Does anyone have a sharpening question?

[NickM]

If you're making bread that needs a knife that sharp, I humble suggest that the issue isn't with the knife.

For cutting hot bread more or less straight out the breadmaker Mike, you need something with a wicked edge. I do like hot, fresh bread, 'specially the first crust! - Rob

Make sure you're using a bread knife sharpened for cross-cutting...

 

[MikeG.]

If you're making bread that needs a knife that sharp, I humble suggest that the issue isn't with the knife.

For cutting hot bread more or less straight out the breadmaker Mike, you need something with a wicked edge. I do like hot, fresh bread, 'specially the first crust! - Rob

Make sure you're using a bread knife sharpened for cross-cutting...

=D> =D>

 

[MikeG.]

........For cutting hot bread more or less straight out the breadmaker Mike, you need something with a wicked edge. I do like hot, fresh bread, 'specially the first crust! - Rob

Breadmaker? Phht.... :wink:

If you cut it straight away you let the steam out, and that leads to the rest of the loaf suffering. There's a sweet-spot, I reckon, around half an hour after it comes out of the oven.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

If you're making bread that needs a knife that sharp, I humble suggest that the issue isn't with the knife.

For cutting hot bread more or less straight out the breadmaker Mike, you need something with a wicked edge. I do like hot, fresh bread, 'specially the first crust! - Rob

Make sure you're using a bread knife sharpened for cross-cutting...

That would be for hot cross buns, I take it? 'Tis almost the season...

 

[woodbloke66]

If you cut it straight away you let the steam out, and that leads to the rest of the loaf suffering. There's a sweet-spot, I reckon, around half an hour after it comes out of the oven.

I did say 'more or less' so yep, not straight out the breadmaker, but within about 20-30 mins. Doorsteps r'us :lol:

Forget a 'cross cutting knife' :lol: , this thing is on a par with a freshly honed Japanese chisel (of which I have a few) so it's seriously sharp :shock: - Rob

 

[cookiemonster]

I use an eclipse-style guide on a double-sided diamond plate for a single bevel, then to a strop still with the guide on. Works for me.

As for the bread knife, chuck it in the skip and buy sliced

 

[MikeG.]

.....As for the bread knife, chuck it in the skip and buy sliced

Carruthers......fetch me the horse whip.

 

[MikeG.]

I use an eclipse-style guide on a double-sided diamond plate for a single bevel, then to a strop still with the guide on. Works for me.........

You do strop the back of the blade though, don't you?

 

[cookiemonster]

I use an eclipse-style guide on a double-sided diamond plate for a single bevel, then to a strop still with the guide on. Works for me.........

You do strop the back of the blade though, don't you?

Yep both sides.

I've also got a wet stone sharpening machine by Record Power, which is great at taming flat blades like chisels when they have gone out of square but not great at putting a camber on plane blades even with the jig.

 

[Trevanion]

Doubt it's Jacob formally of this parish as your man also followed me this morning & I doubt Jacob would follow me twice

I just find it strange that someone would follow yourself, myself, Rob, Ben Tyreman, and Peter Sefton all in the same morning as far as I'm aware. Myself especially since I ain't exactly got a following as such! :lol:

 

[Doug B]

Doubt it's Jacob formally of this parish as your man also followed me this morning & I doubt Jacob would follow me twice

I just find it strange that someone would follow yourself, myself, Rob, Ben Tyreman, and Peter Sefton all in the same morning as far as I'm aware. Myself especially since I ain't exactly got a following as such! :lol:

I get where your coming from but knowing Jacob as I do I doubt very much he would follow some of the accounts that that chap has followed :-k

 

[Phil Pascoe]

For cutting hot bread more or less straight out the breadmaker Mike, you need something with a wicked edge. - Rob

You need something that holds its edge well as well, for hitting the metal thing in the bottom.

 

[ED65]

Well this went well! When I opened the page and saw it was four pages long I thought something had gone awry :-D

 

[ED65]

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?

Belt sander apparently. In case it's not starkly obvious do wear a good dust mask!

If you don't have a belt sander it can be done on concrete like some have half-joked about in the thread, but that's a bit of a backbreaking task and the concrete eventually smooths out to the point that progress slows to a crawl. Various abrasives in the workshop are quite viable to do it indoors, with a decently flat coarse diamond plate being at the top of the list if you have one because diamond is so much harder than everything else (even corundum).

How far is it hollowed?

 

[ED65]

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.

Honing is not like sanding, so yes absolutely. Large, gigantic even, steps in grit are perfectly viable, and not just when honing a secondary. I go from 150 diamond straight to 1,000 grit plate doing a single continuous bevel (on everything MikeG), without any problems erasing the 150-grit scratches.

I've mentioned in a past thread that Paul Sellers specifically said, in response to a viewer question, that one should always go through the progression of grits when honing. While there's nothing theoretically wrong with this, other than wasting a little steel (frankly too little to be of concern), it does have some other issues for the less-experienced sharpener.

And the main thing is that it's perfectly viable to do all day-to-day honing of a similar style of convex bevel, or a flat bevel, starting on a 1,000 plate (this is not to say the same is true of other 1,000# abrasives).

The above plus stropping is all I've done for years now, except for occasional forays into this and that picked up at car boot sales just to try out, virtually all of which I've found offer nothing useful to me. The one and only purchase that I find in any way useful for routine honing is a slate hone, and I've had three and only one of them works quite as I like so the material varies that much.

 

[AES]

Thanks ED65. You asked "How far is it hollowed?"

A: Well I can see it, both sides (it's a "red/black" Norton double-sided oil stone). In fact I see a hollow down the middle (longitudinally) left by the roller of the honing guide, and of course this is throughout the whole length of the stone except immediately at the start and end of the stone (I don't run the chisel/plane iron off the end of the stone - or not very often anyway) ;-)

The hollow is "visible" to the extent that a wide (1.5 inch) chisel or a plane iron bears a definite curvature after a short while. I noticed that just the other day, because, clumsy so-and-so, I dropped the big chisel (edge down, natch!) and it's graunched quite a lump out of the edge. So I've been using the black (coarse) side of the stone to try and recover a complete primary bevel. But as said, it's coming out with a definite curvature.

So I suppose a secondary Q is "Does that matter?" Then likewise, "Does that matter on my plane iron/s?". It seems not, at least as plane irons go, though opinions seem to be more varied when it comes to chisels.

I do have a belt sander (80 grit), an angle grinder (various discs), and one of those cheapo Aldi plastic 4-sided diamond "blocks" one side of which is fairly coarse.

Thanks very much to all for their help so far - the 1st time I've seen a sharpening thread where everyone simply tries to pass on the benefit of their own experience without any further comments. Great, thanks.

 

[ED65]

So I suppose a secondary Q is "Does that matter?" Then likewise, "Does that matter on my plane iron/s?". It seems not, at least as plane irons go, though opinions seem to be more varied when it comes to chisels.

Up to you of course, but on standard bench chisels I'd say it matters. Although I do have one chisel deliberately set up with a pronounced cambered edge (something to get into at another time).

On plane irons, while camber can be desirable and useful I don't want to have it dictated by the stone. I want to be able to pick it, or not or not as the case may be — I don't want any camber on my jointer's iron for example, and on my block planes I need them straight across or to have a barely perceptible camber.

Anyway, as your stone is a Norton you'd be in for some work if doing this manually, famed as they are for their hardness, but one or other of your power tools should make short work of taking the bulk of it off.

Thanks very much to all for their help so far - the 1st time I've seen a sharpening thread where everyone simply tries to pass on the benefit of their own experience without any further comments. Great, thanks.

We have the mods or admin to thank for that. As more than one of us has opined, we can but hope this isn't a temporary state of affairs!

 

[AES]

OK, fine, all clear thanks. I'll advise after I've attacked the stones with one or more of my power tools (outside that'll be, and it's raining at present).

 

[Racers]

I sharped my bread knife tonight, round diamond stick thing 5 minutes work, cuts a treat.

Single bevel obvs.

Pete

 

[Noho12C]

What about serrated bread knife ? How would you sharpen that ? I have one that doesn't really sharpening nor honing yet, but hey, why not try !

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