Sharpening

[danst96]

Popcorn is going down well at this stage, keep 'er coming.

 

[Jacob]

Here we go again - avoid water stones ...

You've never used water stones so you don't know.

I've been talked out of it by reading all the comments over the years. Mainly you have to flatten them all the time so you need another flattening stone! And another to flatten the flattening stone?
Just bin them it's easier!

 

[rogxwhit]

Some of us earn our crust (and it often is a crust!) by making things - ie by actually doing something. And we tend to just get on with it (we'll starve if we don't). Many others earn their crust (often I suspect quite a fat crust) by just selling stuff. So they're always on the lookout for things to sell. And there's always a new rank of innocents coming along to try out the latest novelties. How many colourfully anodised trinkets have you seen lately that'll vault your skills into the stratosphere as soon as you click on 'buy'?

This applies to more than sharpening ... ? Egypt is even planning to widen a narrow part of the Suez canal to accomodate the transit of an ever greater tide of guff ...

Are we makers or are we shoppers?

I know a chap who carved a marvellous figure from a piece of firewood, and all he used was a 1/4" chisel that I'd lent him ...

.

 

[rogxwhit]

Some people approach sharpening like fashion victims ...

 

[Jacob]

The old chippie I worked with decades ago told me was commonly used when he an apprentice.
I must try some - I keep it for leather hats and my wife's walking boots.

What do you put on your boots?

 

[raffo]

Well, push this thread along ,in a direction it might not wan't to go - Does anyone else remember the use of 'Neats Foot Oil' for oilstones? The only time I ever came across it was in my school woodwork room, eons ago.

I've used it. It's kind of thick and has a peculiar smell. Since it doesn't flow all over the place, it makes a little less of a mess compared to mineral oil or other thin fluids.

Some people use kerosene, the version we get in the US has a very strong odor, it stinks up the whole house. I don't use it on my stones.

 

[D_W]

Well, push this thread along ,in a direction it might not wan't to go - Does anyone else remember the use of 'Neats Foot Oil' for oilstones? The only time I ever came across it was in my school woodwork room, eons ago.

I've seen references for it, and long before that, sperm oil from whales - nondrying before petroleum based light oils were all over the place.

both would've been fine choices for oilstones as one of the biggest problems with the older ones is people going really cheap and trying to get by with oils that aren't refined and that will oxidize and clog a stone.

I've used neatsfoot oil a whole bunch on baseball gloves and boots and shoes, but not for sharpening due to the thickness. That thickness would be excellent for india and silicon carbide stones, but only a thin film of it (apply oil, then intentionally wipe almost all of it off) on fine stones.

The advent of cheap hydrotreated (very clean) mineral oils that are available in a wide range and that have no odor or pork rind type smell sort of pushes neatsfoot to the side.

re: the value of highly processed mineral oils - my dad had an old oilstone that was clogged with oxidized oil. He assumed it was of no use because it was too slow. Under it was a washita. I asked after we loosened the crud if he had any mineral oil, and all he had was some singer oil cans from WWII and before. Some unopened. We chose one and the oil in it had only lightly yellowed - worked just fine, no smell.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I've been talked out of it by reading all the comments over the years. Mainly you have to flatten them all the time so you need another flattening stone! And another to flatten the flattening stone?
Just bin them it's easier!

Use the whole stone as you would an oilstone. I do confess to flattening them about once a decade, though. (Usually on a coping stone on the garden wall . )

 

[D_W]

Some of us earn our crust (and it often is a crust!) by making things - ie by actually doing something. And we tend to just get on with it (we'll starve if we don't). Many others earn their crust (often I suspect quite a fat crust) by just selling stuff. So they're always on the lookout for things to sell. And there's always a new rank of innocents coming along to try out the latest novelties. How many colourfully anodised trinkets have you seen lately that'll vault your skills into the stratosphere as soon as you click on 'buy'?

This applies to more than sharpening ... ? Egypt is even planning to widen a narrow part of the Suez canal to accomodate the transit of an ever greater tide of guff ...

Are we makers or are we shoppers?

I know a chap who carved a marvellous figure from a piece of firewood, and all he used was a 1/4" chisel that I'd lent him ...

.

I've met professional makers who have spent less on hand tools, other than carving tools, in total (including stones) than what I've spent on a single plane.

(that was a poorly ordered statement!)

But, the finest maker I've ever seen is an absolute tool hound and was a relentless maker, so the idea that this is a black and white thing is a little off. Really fine makers seem to be a little bit more interested in needling away at ideal tools. For a joiner or someone just making kitchen cabinets or tables or whatever, I can't imagine much spending on hand tools would be rewarded, though.

We have our share of people in the states who like to boast about how much they do with how little tools or with poor quality tools. boasting about the latter is a little odd when good basic vintage tools really aren't very expensive.

 

[D_W]

That sounds good, will just have to find the angle for my Ashley Isles chisel and then read up on the Scary sharp method and away I go. Not sure if I need a camber roller or skew jig.

If you're working hardwoods, 25 degree grind, 32 degree very small secondary bevel. if you're working softwoods, you can back off a couple of degrees on the final angle.

Separate the bevel work and work at the edge and you'll have more success and faster refreshing.

 

[Jacob]

Use the whole stone as you would an oilstone. I do confess to flattening them about once a decade, though. (Usually on a coping stone on the garden wall . )

Is the coping stone getting flatter with use? Maybe you should try it for sharpening direct and miss out the water stone altogether?

 

[thetyreman]

I find 33.62 degrees is just about right

 

[Argus]

I find 33.62 degrees is just about right

Very interesting...... I came to the same conclusion myself after a 'blind' test where I used welding goggles during sharpening on an absolutely flat stone - no errors - to ensure that there were no unwanted external influences.

 

[rogxwhit]

How did you know that you were on the flat stone ...?

 

[D_W]

I find 33.62 degrees is just about right

Have a go if you wish to, I tested a bunch of chisels for another reason years ago. 32 is about where good chisels start to stay undamaged a lot longer (holtzapffel suggests 25 + 10 degrees).



These picture are about 1 cubic inch of wood only. They go sideways after this quickly - as in, the ones showing more damage get drastically more damaged and the gap widens.

This is the damage to an MK2 and V11 chisel at 25 degrees without any secondary bevel.


a couple of degrees more than 32 and damage pretty much stops, but it also feels a little blunt to start straight away.

In case anyone is thinking about buying any $100 each chisels, the Iles chisel fared better than the V11 chisel by a good bit. Only a japanese chisel fared better than AI's wares, but that's to be expected - white steel makes a better chisel than O1, and AI does about as well as you can do with O1.

there probably aren't that many people on here doing any volume of hand work, though, either. Sharpening off a thousandth of a chisel half as often as doing four thousandths if going too low on the angle doesn't get much talk because nobody's really making anything.

 

[Garden Shed Projects]

I do feel that YouTube plays a huge roll in the desire to own all the kit. You watch a number of the guys and all the power tools are Festool, a Rockler jig for every occasion, fancy Japanese planes and chisels and quite often a sharpening machine of some description sat on the bench.

It makes it hard to believe that you can make great stuff with basic chisels, a Stanley/record no 4 and a £30 Indian oilstone for sharpening.

 

[D_W]

I do feel that YouTube plays a huge roll in the desire to own all the kit. You watch a number of the guys and all the power tools are Festool, a Rockler jig for every occasion, fancy Japanese planes and chisels and quite often a sharpening machine of some description sat on the bench.

It makes it hard to believe that you can make great stuff with basic chisels, a Stanley/record no 4 and a £30 Indian oilstone for sharpening.

Everything leads toward it -even if someone is just an honest enthusiast on a forum doing great work, people will get what they get.

George Wilson on the US forum, probably about as fine of a maker as you'll find alive in the last couple of centuries, would call me and say "OH GOD....NOT ANOTHER SHARPENING THREAD!"

And the users on the forum instead of asking him questions about how he did his work, would ask about what sharpening stones he was using.

It turned out to be spyderco because at the time he looked through various sharpening stones to stock the craftsman's supply shop for CW (williamsburg), he liked those the best.

I would bet you at least several dozen people bought spyderco stones after George didn't want to talk about them at all.

There are no makers of his level doing regular youtube videos - they don't really get any views. There are a couple of accomplished furniture makers in the US giving classes instead, but they are rigid and and wouldn't create much YT fanfare.

YT itself is a data collecting marvel that can find the class of people who buy and present videos that get higher ad rates. In terms of useful information on woodworking, it's pretty much dead.

A big group of people talking about how to make things is relatively valueless (to third parties) compared to a group of people who think someone like stumpy nubs is a friendly guy and they'll ask later if he has ever made anything notable or would even know how to.

 

[Jacob]

Water stone users use free honing fluid (water).
I think this exercised a few minds on how to monetise it - how about Vichy or Perrier honing water perhaps?
Difficult, but they cracked it eventually, by marketing a honing water additive!
Brilliant!
It deters rust (supposedly). Who'da thought water caused rust?
Last time I checked it worked out at £74 a litre! Coincidentally the same price as Macallan 12 Year Old Sherry Cask 70cl
There are even cheaper whiskies and expect they'd also do perfectly well as a honing fluid.

 

[Ttrees]

David, Your suggestion of using your fingers for "directed pressure" (a misleading term for it IMO)
has been the single biggest help to me for learning how to get my cambers bang on.
I've not heard of anyone suggesting this before, but it's saved me time and steel.

Cheers

Tom

 

[Jacob]

David, Your suggestion of using your fingers for "directed pressure" (a misleading term for it IMO)
has been the single biggest help to me for learning how to get my cambers bang on.
I've not heard of anyone suggesting this before, but it's saved me time and steel.

Cheers

Tom

Fingers? I hold them in my teeth, doesn't everybody?