Out of square Narex 8116

[nosuchhounds]

I picked up a set of 8116 chisels and theyve been still in the box waiting till i finish renovating my workshop. Started flattening and sharpening them today and found the smallest to be considerederably out of square straight out of the box. I dont have access to a grinder and to be honest, i wouldnt fancy regrinding a chisel of this size. Whats the most efficient way of getting this back to square? Just go at it on sanding paper with a honing guude?

 

[Bingy man]

I think you have inadvertently answered your own question- re grind on a machine or hone on a 400 grit diamond stone or similar and then hone as normal.

 

[Jacob]

I picked up a set of 8116 chisels and theyve been still in the box waiting till i finish renovating my workshop. Started flattening and sharpening them today and found the smallest to be considerederably out of square straight out of the box. I dont have access to a grinder and to be honest, i wouldnt fancy regrinding a chisel of this size. Whats the most efficient way of getting this back to square? Just go at it on sanding paper with a honing guude?

They don't need flattening, this is just one of the meaningless modern sharpening rituals. New chisel faces tend to be slightly hollow ground, which makes them very easy to sharpen. 10 seconds on each. If you flatten them this advantage is lost and you may spoil them.
They are going to get flattened over time anyway, as you turn them face down to take off the burr. Eventually they'll end up slightly convex instead, but that doesn't matter either.
To get them square you just have to improve your technique but in the meantime as long as they are sharp they will be fine. Don't worry about it and keep them away from grinding machines, especially the small ones!

 

[Ttrees]

I've never noticed a chisel of mine that went convex.
Then again I use diamond hones, and often lay a chisel on the flat well up the chisel
to clean off possible grit, before even thinking of getting close to the edge.
so perhaps that's why.
Plenty of reasons to want a flat narrow chisel, and that likely coincidences most of the time with having an evenly ground bevel across, unless you want it to skew and the lands cut or bruise the mortise wall.

If reluctant to grind due to space issues or whatever, and going the lapping method, then another thing one could check is whether the top is ground evenly, which could partly be reason for that odd luckin bevel.
I guess it may not be an issue with those, but can be seen on plenty of cheapies .
A winding stick of sorts, and bench grinder to hollow it out slightly first,
otherwise by hand would need a very narrow strip of abrasive to do the same.

Each to their own and all that.
All the best
Tom

 

[nosuchhounds]

Thanks for the replies. I spoke to Workshop Heaven who I purchased it through and theyre more than happy to replace it. Excellent stuff

 

[Orraloon]

A small chisel like that will not take much time to square up on a rough diamond plate with or without a honing guide. Could send it back for a square one if you like but after that its up to you to keep it square. Be a good learning exercise to do it yourself. Getting it sharp out of the box would be nice but it will soon need sharpening again after some use.
Regards
John

 

[Jacob]

Thanks for the replies. I spoke to Workshop Heaven who I purchased it through and theyre more than happy to replace it. Excellent stuff

That's good!
When you get them do not attempt to flatten them!
Just a quick gentle hone and turn over to take off the burr. 30 seconds per chisel max.
A chisel is never so easy to sharpen as when it's brand new out of the box. All the "prepping" and "initialising" we read about is 100% bo lox, unless the thing is really badly made or damaged to start with.
If it goes out of square just ignore it and aim to correct in later sharpenings.

 

[nosuchhounds]

To be honest i only flatten the first 5-10mm on the back as these were hollow ground

 

[Jacob]

To be honest i only flatten the first 5-10mm on the back as these were hollow ground

Just taking the burr off is enough flattening itself. Forget "flattening" altogether!

 

[thetyreman]

well you should polish the back like a mirror if you want it to perform well, all my chisels are are shiny on the back as they are on the bevel edge.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

 

[Jacob]

well you should polish the back like a mirror if you want it to perform well, all my chisels are are shiny on the back as they are on the bevel edge.

My theory is that once the sharpness is taken off the ridges of even very bad machine marks, on chisels or plane soles, then friction will be very low and further polishing would achieve nothing. The first few face down taking off the burr operations will do this, or just usage.
I found this out by chance when I bought a new plane. QS no 4 I think. The sole was ground coarsely enough to see the machine marks, which were straight along the sole. At first for a week or so it tended to track in a straight line. Before I got around to polishing, the tracking had stopped as the sharpness of the scratches had been taken off by use. You could still see them, but no need to do anything!
Chisels and plane blades need to be shiny close to the edge as that's where all the pressure and friction is, but further back doesn't matter.
Also the concern about flattening/polishing only seems to feature with the new boys (particularly R Cosman!) and doesn't get a mention in the older books.
Older chisels and plane blades are usually laminated on one side, with harder steel. This is a reason for keeping the cutting edge on that side too i.e. keeping the laminated face fairly flat.

 

[Jacob]

My theory is that once the sharpness is taken off the ridges of even very bad machine marks, on chisels or plane soles, then friction will be very low and further polishing would achieve nothing. The first few face down taking off the burr operations will do this, or just usage.
I found this out by chance when I bought a new plane. QS no 4 I think. The sole was ground coarsely enough to see the machine marks, which were straight along the sole. At first for a week or so it tended to track in a straight line. Before I got around to polishing, the tracking had stopped as the sharpness of the scratches had been taken off by use. You could still see them, but no need to do anything!
Chisels and plane blades need to be shiny close to the edge as that's where all the pressure and friction is, but further back doesn't matter.
Also the concern about flattening/polishing only seems to feature with the new boys (particularly R Cosman!) and doesn't get a mention in the older books.
Older chisels and plane blades are usually laminated on one side, with harder steel. This is a reason for keeping the cutting edge on that side too i.e. keeping the laminated face fairly flat.

PS forgot to add: similarly with flattening plane soles. I do it with 80 grit wet n dry (wet with white spirit) it's very fast and easy. No need to go finer - it'll be a bit snatchy at first but will soon lose its sharpness as the scratches get their edges blunted and be as low friction as if polished like a mirror, even though it looks rough. Can speed this up with a quick rub over with 400 grit on a block, no need to work up through the grits or aim for mirror finish.

 

[pe2dave]

Rather than a 400 grit diamond stone, put some 60 or 80 emery paper on wood
and use that to get it roughly right, then switch back to stones to hone it.

 

[essexalan]

I would rather subscribe to the the Kingshott, one of the old boys, school of sharpening, flatten and polish the back of a chisel. You only have to do it once and it works for me. I really don't like convex chisels which you will end up with if you continually just paying attention to the tip and use wonky stones. Plane blades do not matter so much as long as the very edge area is polished and the CB seats nicely.

 

[Trafalgar]

If a bench chisel is made correctly, slightly concave on the side opposite the bevel, simply chasing the burr on your fine stone will result in polish and 'flatness' at the cutting edge. Flatness is virtually unavoidable unless you go out of your way to unnecessarily tip the chisel up on the stone when chasing the burr off the back. I bought a five pack of Blue Chip chisels in the 1980s (about $30!) and every single one of them had a concave back, like they should.

Squaring up an out-of-square chisel, especially a narrow one, should be a skill everybody has. You have to be able to shape things at your honing stones, either imparting curvature, maintaining curvature, bringing tools back into square, etc. The craft is going to be next to impossible if you don't acquire these skills early on. Everything can't go back to the tool seller. A modicum of metal working skills are required when working wood. Not saying you have to start up a tool-making endeavor (one suspects a lot of these look better than they actually perform), but you can't be afraid of your grinder and honing stones either.

 

[thetyreman]

on very narrow chisels I use my richard kell honing guide, it's great for keeping a square edge, most of the time I sharpen freehand but it's a handy tool when you need it.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

A honing guide? Oh, here we go ......................

 

[Trafalgar]

on very narrow chisels I use my richard kell honing guide, it's great for keeping a square edge, most of the time I sharpen freehand but it's a handy tool when you need it.

Tip it up 90* to the stone, rake it sideways across the coarse face of an oilstone until the end is dead square. Then hone the bevel freehand until a burr turns up on the back starting coarse then going to fine. You can also do the initial squaring on the edge of the stone rather than the face. You paid for the whole stone, might as well use the entire thing. This whole bit might take five minutes on a narrow chisel -- much less time that it would take to pack it up and mail it back to the seller. No grinder is involved and therefore no chance of overheating a narrow chisel which is very easily done.

Of course nobody would do this on a $400 Shapton or Japanese water stone, but that's their problem. Won't hurt an India stone a bit, and you're using the coarse side of a coarse/fine India anyway.

 

[Pabs]

It seems that this will always be a contentious topic with camps here and there. But what I would say as a beginner is that the process of dismantling and refining the god-awful grind on most castings and cutters makes me really get to know the tool that I've gotten off ebay or wherever - and this is worth it. Yes the more experienced may espouse / reject this as fluff but for me putting some sweat into a cheap old plane to reveal a shiny sharp tool not only helps me understand its mechanism but also bonds me with the tool. I've currently done 10 out of 15 that I've bought since November 2022 and I'm still not tired of it.

And not to disparage the advice here - this is kind of distinct as my aim would be to gain such an intimate understanding of a tool that only by pouring sweat into it do I adopt it as my own - for now, until I die and it might be passed on again.