Sharpening
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Ttrees
Iroko loco!
Aye, David's suggestion of positioning of fingers exactly where material needs removing,
i.e to get a perfectly consistent camber as small as you like.
Good smoothing with a double iron plane needs either a perfect camber, or perfect relief on the corners.
Tipping or leaning with fingers just close, (to me) is inconsistent by comparison.
Might get ones hands dirty being pretty much at the edge, but is so quick that it makes
no difference to me than having to correct the camber instead.
Kinda like folks sharpening scrapers and spreading the fingers, it matters more than one might think!
I never heard anyone else suggest this can be a utilized technique regarding honing plane irons
before.
Tom
i.e to get a perfectly consistent camber as small as you like.
Good smoothing with a double iron plane needs either a perfect camber, or perfect relief on the corners.
Tipping or leaning with fingers just close, (to me) is inconsistent by comparison.
Might get ones hands dirty being pretty much at the edge, but is so quick that it makes
no difference to me than having to correct the camber instead.
Kinda like folks sharpening scrapers and spreading the fingers, it matters more than one might think!
I never heard anyone else suggest this can be a utilized technique regarding honing plane irons
before.
Tom
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
it's just noticing something from experience - that almost everything we sharpen is a little bit flexible and finger pressure will put the scratches where the fingers are - it's all part of doing work where it's needed, but not pointless work where it's not.
I made it up, too - it's not something I've seen anywhere, but the whole idea of accurate sharpening is getting a tool set up so that you can finish the edge without too much strain.
Interestingly, when I read the holtzapffel text last week, the part on the double iron was dead accurate (never saw it before), the discussion of miter planes with a single iron (set up to 60 degrees to strike long edges without tearout, shooting of end grain pretty much omitted because it's only done on small pieces), and the discussion of sharpening was stellar - even if someone had no idea about whether or not the sharpening discussion was good, it's what I've settled on over time trying to improve results and cut time at the same time, and the angles they recommend prevent needless damage that leads to a whole lot more work.
Grinder, oilstone. There is discussion of various other things in the text under lapidiary or setting of razors - the thing is practically definitively except for folks wanting to use something older stones won't cut - one can always throw cheap diamond powder on a finish stone and even that isn't a problem.
Specifically noted was also working the back of a tool as flat on a stone as possible with no lift - I think anyone doing a lot of work would've noticed soon that "directed" pressure with fingers resulted in getting the polish done to the edge quickly and not anywhere else. The text also noted that stones should be flat for fine work, or something along those lines. Carefully kept flat or something of that sort. It's not absolutely necessary for stones to be dead flat, but to keep them reasonably flat is important at some point because more than just a plane iron or a couple of chisels will show up.
If this stuff isn't mastered for hand tool work, it's really limiting. Not for someone who planes a little bit, shoves all of their stuff through a planer and then sands afterwards, but someone who wants to actually work by hand and make it pleasant and satisfying. Same as sharpening a rip saw relatively often with light passes in a couple of minutes. It makes the work accessible without being a physical drag.
if someone is barely using hand tools, then I guess it doesn't matter that much to solve these kinds of things. I don't have an accurate table saw and if someone wanted to tell me how to cut 6000 feet of linear sticking accurately on a table saw, I'd glaze over.
Ttrees
Iroko loco!
Well I admit to spending all too long lapping the backs of plane irons, looking at scratches
and doing a bit of leaning, buffing the edge until dry to polish better,
but never thought of it being the same with a ...what I think is an extremely rigid thing
and still questioning if something else is possibly at work here,
whatever, either way the method is sureworthy and I use it every time I sharpen.
Likewise even whilst using a severely dished oil stone and spot honing on the corners in effort to flatten eventually, I didn't cop it,
nor any other developing efforts I've made trying various folks methods.
I reckon I might have stayed clueless forever about it
So many thanks for the info.
Tom
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
I'm just popping out for some popcorn. I may be some time. 
Argus
Established Member
You'll have to take my word for it...... I put it down to my enhanced powers of divination. A bit like finding the switch on the bog-wall at two in the morning and turning the light on without a click.
Well I admit to spending all too long lapping the backs of plane irons, looking at scratches
and doing a bit of leaning, buffing the edge until dry to polish better,
but never thought of it being the same with a ...what I think is an extremely rigid thing
and still questioning if something else is possibly at work here,
whatever, either way the method is sureworthy and I use it every time I sharpen.
Likewise even whilst using a severely dished oil stone and spot honing on the corners in effort to flatten eventually, I didn't cop it,
nor any other developing efforts I've made trying various folks methods.
I reckon I might have stayed clueless forever about it
So many thanks for the info.
Tom
sure thing. I've heard from at least 5 people that it was helpful - that's my goal.
Swayed stones are possible to use just by running over the edge, of course, without any immediate threat to back geometry, but having swayed edges does increase the chance of catching the actual cutting edge on the corner of the stone, which is a poo result - it just puts a big dent in the edge that leaves lines on work.
On new tools, though, if you get an even edge without much of the back polished, the rest will come into polish with subsequent sharpening and if it doesn't, it can be addressed later. With appropriate use, a quarter of an inch of edge is at least 100 sharpening cycles, potentially double that. Each of those may have 10 solid sections of hefty back rubbing as part of the sharpening cycle - a lot of targeted work on the back.
Adam W.
A Major Clanger
My eyes rolled so far back in my head, I could see last weeks washing.I'm just popping out for some popcorn. I may be some time.
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Some like myself try to avoid because I don't want to wreck my chisels and there are too many ideas around so I am going to buy some shiete chisels like I used to have and practice on them. Need to get one of them Norton oil stones as recomended by @Jacob and will start with a guide until such time as I feel happy doing sharpening free hand. I am sure people have been sharpening chisels long before any of these fancy expensive sharpening systems came to market, probably aimed at people like myself who are open to an easy option.
Camber roller just allows you to soften the corners of your plane irons so if for eg your flattering a wide board it reduces the chances of you leaving tram tracks in your work ,, skew jigs for angled blades but it’s an optional extra that I don’t need. Eotd it’s whatever your comfortable using and what gets you consistent results in as short at time as possible- I’ve tried sharpening by eye with an oilstone but it just didn’t work for me.
Grangers G-Wax, of course.
What about my cask strength Laphroaig? Will that make me a better cook if I use it on my knife-sharpening stone?
Drinking it doesn't - just wondered if I've been using it wrong.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
It's more a case of jigs don't allow you to camber an iron, unless you buy another expensive jig with a cambered roller etc. And so it goes on!
Don't give up too soon! It was never a problem in the past. It was the first thing people learnt in school woodwork classes. Everybody was a beginner at first.
It's a very simple craft process and much less difficult than all the other things woodworkers have to do.
If you can get someone to show you it shouldn't take more than half an hour to get it.
re wrecking new chisels - there's a lot of really bad modern sharpening advice about how to "prep" them, or other jargon like "commission" or "initialise". It's total b locks. A chisel is never so easy to sharpen as when it's brand new - just a quick hone at 30º on a fine stone, turn it over flat and remove the burr, and you are off.
Do not go down the route of "flattening" the faces - this is never necessary. The removal of the burr is enough flattening of the face, no more is needed.
There have been horror stories of perfect complete new sets being wrecked after hours of work by novice sharpeners following bad advice from the usual crowd!
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There's fishing and there's angling. The difference being that fisherman fish, to get fish to eat whilst anglers use their skills and knowledge to outwit a fish; the sport is in the catching, and the fish is released to fight another day. Unless, you are an angler, you probably wouldn't understand.
A wind up, but to an angler you may well as well have joked about domestic violence.
Adam W.
A Major Clanger
They are very tasty, which is why the Polish fishers are so keen to catch them.
They aren't really but when it's free food the Polish are used to taking them whether they should or not.
Droogs
Not the Sharpest Moderator in the box
Wouldn't have thought it much of a challenge really
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