MDF as a sharpening/honing substrate?

[Eshmiel]

I've made a few MDF wheels for use in sharpening (but really just honing a lot) steel edges, mounted in a portable drill clamped to the bench or on the pigtail extrusion of a SorbyProEdge grinding machine. I usually coat them with a honing paste of one "grit" or another, down to one micron diamond paste. They seem to work on my spoon carving knives and gouges in that they make them sharp once more.

However, another discussion prompted me to wonder - what is the "grit of the MDF itself? I have read of people using bare MDF (no paste) to hone and sharpen; and it does have a reputation for blunting tools used to cut it so presumably it does have a degree of abrasiveness.

Does anyone know what "grit" MDF may be?

Do different MDFs have different "grits"?

 

[Jacob]

I've made a few MDF wheels for use in sharpening (but really just honing a lot) steel edges, mounted in a portable drill clamped to the bench or on the pigtail extrusion of a SorbyProEdge grinding machine. I usually coat them with a honing paste of one "grit" or another, down to one micron diamond paste. They seem to work on my spoon carving knives and gouges in that they make them sharp once more.

However, another discussion prompted me to wonder - what is the "grit of the MDF itself? I have read of people using bare MDF (no paste) to hone and sharpen; and it does have a reputation for blunting tools used to cut it so presumably it does have a degree of abrasiveness.

Does anyone know what "grit" MDF may be?

Do different MDFs have different "grits"?

I think you are overthinking this! Be careful you might catch the modern sharpening mania!

 

[Eshmiel]

I think you are overthinking this! Be careful you might catch the modern sharpening mania!

Overthinking? I tried the other mode but found myself wondering if Mrs Thatcher had a point. Or even that Tebbit! No, no - overthinking by the ton for me, please. Too many crazy beliefs are just waiting for an underthinker to open their brain.

Anyway, I caught the modern sharpening mania decades ago. It's my second favouritist hobby*, collecting and playing with sharpening gubbins. It's better than playing darts or watching eejits cavort on the eejit-box, doncha think?

Has someone persuaded thee, lad, to underthink? Have you considered the many strange consequences, such as insisting on hand-sharpening being best for every woodworker then, now and to come?

* 67th favourist, in fact. The other 66 hobbies are even better (including Jacob-stimulating).

 

[mwinfrance]

* 67th favourist, in fact. The other 66 hobbies are even better (including Jacob-stimulating)

[ Frankie Howerd voice ]...Oooh Err MIssus !....You might want to rephrase that one.

or

"Get a shed , the pair of yers ! ".