scrapers (EDIT: without drawing the burr) if the job calls for something rigid, like dressing bandsaw tires.

I've got a question...
Who uses water on their stones?
What should one expect after using it with oil?

 

[transatlantic]

If you have a very small secondary bevel (~1mm), is there really any need to work up the grits? Can't you just always go back to the highest stone? that is of course until the secondary bevel gets too large.

Rob Cosman can seemingly get an amazingly sharp edge from 1000 (diamond) straight to 16000 (Shapton), and also Paul sellers something similar, although 1000 (diamond) straight to leather strop.

I assume the only reason they start off on the 1000 is to keep the secondary bevel consistently small, as opposed to letting it grow and then having to shrink it back down every once in a while.

It seems as though with this practise, you only ever need two stones.

A medium stone to maintain the primary bevel (which does nothing other than keep the secondary bevel small)
A fine stone to actually sharpen the secondary bevel

...and then perhaps a very coarse stone for new tools, or damaged ones

 

[MikeG.]

I needed a new bread knife, so I did some research......

Just about the hardest thing to sharpen, I reckon. Luckily, they don't need to be very sharp to work.

-

So here's a question. How wide does your secondary bevel have to get before you start weighing up a tertiary bevel?

Follow up question. How many bevels do you need before you round them all over into one big curved bevel, as I think Sellers does?

Another question: does anyone else hone flat primary and secondary bevels, yet strop as though the bevel side of the blade was curved?

Final question: does anyone else not put a secondary bevel on a plane blade, using only one bevel?

And finally finally: how long would this thread have lasted in the Jacob era?

 

[Nelsun]

Obviously, when flattening your stones, it's clearly best to do it with two push sticks; three if you were born with an extra arm.

 

[AES]

Can't answer your other Qs MikeG, but to answer your Q: "And finally finally: how long would this thread have lasted in the Jacob era?"

My answer, we wouldn't have got as far as this before "someone" put "someone else's" back up and the manure started to fly. Missed, but IMO, only in a positive sense. Good decision by whoever to apply in whatever however it happened!

Re the using the angle grinder, was that answer addressed to my Q about flattening an oilstone? If yes, I don't quite see how to do that - what disc/wheel, & how to get it flat (on the stone's face) please?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Obviously, when flattening your stones, it's clearly best to do it with two push sticks; three if you were born with an extra arm.

Nonsense. You'd be hollowing flat ones with push sticks.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I needed a new bread knife, so I did some research......

Just about the hardest thing to sharpen, I reckon. Luckily, they don't need to be very sharp to work.

I had a Victorinox I was given about thirty years ago as being serrated the chef who owned it thought it impossible to sharpen once blunt. I just sharpened the serrations off, until when it disappeared at the end of last year there was nothing left of them - it was like a ham knife. I blamed the boy for taking it to university but as he pointed out - he doesn't eat bread that needs cutting.
I bought the 12" version of this - which seems fine - it's dangerously sharp at the moment, time will tell.https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mercer-Culinar ... 270&sr=8-1

 

[dannyr]

I've used an angle grinder (with cheapo diamond offset face grinding wheel, 100mm), to make a whetstone from a nice, hard, fine -grained piece of rock found on a beach - looks just like a Charnley stone, but won't be. Works very well as a waterstone - shapeless on all other faces, but flat on the one. I finished off with rubbing on flat wet'n'dry paper and in the trad way, set it in plaster in a base.
If you do this, please grind wet and wear a mask. And don't take all the pebbles on the beach.

 

[NickM]

I needed a new bread knife, so I did some research......

Just about the hardest thing to sharpen, I reckon. Luckily, they don't need to be very sharp to work.

-

So here's a question. How wide does your secondary bevel have to get before you start weighing up a tertiary bevel?

Follow up question. How many bevels do you need before you round them all over into one big curved bevel, as I think Sellers does?

Another question: does anyone else hone flat primary and secondary bevels, yet strop as though the bevel side of the blade was curved?

Final question: does anyone else not put a secondary bevel on a plane blade, using only one bevel?

And finally finally: how long would this thread have lasted in the Jacob era?

Mike, I can't answer any of this, but I would be interested to know what you do!

I've been meaning to mount my diamond stones in a board (like Sellers*) for a while and finally did it at the weekend. I also now have a strop which I can put in the vice too. It's going to make things a heck of lot more convenient.

Until now I've been using a honing guide to get a flat bevel and it seems to have worked well. However, having mounted the boards I had a sudden rush of blood to the head and decided to have a go at sharpening freehand (crazy I know). What I ended up with was a convex bevel exactly like Sellers gets. I wasn't aiming for that, but it was obviously the natural result of rocking the blade back slightly as I pushed it forwards. It did seem result in very sharp blades (better than before), which I think is from being able to put more pressure on the blade. It was also very fast.

The plane blades sharpened this way seem to work beautifully. I had a lovely finish on some oak which I had previously struggled to plane nicely.

I haven't used the chisels in anger yet. I'm a bit put off by having the convex camber rather than a lovely flat bevel, but I'll need to try them to see if that's a problem in practice. I hope they work well, because I think it's a good sharpening method for me if they do.

I'd be interested to hear if others have rounded bevels like this and whether there are any issues.


*In the interests of full disclosure, I love the man. I've built his bench, bench drawer, sharpening board etc. All that's left is to grow a beard and dye it white.

 

[Marineboy]

Forget all the other questions..you say your rounded bevel cuts beautifully...so get on with the rest of your life.

 

[Trevanion]

I needed a new bread knife, so I did some research......

Just about the hardest thing to sharpen, I reckon. Luckily, they don't need to be very sharp to work.

Ah, you’re doing it wrong if you’re finding it difficult, Mike! All you need to do is grind a back bevel on the knife rather that attacking the serrations with a slip stone. Sharpen the bevel up to 16000 and the bread practically cuts itself! 8)

 

[NickM]

Forget all the other questions..you say your rounded bevel cuts beautifully...so get on with the rest of your life.

For the planes, no question. I'm less sure about the chisels though. They may cut beautifully, but will a rounded bevel cause me other problems? I guess I'll find out sooner or later.

 

[Ttrees]

Before anything I'd bevel all the edges first off the wall or lapping plate, which they probably are already to some extent.
I noticed the edge of my washita got quite a sharpish dip from the edges in places, as I was not transversing the entire area of the hone with the eclipse style guide.
They could probably catch or blow out fairly easily on an sharp edge disc.
I imagine Danny's suggested disc might work better working on the flat rather than trying to register it off of the high spots.

I would personally try a few flap discs first, huge variance in them, and if that didn't cut the mustard, a regular grinding disc for steel that is half used so dressed nicely (a completely different profile used than when new), or preferable stone disc if ya have some handy.
I've only used the cheapo stone grinding and cutting discs on an angle grinder recently, they didn't last cutting a wee block of granite, I noticed little difference in longevity.
Maybe good brands or new non degraded ones are a different story.
Maybe Im being too safe though, I know little about reading the grain in stone.
Dannyr
What did you use to "Prussian blue" the stone with, if you were wet grinding?
Presuming you went back an fourth a bit with the wet'n'dry and the grinding, before getting close.
I have some granite that I might make use of, and had a quick look at those type of discs.
Did you think about cutting the edges of the hone you made with a similar type disc?
Thanks
Tom