Plane and Chisel Sharpening Tools

[Ttrees]

Hello again David
I aint arguing about a superior edge compared to your buffing method.

I was curious from your comment about my hone in particular.
As said I used my diamond hone for lapping and don't want to think about the amount of time I had spent, (absolutely too embarrassed to count how many days of lapping I have done with this hone) when I was in a flat a decade ago.
I just guess it would be up there with the finest of laps, in a practical sense.

Concerning your comment about polish alone..
One thing I would be interested on is the geometry of the lap
My said hone used for my ridiculous behavior was actually damaged when I
was honing a warped iron, and has the perimeter of the hone sheared off from the sides of the iron,
so has much of its tendency to dub the edge removed.
I have seen David Charlesworth remark about pulling the iron onto the hone, so that's likely where I got that idea to get the whole surface flat so I could do the same.
I was under the impression that you could remove that hooked burr better with a gradual introduction onto the hone, so am interested if the backs might look different on a microscope compared to just placing the burr directly onto the hone of choice.

I really get along with my wee hone and have gotten used to it for a few reasons,
mainly for my theoretical surety (which you say might not be so sure after all)
I epoxied my cheap ebay 2 quid DMD hone onto the convex side of a granite plate
so I could lap onto the apex of the hone and not dub the edge.
I get along with that hone too, and combined with your tips are getting predictable results on the bevel side also.
Have you done any experimentation about removing the burr on an apex of a surface ?
I suppose the buffer does that now.
Thanks
Tom

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I'm sure these posts are both knowledgeable and informative but I fail to see what help they are to the OP. He'll be blinded by science.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Regarding squareness, I have similar trouble, and it is annoying, especially doing rebate plane irons and similar, where you really do need to take a bit of care otherwise you compromise the plane's operation.

These aren't solutions as such, but have helped me:

If I am using my Tormekkalike, I check squareness everywhere I can: carriage arm to the horizontal, grindstone to the vertical, then dress the stone for squareness on its rim. Then I have to assume the plane iron or chisel has parallel sides, and square it to the carriage and arm. In each case I use a small engineer's square where necessary. I have a few chisels that taper, and they are a right PITA to do.

One nuisance factor in this is the stone doesn't run true on the spindle, so I can get the rim true with a diamond trueing tool, but I can't get the sides really square to the rim, nor in the vertical plane. It makes the offical way of flattening a chisel back (on the side of the wheel) very hit and miss, so I usually do that using Scary Sharp on a thick glass plate.

This amounts to a fair bit of faffing about, and a lot of the supposed advantages of the "Tormek" design are lost, simply in wasted time getting the thing trued up a bit before getting any proper grinding done! The genuine one might be better - for example the wheel might run true - but you pay a huge premium for that, IMHO.

When actually sharpening with the thing I try to make single left-to-right passes, and not zig-zag movements. This keeps the stone wear even, and should also keep the grind consistent (as each bit of the blade gets the same time on the stone). If the blade is wider than the stone (most Bailey pattern ones are on my system), then I am careful with the edges - start half-on the stone and finish half-off the stone at the other side. I also lift off, rather than let the blade drop over the corner of the stone.

For honing and touch-ups I do Scary Sharp, usually using an Eclipse Jig. If I have to do a primary grind that way, I'll mark a square reference across the back of the edge tool with a small engineer's square and a Sharpie, fairly close to the end.

I also always "blue" the surface being ground or honed, at least to start with, so I can see exactly where the metal is coming off. With a wet grinding wheel especially, it's easy to do a lot of damage in a short time, so vital to check immediately you start and for a few passes afterwards. Like others have said, pressure where you want to remove material - my fingers are rather bent now so I have to be meticulous about this.

For skews etc, I have another guide for flat stones/scary sharp, which has a wide plate and a hold-down bar:

Mine came from Axminster, but I think they dropped this design, which is a shame. It's still available as "Narex" but fairly pricey. You can mark angles on the flat surface with a protractor, so doing skews is fairly easy. I've ground a couple of 1/4" chisels to a 30deg angle across, which is sufficient for me, and I just make sure they align with the pencil line. Be aware that the roller is crowned however: needs a bit of care in use when doing skews.

It's also good for odd plane irons such as my Record 2506 side rebate plane (the geometry on those is really headache inducing!). If you are tempted to get a side rebate plane, go for a pair of single-direction ones: the geometry is far simpler (just a mounted skew chisel really), and you are far less likely to cut your finger using the silly thing!

 

[evildrome]

I've never had one of the 3 micron diamond hones. I did have 2.5 and 5 micron diamond powder and tested those on a cast lap, but they are fresh and were too aggressive (edge life was about 65% of a 1 micron diamond edge, and for comparison, fine oilstones like a settled in washita were about 85% of the 1 micron diamond edge.

Nice photos... may I ask what equipment you used to take them?

 

[Max Power]

DW thankyou for your comments, most appreciated.

Regarding the Trend Honing Guide, the replacement arrived this afternoon. In my view the new guide cuts to a much better standard than the old one confirming the original guide had some issues - Thank you TREND for excellent after sales service.

I have done some checks on the Record WG250 and the guide arm seems to be parallel with the Wet Stone wheel, so assume it must be finger trouble on my part. I'll use some of the advice from DW and try harder

Thanks guys for your help

Glen

DW thankyou for your comments, most appreciated.

Regarding the Trend Honing Guide, the replacement arrived this afternoon. In my view the new guide cuts to a much better standard than the old one confirming the original guide had some issues - Thank you TREND for excellent after sales service.

I have done some checks on the Record WG250 and the guide arm seems to be parallel with the Wet Stone wheel, so assume it must be finger trouble on my part. I'll use some of the advice from DW and try harder

Thanks guys for your help

Glen

Have you tried truing the stone Glen. Mines a Tormec but I presume your record will have a diamond stone truing jig of some sort ?

 

[D_W]

Nice photos... may I ask what equipment you used to take them?

It's in indian-made metallurgical microscope with camera (was about $425 at the time when I got it, with overnight shipping from india). You can get similar pictures for a lot less now with cell phone based equipment, or somewhat less good pictures with a hand held scope for about $25 - maybe a little less magnification, but they'll show you a lot of things you can't see with the naked eye.

I sold japanese sharpening stones and razors for a while and the only way to ethically do that is with a scope like this (to ensure a razor takes a good uniform edge - if not, it's defective - and to see what level of actual fineness and uniformity a given natural stone has). Most of those stones and most sharpened razors aren't sold ethically, I'd say. I've used it just as much experimenting and found things that more or less will serve well the rest of my life sharpening knives and tools to actually use.

 

[Felix]

Hi

After my retirement of being an Aircraft Engineer for 35 years, I decided to get back into my old hobby of wood working. With regard to sharpening my Plane blades and Chisels I thought I would come into the 21st Century and buy some precision methods of achieving a perfectly sharp cutting edge with these tools.

Having been very satisfied with both Record and Trend in the past, I bought a Record Power WG250 Wet Stone Grinder and a Trend Honing Guide Set, thinking these would give me precision sharp edges on my tools - wrong !!

I have read the included manuals several times and watched various YouTube videos on each product only to find I cannot get a true 90 degree sharp edge using both products. I appreciate the common denominator with these two items is me, but I have followed the manuals and videos to the letter, but still can't get a sharp 90 degree edge using either product.

Has anyone else had this problem and come up with a solution.

Thanks

Glen

I wouldn't bother. Just get your blade and guide on your sharpening machine set up to your preferred sharpening angle and as close to 90deg as possible and that's it. If you are slightly off across the width you can 'remove' this by using the lateral adjuster on the plane. The same goes for your chisels (I use an eclipse type guide and use a block of wood (set to 25-ish degrees for sharpening) to repeat the angle)

Also, don't get hung up on 25 or 30 degrees or any other angle - it is more important to have repeatability of an angle rather than a specific angle - 24.5, 25.1 or 25.3 (basically anywhere close to your chosen angle) is absolutely fine as long as it is repeatable.

Have a look at Richard Maquire's website www.theenglishwoodworker.com - there's loads of info on there.

Cheers

Dean

Hope that helps

 

[D_W]

Hello again David
I aint arguing about a superior edge compared to your buffing method.

I was curious from your comment about my hone in particular.
As said I used my diamond hone for lapping and don't want to think about the amount of time I had spent, (absolutely too embarrassed to count how many days of lapping I have done with this hone) when I was in a flat a decade ago.
I just guess it would be up there with the finest of laps, in a practical sense.

Concerning your comment about polish alone..
One thing I would be interested on is the geometry of the lap
My said hone used for my ridiculous behavior was actually damaged when I
was honing a warped iron, and has the perimeter of the hone sheared off from the sides of the iron,
so has much of its tendency to dub the edge removed.
I have seen David Charlesworth remark about pulling the iron onto the hone, so that's likely where I got that idea to get the whole surface flat so I could do the same.
I was under the impression that you could remove that hooked burr better with a gradual introduction onto the hone, so am interested if the backs might look different on a microscope compared to just placing the burr directly onto the hone of choice.

I really get along with my wee hone and have gotten used to it for a few reasons,
mainly for my theoretical surety (which you say might not be so sure after all)
I epoxied my cheap ebay 2 quid DMD hone onto the convex side of a granite plate
so I could lap onto the apex of the hone and not dub the edge.
I get along with that hone too, and combined with your tips are getting predictable results on the bevel side also.
Have you done any experimentation about removing the burr on an apex of a surface ?
I suppose the buffer does that now.
Thanks
Tom

If I gather what you're saying, you've got a setup through wear of your stone or some other factor that allows you to pull the back of an iron onto the stone and sort of "flip" the wire edge up and hone it off at the same time?

I haven't really checked into that. There is something I do deliberately, though, and that's to thin the wire edge as much as possible on the bevel side by ending with lighter pressure, and not to strop a wire edge that's really strong. that goes even with the buffer - if the wire edge is left strong on the bevel side and not addressed thinning with back side work, it takes a lot more buffing to get rid of it and sometimes too much.

I never tear off a strong wire edge on a lower stone.

But, no, I haven't looked at differences in removing the wire edge other than that, just need to see it gone with no damage.

Separate comment - the best (speed and fineness) media that I found for back work and high polish is autosol or dursol. For anyone who didn't see the sharpening stone comparison, dursol on wood looked like this:



compared to shapton cream (which seems to scratch pretty large for its supposed 1.2 micron rating - maybe some of the particles stick together - don't know)



both finish an edge at about the same speed, but using a medium hardwood or something harder than white pine with dursol allows for good speed/gentle combination). Dursol/autosol supposedly has particles about double the size of the shapton.

 

[Ttrees]

Hello and a good morning

If I gather what you're saying, you've got a setup through wear of your stone or some other factor that allows you to pull the back of an iron onto the stone and sort of "flip" the wire edge up and hone it off at the same time?

I never tear off a strong wire edge on a lower stone.

I think I should have been a bit more descriptive with my setup.
Rightly or wrongly, I don't touch the back of my tools with anything else than my extra fine diamond hone, so it's too slow to actually abrade the wire edge off.
If anything my thinking on this was to do near the opposite of tearing off a wire edge, by not over bending it which could possibly happen on a dished stone, or one that might be so soft as to wear in use.
The same thinking with the rough hone epoxied to the ever so slightly convex granite plate, not for getting an edge, just for getting tools prepared before the polishing with the finer ones.
Better a few thou convex than concave for this purpose.

My aim is to have the best polish at the edge by slower, or should I say more repetitive strokes leading to a possibly better scratch pattern, but I haven't looked into this like yourself, to prove for myself that I am incorrect.
From this point of view, it could appear from your very speedy demonstrations on some older videos you have using the washita and strop for the back of the iron,
that the strop might not abrade all of the scratches off all of the time.
It doesn't appear so from the results though.
I was referring to edge life though, rather than the ability to take full unbroken shavings.

I could be quite wrong with my presumptions, and not thinning that wire edge enough with my method, leading to breaking the thicker, or maybe honing a stouter less suitable profiled wire edge off unknowingly.

I just don't have the guts to try and see how I get on with a washita and strop on its own,
I tried stropping the back of my polished irons once with Autosol and it didn't look as polished, more like a waterstone but with gunk it seemed.

It's hard to get an idea of scale from your proof is in the pudding photos, and I am not sure if I am supposed to be knowing that this is the edge of the polished back or flat zoomed in to a 5 thou shot, or just the surface texture from further away.
Could you share some thoughts on this.
Thanks David
Tom

 

[G S Haydon]

Pleased you posted the Autosol photo. A nicely bedded in fine India and some Autosol does a great job.

 

[D_W]

Hello and a good morning

I think I should have been a bit more descriptive with my setup.
Rightly or wrongly, I don't touch the back of my tools with anything else than my extra fine diamond hone, so it's too slow to actually abrade the wire edge off.
If anything my thinking on this was to do near the opposite of tearing off a wire edge, by not over bending it which could possibly happen on a dished stone, or one that might be so soft as to wear in use.
The same thinking with the rough hone epoxied to the ever so slightly convex granite plate, not for getting an edge, just for getting tools prepared before the polishing with the finer ones.
Better a few thou convex than concave for this purpose.

My aim is to have the best polish at the edge by slower, or should I say more repetitive strokes leading to a possibly better scratch pattern, but I haven't looked into this like yourself, to prove for myself that I am incorrect.
From this point of view, it could appear from your very speedy demonstrations on some older videos you have using the washita and strop for the back of the iron,
that the strop might not abrade all of the scratches off all of the time.
It doesn't appear so from the results though.
I was referring to edge life though, rather than the ability to take full unbroken shavings.

I could be quite wrong with my presumptions, and not thinning that wire edge enough with my method, leading to breaking the thicker, or maybe honing a stouter less suitable profiled wire edge off unknowingly.

I just don't have the guts to try and see how I get on with a washita and strop on its own,
I tried stropping the back of my polished irons once with Autosol and it didn't look as polished, more like a waterstone but with gunk it seemed.

It's hard to get an idea of scale from your proof is in the pudding photos, and I am not sure if I am supposed to be knowing that this is the edge of the polished back or flat zoomed in to a 5 thou shot, or just the surface texture from further away.
Could you share some thoughts on this.
Thanks David
Tom

the height of these photos is about .019 or .02" or so. Even knowing that, it doesn't really tell you much about them unless you've got some experience viewing other known edges at the same scale. The purpose of the microscope is two-fold:
1) see what you can see
2) determine that if you can't see something (for example, scratches too small to reflect light), that they're probably irrelevant for woodworking

The flat side of the back is showy, lots of scratches or no and the visual draw, but what's important is really the smoothness of the edge in combination with the depth of the scratches. Diamonds above micron size taunt a little bit by leaving a really deep narrow scratch (the picture looks better than the edge).

As far as stropping in my videos, I generally don't use anything on a strop with the washita, and that's only changed a little in terms of in regard to lately (trying things like autosol just to see about the edge finish -as well as the buffer).

A washita with light pressure is probably a fair bit more refined than a broken in 3 micron diamond hone. that sounds like it's probably not true, but here's a picture of a washita-abraded edge (10 seconds heavy pressure, 10 seconds light, tease the edge a second and then buff the bevel side).



compare it to what the shapton does. This is the same condition of an edge that goes to the autosol picture shortly after.

Point being, that if the bevel side is finished well and the washita stone isn't abraded and cutting coarsely, there's really nothing in woodworking that needs improvement (and in 20 seconds of back work, if refinement is important, one stone to this and no strops). You can see the wide shallow sctratches, but again, it's more about how even the edge is.

(the shapton cuts violently and fast and looks more refined than an 8k waterstone, but an 8k waterstone is probably similar looking).

All that said, the real test of actual refinement is a duration test in wood alternating with two irons, then swapping edge prep. Nobody likes to do that. I hate it, but that's where I got the figures that a washita edge outlasts a 2.5 micron loose diamond edge but not a 1 micron loose diamond edge. It's sandwiched between the two (I had no natural stone that could last as well or perform as well planing clean wood as 1 micron diamonds).

With the washita, though, it's all about using the stone to break in and then adjusting what you want to do with it using pressure. At this level of refinement, defects created by certain stones or defects left in an edge (from incomplete sharpness) are a bigger deal.

There may be a question, if this is that good, then why the autosol picture? It's not needed with the washita, but when you back off to something like a fine india, the autosol makes for a big improvement in edge refinement - one that can easily be felt.

 

[D_W]

For folks not following completely, note that a stone often called "coarse" - the washita - leaves a much more even edge than the shapton cream. This contrast was a bit of a shock to me, but in my durability tests, the washita that I use (that's settled in) was a statistical dead heat with the dan's black in terms of edge longevity, and it works a little faster than the dan's black when you increase pressure when sharpening, so in practice, it's a better stone for anything other than really soft steel.