Sharpening on stones with a guide

[Bm101]

Just talking to my Italian Knife maker mate, apparently it's common practice there even today.

 

[David C]

There are a number of Honing guides which work perfectly well with a slightly cambered edge.

Eclipse & clones, Veritas with cambered roller, old red Marples, old Stanley? with the ball. Also that wonderful old minimalist angle guide with the narrow brass wheel and the projections marked. In fact anything which does not have a wide roller or training wheels.

David Charlesworth

 

[Jacob]

........ Also that wonderful old minimalist angle guide with the narrow brass wheel and the projections marked. .......

One of the best IMHO (of a bad lot!). I've got one. Anybody using it will realise in a few minutes that they can do it just as well without the guide, which is worth knowing.

 

[bugbear]

Cambering, or honing an already cambered edge, is difficult to impossible with most jigs.

Odd. I find it really easy, even on the camber of a proper scrub plane blade. Scrubs are fun, and sharp scrubs are more fun.

if you're struggling and want tips, just ask. I'm always happy to provide honest information.

BugBear

 

[Jacob]

What is the jig doing for you which you can't do without it?

 

[ED65]

I wouldn't grind by hand unless I had to - it's just hard work.

Yes it's a hard slog all right. I've done it three or four times and it's not something I would choose to do again. One chisel with a big chip taken out of the edge took more than 40 minutes of continuous effort I recall.

I use a Sorby proedge instead, then hone by hand. Old knackered chisel would take just a minute or so.

I have a small low-speed grinder. Just squaring the edges was merely a pass or two over the stone, but the wider one was heavily rounded possibly from a life as a paint tin opener, general dogsbody scraper or what have you. I had to grind back nearly 3mm so a lot of steel had to be removed to form a new bevel. I can't imagine how long it would have taken completely by hand on a 19mm chisel. I think it required about 6-7 minutes of grinding, seemed longer but that's probably what it took.

But to compensate you'll be pleased to hear on the narrower one only 11 or 12 strokes on a 1000 diamond plate, all of two seconds' work, was all that was needed on the back. Now obviously I was lucky, but it does illustrate how quickly the flat of a chisel can be commissioned, nothing remotely like the long and laborious lapping sessions too often recommended today.

PS If it's "haranguing the inexperienced" I see this as counter haranguing

Fair enough the message that freehanding is viable today as it was in yesteryear does need to be put across, ditto oilstones, but it's about how it's put across. Catch more flies with honey than with vinegar and all that.

And I think it does a disservice to adamantly state that everyone can freehand because it's quite clear that everyone can not. I think you need to leave room for the fact that not everyone is cut out to be a hand sharpener. There are those who have struggled with freehanding for years, that's proof enough of that. Part of it is knowledge of what should be done and how (harder to learn solo than might be supposed) but the simple fact is that not everyone's hands can learn this, at least not well enough to do it consistently to the high standard necessary for chisels for example.

Plane irons I'd say anyone could learn to do it because of the wide reference surface, and honing angle is much less critical on most irons. And in part because they don't need to be quite as sharp to work properly. But chisels are tougher to do and not everyone can muster the necessary coordination to do it well each and every time, particularly on narrower chisels.

There's a clue in that nearly all sharpening threads (including this one) are about difficulties encountered whilst using a jig - the sensible solution in almost every case is to dump the jig.

By the same logic difficulty experienced with freehand sharpening implies that person should ditch that method ;-)

An equally sensible solution to difficulties encountered when using honing jigs is getting input on using them better/properly, same as it is with any piece of kit.

 

[bugbear]

What is the jig doing for you which you can't do without it?

I believe the question of "why use jigs" has been discussed before, so I won't bother going over old ground.

I was addressing your assertion about honing guides not being capable of use with cambers, which you should have the courtesy not to repeat, now that it's been disproved by counter example.

BugBear

 

[David C]

Examples !!

Great photo of the red job.

David

 

[Jacob]

What is the jig doing for you which you can't do without it?

I believe the question of "why use jigs" has been discussed before, so I won't bother going over old ground.

I was addressing your assertion about honing guides not being capable of use with cambers, which you should have the courtesy not to repeat, now that it's been disproved by counter example.

BugBear

What I wrote was "Cambering, or honing an already cambered edge, is difficult to impossible with most jigs" which is true. I thought you read everything I write really carefully BB. Pay more attention!
NB if you look carefully you will see the word "most" which implies "not all".

What about answering my question, which was apropos your jig photo; "What is the jig doing for you which you can't do without it?"

 

[David C]

Jacob's statement about cambering and honing is demonstrably inaccurate.

I bet there are more Eclipse type and tilting guides about than straight roller & training wheels.

Guides maintain known angles which are accurately repeatable.

How obtuse can one get?

David

 

[bugbear]

Jacob's statement about cambering and honing is demonstrably inaccurate.

I bet there are more Eclipse type and tilting guides about than straight roller & training wheels.

Guides maintain known angles which are accurately repeatable.

How obtuse can one get?

David

:lol:

BugBear

 

[Jacob]

Jacob's statement about cambering and honing is demonstrably inaccurate.

I bet there are more Eclipse type and tilting guides about than straight roller & training wheels.

The eclipse guide can be made to camber up to a point (with difficulty, this is not the intention) but not enough for a scrub plane. Either way it's easier without. Most of the others are much the same or worse in that respect, though you can have tilting rollers as an extra with some.

Guides maintain known angles which are accurately repeatable.

Freehanders do (almost) exactly the same. Near enough accurate judged by eye (and the emergence of a burr).

How obtuse can one get?

David

[/quote][/quote]Freehand one can go as obtuse as 90º if one really wanted. No problemo!

 

[Paul Chapman]

Near enough accurate judged by eye (and the emergence of a burr).

Us honing guide users can get it far more accurate (and therefore sharper) than "near enough".

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Carl P]

Reading this is like watching 'Dave' on TV, all your favourite repeats full of loveable characters saying the same old stuff over and over again. Life affirming stuff - if Jacob and Bugbear swapped positions, or even worse agreed with each other it might precipitate an existential crisis of such grave proportions it could tear apart the very fabric of space/time itself!

Not that I'm a believer, but God bless you all, the mad scramble of life would be that bit poorer without you.

Cheerio,

Carl

 

[Bm101]

Well, that's me learned a lesson. When I saw the cambered veritas roller the other day I presumed (and what's presumption the Mother of?) , you had to disassemble the straight roller with the allen key etc in the same way you put a new straight roller on. (The first one I got on mine was a bit out and Veritas sent me a new one gratis, no quibble so fair play). Reading above I thought that can't be the case, it would be too much of a faff which was why I laughed it off. So I did a little research on the net. Ended back up on here on (surprise) on a review done by Alf back in 2006. Ahhh. It's a replaceable quick change unit. That'll make more sense then. (homer) Only 10 years late to the party. #-o

 

[Graham Orm]

Reading this is like watching 'Dave' on TV, all your favourite repeats full of loveable characters saying the same old stuff over and over again. Life affirming stuff - if Jacob and Bugbear swapped positions, or even worse agreed with each other it might precipitate an existential crisis of such grave proportions it could tear apart the very fabric of space/time itself!

Not that I'm a believer, but God bless you all, the mad scramble of life would be that bit poorer without you.

Cheerio,

Carl

:lol: :lol:

 

[D_W]

Near enough accurate judged by eye (and the emergence of a burr).

Us honing guide users can get it far more accurate (and therefore sharper) than "near enough".

Cheers :wink:

Paul

I doubt a free-handers angle varies by more than a degree. You get used to setting the iron on the stone at a specific angle and you just do it. There certainly isn't any difference in sharpness between my edges before and after guide (I don't remember when I stopped using a guide, maybe 5 years ago? Hard to tell).

 

[D_W]

Question to the dedicated guide users. What do you do to sharpen moulding planes and carving tools?

 

[MIGNAL]

or even knives or all sorts of other blades that don't readily fit into some sort of guide. There comes a point (at least for myself) where I would practically require two dozen different guides to cover the blades that I use - knives (various types), skew chisels, gouges, tiny thumb plane blades, wooden spokeshave blades, drawknife. . .

 

[David C]

I teach amateurs and beginners. They are not getting pleasure from their planes or chisels because they are not getting them properly sharp.

They can be taught to produce a practically perfect edge in two days. One for chisels and one for cambered plane blades. (preparation, grinding & honing, squaring, cambering).

David,
I expect I sharpen moulding planes and carving chisels the same or similar way you do. It just so happens this is not very often. Modern furniture tends not to use them.

David