How to sharpen?

[matthewwh]

Matthew. You're SS Kits include three grades of paper. What instance would I need the other grades?

Hi,

The coarse grit is intended for fine work on the primary bevel either to accurately reduce the size of the secondary, refine the surface after more aggressive regrinding, or achieve an initial burr if you are not using a secondary bevel (e.g. a dedicated paring chisel).

The second grit establishes a secondary bevel, removing the scratches from the first. If you go straight from coarse to fine without going through an intermediate grade it takes longer and the result is not as good. There is also a greater risk of tearing the fine abrasive with the saw edge from the coarser one (a feather light touch is the other answer if you do encounter this problem). Some people add a second intermediate grit as well.

The fine abrasive brings the secondary bevel (or tertiary if you are that way inclined) to a mirror finish. Five microns is just a shade shy of a 6000 grit waterstone, so for the vast majority of work this is adequate. 1 and 0.3 will polish scratches out of glass but a lot of customers have a sheet or two, just to have in reserve for that 'this is the final finishing pass on this rollercoaster grained piece I've just spent a week perfecting' moment.

We now have the three original grades 60, 30 and 5um in non PSA backed and also 40, 30, 15, 5, 1 and 0.3um in PSA (adhesive) backed (you can mix and match these if you like) as well as the heavy duty 100 micron version for more serious grinding.

There are various different techniques, some people use a long stroke, some use very short strokes and then work their way down the paper as it wears, some cut the sheets into 3 and lay them side by side, some quarter them and lay them lengthwise - up to the individual really to play around find out what suits them best.

For less precise work like smeg was talking about, an offcut of MDF with a sheet of 100 on one side and a sheet of 40 on the other makes an incredibly efficient A4 sized disposable sharpening slab. Ideal for site work as it's massive, faster than a diamond stone and costs less than a fiver, so in the unlikely event that it does go for a walk, you won't be crying into your tea.

 

[woodbloke]

I'll be using the Tormek for the primary bevel and I've just ordered the 30um paper for the secondary bevel and a few sheets of 1um for the micro-bevel, but as Matthew says, you can mix and match for your own individual requirements - Rob

 

[woodbloke]

I made up a board to hold the dmt stones that has a "run on" area in front of them the same height as the stones, so the veritas jig, or the eclipse, starts on the run on area and allows full use of the length of the stone.

Simple, and providing you make it accurately (or shim it if you don't ) works very well for me.

Cheers, Paul

Paul - I considered that idea with the Eclipse but discounted it 'cos even with a 'roller run' block, only a portion of the stone surface would have been in use (iIrc). It's even more of a problem with a Kell III as you have two rollers that would need to run on two strips of wood either side of the stone. If the strips are not dead parallel, or even worse, slightly twisted :shock: the Kell is going to run pi$$ed and the resulting edge won't be square :evil: which to me is rather defeating the whole point of the operation. That's why I think the glass plate that Matthew sells is ideal for the Kell III as the honing medium and roller surface are then all in one dead level horizontal plane - Rob