Easiest Blade and Chisel Sharpening

[D_W]

...
Mortising, i'm sure, depends a lot on the method. I ride the bevel, which is easiest to do when it's flat. Only the last little bit gets a tiny bit of rounding (like a tiny fraction of a millimeter).

Well you have chosen the difficult route I think!
Morticing is easy if you do the trad thing which is to do only vertical cuts down the face of the previous cut. Taking off as much or as little as the timber and your mallet arm strength will allow - in your terms 'riding the face (flat)'.
Waste gets pushed out, no levering required until you get to clean out the corners of a blind mortice when the rounded bevel suddenly becomes useful as a "moving fulcrum". A straight flat bevel wouldn't do it nearly so well.

Not sure why riding the bevel isn't a second traditional method. Wood cuts more easily on the diagonal than it does vertically.

When you ride the bevel to the bottom of a mortise and rotate the chisel slightly, it does the same severing as it would if it was rounded.

I've mortised various ways, but can't think of any being easier or faster than another, just settled on riding the bevel out of preference. I would prefer also if someone would build a mortise chisel with a tiny taper in its thickness from business end toward tang. A chisel like that never gets stuck in the cut and you can easily loosen a chip and just flip it right out of a mortise.

 

[Rich C]

I'm not sure I see the advantage of getting a plane iron very carefully sharpened such that you can finish with it as opposed to just using a scraper which does the job more easily and is simple to sharpen. Especially as a beginner there's going to be a lot of frustration failing to get the required edge and setup on a plane.

 

[D_W]

The method I'm describing will be easier to master, and easier to get a good edge finish than what sellers demonstrates, and faster. I guess that assumes that someone can learn to grind, but I think grinding is a vital skill.

The point with the results being better is that it's going to make work easier and more enjoyable. The method is deliberate (as in, it's done a specific way), but it isn't any more careful than anything else. Summarize it as such.
* Grind at a reasonable angle
* Use a moderate speed medium stone (speed doesn't really matter) with the edge lifted slightly. If using a plane iron, this is where you're going to take care of the camber
* if you're using a finishing stone, use a slow hard finish stone ever so slightly higher than the prior stone and work only the very edge of the bevel with a bias

While it's nice to use a method like this because it preserve geometry and makes it easy to set up (allowing you to finish off of a plane without leaving lines, or pare without leaving lines anywhere), it's better even if you're not finishing off of a plane or paring chisel. The care in preserving geometry will stretch intervals planing, too (because clearance isn't threatened).

 

[Jacob]

.....
Not sure why riding the bevel isn't a second traditional method. Wood cuts more easily on the diagonal than it does vertically....

I spent a lot of time fiddling about trying to find best way of chopping out DT sockets hand tools only (no amateurish fret saws :roll: ) and came up with the vertical cut.
A eureka moment! Suddenly became easier, faster, neater.
Did demo snaps:

Then realised that morticing is exactly the same (which I've done a lot of) except obviously you start with a shallow vertical first cut, followed by slightly deeper vertically down the face and so on.
The waste falls into the space left by the previous cut and basically just gets forced out, no levering or chip removal except the last few bits.
No need of, or point in, a diagonal cut anywhere at all in the process.
PS chopping out is what firmer chisels are for. A mortice chisel is just an even firmer chisel. Also reveals what short butt chisels are good for - sitting down doing a lot of repetitive short chopping DT sockets.

 

[Ttrees]

Have you ever tried one of those big blue Thor mallets ?
Effin **** its way better than a wooden mallet, yes a bit unwieldy and you have to lift your elbow higher,
but easier on the hand and a good bit quieter too which is strange considering the POWER.

 

[Ttrees]

I'm not sure I see the advantage of getting a plane iron very carefully sharpened such that you can finish with it as opposed to just using a scraper which does the job more easily and is simple to sharpen. Especially as a beginner there's going to be a lot of frustration failing to get the required edge and setup on a plane.

Scrapers go blunt quick, very quickly indeed.

 

[ED65]

Are those coloured diamond plates you see in Screwfix , Wickes etc any good?

They're all right, but the indentations can becomes a source of frustration. If you're looking at a set of three perhaps more important is that the grit range tends to be a little compressed, with not enough range between the coarsest and finest. The fine end is usually okay (okay, not great) often being 600 grit from what I've seen. But the low end is frequently not usefully coarse and even in diamonds it's slower than you'd want.

Continuous diamond plates are better in all ways, you never have to worry about the plastic backing separating for one See the link in this thread from a couple of weeks ago: monster-stone-t119162.html for a supplier. You might benefit from reading the previous discussion on the preceding pages for context. I would suggest getting 150 or even 120 and 1,000 and nothing in between. You don't need them, I promise.

Not guaranteeing the above is the cheapest, it's just the cheapest I found with free shipping when I looked quickly at the time.

I must admit, I use Paul seller's sand paper method because I'm daunted by all the stone/plate options.

Just call it the sandpaper method, or "scary sharp" which is what it normally goes by these days (although it actually far predates that humorous appellation).

You won't know yourself once you try diamonds. The back-and-forth stroke alone would double the speed of honing, but there's far more going on even if you're currently using a quality silicone carbide paper. SiC and diamond seem close together in the hardness tables but it's misleading, diamonds are actually far harder. You can also press down much more firmly, without any worry about tearing obvs, which also improves abrasion.

Edit:

My only problem with free hand sharpening is that I always end up with a curved bevel, and I am not consistent with the angle, I end up blunting the blades on the higher grit, so it takes forever.

Use a honing guide if you need to, there's no shame in it.

If you want to work on your freehanding (and it is worth persevering) make yourself a 'take-off ramp'. It's just a wedge of wood cut to the appropriate angle that you have behind the chisel/plane iron before you start your stroke. This can greatly help in not going steeper than intended, as well as helping to prevent dubbing an edge.

 

[Jacob]

.......

My only problem with free hand sharpening is that I always end up with a curved bevel, and I am not consistent with the angle, I end up blunting the blades on the higher grit, so it takes forever.

Use a honing guide if you need to, there's no shame in it......

No shame in a rounded bevel either. It doesn't matter at all and that's how everybody used to do it.It does seem to be the big anxiety which drives modern sharpening trends, for no good reason at all!

 

[ED65]

It does seem like a good video. but I can't justify spending on it now.

If you want to try diamonds you can get up and running for a total cost of about a tenner, all-in. This isn't some ad-hoc substitute for a proper rig, two plates and a strop can be a do-anything setup (barring jobs a grinder is best suited to) that'll last for years. Easily a decade for a light/occasional user.

Thank you for the thoughtful and systematic response, ED65

You're welcome. Please try not to be distracted by Jacob's One True Way crusade. I know it's hard. There are many ways of doing it as you already know, most will give satisfactory results and there are any number good enough that there's nothing to choose between them. But certain ideas are notably flawed... some of the earliest written sources talk about keeping honing stones flat and describe how it's to be done, so the idea that it's some modern fetish is unsubstantiated nonsense despite the ad nauseum repetition.

I strongly strongly strongly advise you to start with flat honing surfaces, whatever they are, and keep them that way if they do require maintenance. You can use a dished stone later on when you know what you're doing but starting with one is a recipe for disaster. It's especially bad if you use multiple stones and only one is dished, and even worse if all are dished but with different curvatures! This is something that can see you chasing your tail for hours, plus can contribute to struggling with getting consistently good edges for years. And I do mean these times literally; I've spoken to numerous people online and in person who took up woodworking long before I did and still can't get edges they're happy with every time. And that's without the added complication of a curved honing surface!

Flat stones (any flat honing surface) are so much more versatile I can't emphasise it enough. You can hone to and fro or side to side, along the stong as well as across, anywhere on the surface, as mood, space or circumstances dictate and always get the same results. You cannot do this on a stone dished in one direction much less two.

Only on a flat surface can you do the bevel and the back, on any chisel down to the narrowest available up to the widest plane irons made, as well as hone a razor blade, a marking knife or an awl if need be, again in any direction anywhere on the surface with equal ease. Flat honing surfaces handle flat bevels, convex bevels or ground concave bevels; a dished stone can really only do one of those and not even as well.

I hope this helps you see that flat > dished, all day every day. And twice on Sundays.

 

[ED65]

No shame in a rounded bevel either.

Did I say that there was? Since you need the reminder, I too use cambered bevels on virtually everything. I now make no particular effort to produce this shape so the curvature is much less pronounced than I used a few years ago, but everything will have a slight camber because I freehand.

...that's how everybody used to do it.

Yeah whatever. Flat, primary/secondary, cambered, hollow-ground have all been used historically and I'm not going to try browbeat anyone into believing otherwise.

Today you can find high-end users using all of them (and some others) so there's no case to be made that one is superior to the others, or that any are markedly inferior in terms of results.

 

[Jacob]

... Please try not to be distracted by Jacob's One True Way crusade. I know it's hard.....

It's not the one true way but it is the easiest basic way. Almost as easy as sharpening a pencil.
You can then make it as refined or as difficult as you want. By all means get set up to plane perfectly that gnarly cross-grained bit of rare Australian hardwood which seems to be the mecca of the sharpening movement! The passport into the exclusive world of the the "high-end user" :lol: :lol:
If you've never sharpened before it's hard for the first half hour or so but you soon get it.
It was a eureka moment for me when I suddenly got back to basics.
I also realised why there is so little info in the old books - it was taken for granted as something easy which you'd pick up on day one (or two). The only regular advice was to avoid rounding over, which is basic mistake everybody makes at the beginning.Rounding under is fine and normal. You soon get to constrain your edge angle to 30º
Main thing is to stop worrying about rounded bevels but keep the edge at or below 30º. The other thing is to forget "flattening". Don't flatten anything.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Nev, you wuz right ... :lol:

 

[Jacob]

Well I can't just keep it a secret can I? :lol:
Our OP is asking for basic beginners advice.
Seriously though - I think it's a great pity that so many have been so misinformed. The quite separate culture of the sharpening enthusiast has spilled over and overwhelmed ordinary woodwork.
Even worse with knife sharpening enthusiasts (don't go there :roll: )

 

[Rich C]

By all means get set up to plane perfectly that gnarly cross-grained bit of rare Australian hardwood which seems to be the mecca of the sharpening movement! The passport into the exclusive world of the the "high-end user" :lol: :lol:

I agree that people do take sharpening way too seriously, there's no point sharpening to a single molecule edge to them go and plane some spruce.

My take is that you should get things sharp enough for the job in hand. If I can take a translucent shaving of the wood I'm using then why spend extra effort getting it to the level of handling some crazy wild grain?

That said, diamond stones all the way. As mentioned above they really are night and day compared to sandpaper.

 

[Jacob]

...
I agree that people do take sharpening way too seriously, ......

Up to them, a harmless pastime, but they shouldn't expect us all to follow!

I've got some Ezelap diamond plates which work fine but I still prefer the oil stone somehow. A lot cheaper too and probably longer lasting. How long do diamond plates last I wonder?
Never bothered with sand paper - looks like a complete non starter, though I use wet n dry (wet) for some major fettling jobs.

 

[sammy.se]

I've ordered myself some diamond plates from ali express - thanks ED65! Will let you know how I get on.

Still need a honing guide and some strop paste. For another time

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

 

[Bm101]

Sam autosol is a handy thing to have, a tube is under a fiver. A scrap of mdf is always skipdippable. Your stropping worries are sorted for years for the price of a quiet sunday pint and a packet of sharpening thread popcorn.

O

 

[Jacob]

.....
Only on a flat surface can you do the bevel and the back, on any chisel down to the narrowest available up to the widest plane irons made, as well as hone a razor blade, a marking knife or an awl if need be, again in any direction anywhere on the surface with equal ease. Flat honing surfaces handle flat bevels, convex bevels or ground concave bevels; a dished stone can really only do one of those and not even as well.

I hope this helps you see that flat > dished, all day every day. And twice on Sundays.

So we have ED56's 'one true way' forcefully asserted! I thought it was just me! He's quite wrong by the way. :lol:
In the real world you start out with a flat new stone, attempt to keep it flat by spreading the load, but inevitably they become slightly hollowed as the middle gets used more than the edges, with chisels especially.
But this doesn't matter - the stone effectively wears in to match your honing routine and you hardly notice. No flattening required.
However if hollowing the stone becomes excessive you might consider changing your routine - doing it differently, spreading the load better or even keeping a separate stone for chisels for instance. Not a bad idea especially with heavy mortice chisels which are also narrow and can wear a stone very quickly. Freehand honing does allow a lot of force which is why it is quicker.
It does matter a lot if you use a jig however, as they only work with flat stones.
There's the rub. No pun intended!
PS If you buy an old well used stone they are almost always hollowed to some extent. This isn't because they couldn't sharpen properly. Also flattening was not easy - basically you need a harder medium. You'd have to if you inherited a really badly hollowed stone perhaps.

 

[ED65]

Still need a honing guide...

Want one by the end of the day? Build dis. Maybe a 10-minute job if you have two suitable scraps of wood and a couple of screws or bolts. There's no requirement to use T-nuts or threaded inserts, this will give greater durability but the screws can tap straight into the wood and the jig will still last a long time.

...and some strop paste.

Most metal polishes, including Brasso or a white stainless steel polish, hob creams and a few car compounds like T-Cut will work as stropping compound if you have any of those. If there's an artist in the family Chromium Oxide oil paint can also be used.

If you have nothing at all suitable Autosol and Peek are good tube polishes to pick from. They work about the same so just pick whichever you can get cheapest.

 

[ED65]

I agree that people do take sharpening way too seriously...

You mean like someone who will argue they're right, everyone else is wrong, for day after day, sometimes for weeks, again and again and again over a span of about two decades? Yup, nailed it.