Hand router blade

[Roxie]

How best to sharpen the blade from a hand router? I find it difficult to hold the blade ridged enough to sharpen freehand.

Help much appreciated

John

 

[novocaine]

clamp the cutter and move the stone instead. stick it in your vice.

 

[topchippyles]

Use the stone instead and clamp the blade

 

[Roxie]

Doh!!, hadn't thought of that must be the hot weather it's addled my brain.
Thanks
John

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

How best to sharpen the blade from a hand router? I find it difficult to hold the blade ridged enough to sharpen freehand.

Help much appreciated

John

I've posted this before ....

I developed a system for sharpening router plane blades that makes it easier to do, and will makes it easier to keep them that way thereafter. This will sound rather egocentric, but it really should become the standard method.

My website: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/WoodworkTe ... lades.html

Video by Vic Tesolin on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuNu-GlgH88

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Roxie]

Thank you Derek, looks the way to go.

John

 

[ED65]

Something else worth exploring is maintaining hand router blades by stropping. Just like with knives and carving tools if you can strop frequently enough (so the edge doesn't go past the point that stropping remains effective) you can greatly reduce, or nearly eliminate, the need to hone in the conventional sense. A few years back I kept the iron of my most-used plane going for over a year by stropping only.

 

[custard]

I kept the iron of my most-used plane going for over a year by stropping only.

How can someone who's never actually made anything have a "most-used plane"?

It's patently ridiculous to suggest that stropping only is a practical solution for plane sharpening. Carvers achieve it by stropping their tools after every few strokes, that's a completely daft suggestion in the context of hand plane work.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

I agree with Custard - this depends entirely on the wood you use, and how you use the blades. My woods are especially abrasive. Stroking is only good enough to refresh a plane blade once. Chisels a few more times. I would rather resharpen the blade than rely on stropping frequently.

Regards from Perth

Derek