Sharpening

[D_W]

Waterstones for kitchens (watery environment), oil stones for woodwork shops (dry environment). Though you could use either of course, if you had to.

You haven't got a clue what you're talking about. The most popular device sold for knives is a tri hone - an oil bath, like Norton's IM 313. It's only been aimed at woodworkers recently. The stones kitted with them are designed entirely for sharpening knives intended to be steeled - not for tools.

The use of waterstones historically didn't involve a faucet, it involved a bucket. Cleaning the stone is as simple is dipping it in the bucket and wiping across it once. You managed to dance past the coticule thing again, an extremely common bench and site stone - often used with spit - graded for various uses by characteristics, from knives to tools to razors, with overlap. It's possible to use oil on them since they're generally pore-free, but far more common to use water or spit.

it doesn't do anyone any good when you make absolute statements and then claim experience - people just getting into the hobby may believe you until they've been around here for a little while.

Information about stones is publicly available now, and it was publicly available 150-200 years ago in holtzapffel's publications, both with types of stones/lubricant and their use.

 

[D_W]

By sold for knives, I mean sold for actual kitchens with serious home chefs or commercial kitchens/restaurants, not some thing that looks like a grasshopper with tiny finger stones sold through ebay videos and social media.

 

[Hornbeam]

These discussions always seem to get really contentious. I think this is because people tend to spout off a load of rubbish about things they know very little about. Over the last 40 years I have used water stones and oil stones, wet grinders and dry grinders. I have found what works for me and I will stick with it. Maybe other systems such as diamond plates, scary sharp etc are better but that is a bit subjective.
Waterstones and wet grinding works for me, I am not able to comment on other systems

 

[D_W]

I think they start to get contentious when absolutes are described. I've only been woodworking for about 16 or 17 years now, but I have a bit of an affinity for sharpening things and have had about 400-500 sharpening stones over that period. I keep a bunch for novelty, and it has nothing to do with actual woodworking, it's a side hobby.

It really makes no difference what the stones are or what the lubricant is. Sharpening is about the same with everything, and there just aren't many absolutes until you get down to talking about what abrasives are in the stones, how they're held, what size and how hard the particles are. The lubricant is chosen not based on what's being sharpened, but rather what works better on the stone. Stones that work reasonably well with both end up being used with both...

....which horrifies forum experts 75 years later when they find something like a belgian hone that's "been abused and misused by being exposed to oil".

In your case, you get to use what you prefer. If you weren't able to use what you prefer, I'd bet you'd do just as well with anything else, as long as the method wasn't so slow that it got in the way of finishing the job of sharpening.

 

[Jameshow]

No just too much flattening nonsense.
Shouldn't take 42 minutes to show how to sharpen a chisel, which normally takes about 30 seconds.
How on earth did they manage before the flattening of chisels was discovered?

5 year apprenticeship.....

I'm joking but that's how you learnt!

The idea of a hobby apart from work is a relatively recent invention I'd think?

 

[Jameshow]

I just think it's a great pity that simple traditional freehand sharpening has been written out of the record as though it never existed. You'd think trad boat builders would be into it, not least because it saves an enormous amount of time and is very practical, particularly on site away from a workshop, which boat builders tend to be.
I didn't know about their other stuff so you didn't need to make a snide remark about me not being interested!
I used to do a lot of sailing but not boat building. Read a lot though, and about the amazing skills whereby sail sailors could just about build a new ship if they were wrecked. No chisel flattening or tool polishing would be involved!

No they just use a belt sander!!

 

[D_W]

5 year apprenticeship.....

I'm joking but that's how you learnt!

The idea of a hobby apart from work is a relatively recent invention I'd think?

In the US, it seems for the average population to be somewhere around 100 years old.

In the case of something like this (sharpening topic), you can talk to someone who learned from a master and was given one option, or maybe two, or you can talk to a free spending hobbyist (like me) who has had at least 400 sharpening stone and has some fascination with them - but no delusion about the outcomes really being that much different from any of them, and get a pretty accurate answer.

Along with relevant advice of "it doesn't matter that much". It can start to matter if you get into really bizarre steels, or steels with a significant amount of vanadium, but those aren't that useful for "cold work".

that leads to nod-off discussions like, the difference between 10V and V11 steels. Because boy are they not at all alike.

 

[Jacob]

5 year apprenticeship.....

I'm joking but that's how you learnt!

Most people learnt a school.

The idea of a hobby apart from work is a relatively recent invention I'd think?

No it's ancient.
The Woodworker Magazine started 1901
Big boom after WW2 I think. Remember Barry Bucknell?
This is interesting:
"Joseph Moxon’s book Mechanick Exercises is the grandfather of all modern DIY manuals." from A brief history of DIY, from the shed to the maker movement | Science Museum

 

[D_W]

Most people learnt a school.

No it's ancient.
The Woodworker Magazine started 1901
Big boom after WW2 I think. Remember Barry Bucknell?
This is interesting:
"Joseph Moxon’s book Mechanick Exercises is the grandfather of all modern DIY manuals." from A brief history of DIY, from the shed to the maker movement | Science Museum

DIY and hobby woodworking are drastically different things.

125 years ago here, a farmer would do the building themselves - outbuildings and house. that's not a hobby, but it's DIY.

 

[Jameshow]

Most people learnt a school.

No it's ancient.
The Woodworker Magazine started 1901
Big boom after WW2 I think. Remember Barry Bucknell?
This is interesting:
"Joseph Moxon’s book Mechanick Exercises is the grandfather of all modern DIY manuals." from A brief history of DIY, from the shed to the maker movement | Science Museum

I was thinking that's relatively recent!

 

[essexalan]

Five years of woodwork at school and nobody taught us how to sharpen so it was blunt chisels and blunt plane irons. I learnt basic sharpening from my dad and the bloke next door. Fast forward to the 80's and the edge you could get with a waterstone was a revelation and other than an upgrade of the stones used I have never looked back. Grind with a ProEdge and finish with a sequence of stones, quick strop with 1 micron diamond loaded leather or hard balsa, job done. The more refined the edge the longer it lasts. Modern plane irons get a jig but I touch the edge up freehand or use a spare blade, older irons and chisels get ground square and then finished freehand. Carving tools and waterstones don't get along well IMO so man made oilstones followed by naturals like a Washita and a good stropping works for me.
Didn't the old timers recommend running the edge through a piece of hardwood endgrain to "remove" the burr?

 

[Jacob]

Five years of woodwork at school and nobody taught us how to sharpen so it was blunt chisels and blunt plane irons.

Rather surprising! It's not rocket science surely someone in the class could have sussed it out in 5 years?

......Carving tools and waterstones don't get along well IMO

If it works for carving why not other edges too?

so man made oilstones followed by naturals like a Washita and a good stropping works for me.
Didn't the old timers recommend running the edge through a piece of hardwood endgrain to "remove" the burr?

Yes have heard that, but there's loads of theories going around as we know!

 

[Jacob]

I was thinking that's relatively recent!

"Joseph Moxon’s book Mechanick Exercises is the grandfather of all modern DIY manuals.
Published in 1683–5,"
In fact taking more time and effort into making things than functionally required goes back to the stone age.

 

[essexalan]

Rather surprising! It's not rocket science surely someone in the class could have sussed it out in 5 years?

If it works for carving why not other edges too?

Yes have heard that, but there's loads of theories going around as we know!

Sharpening stones were kept in a locked glass top case and only teacher was allowed to use them. Don't know why but theory was taught not the practice. Certainly not rocket science and launching rockets has evolved over centuries as well. He kept his posh Stanley and Norris planes locked up as well.
Try sharpening something like a narrow v-tool on a waterstone and you will soon find out. No problems with the straight bevels on plane irons and chisels. Quite sure that the experts can do it but not me.
Wasn't a theory it was a practice recommended by many old timers. Never tried it myself because I was taught to abrade the burr away gently rather than ripping it off.

 

[Jacob]

Sharpening stones were kept in a locked glass top case and only teacher was allowed to use them. Don't know why but theory was taught not the practice. Certainly not rocket science and launching rockets has evolved over centuries as well. He kept his posh Stanley and Norris planes locked up as well.
.............

Much the same for me except we only did one year of woodwork.
Years later got drawn in to trying a jig as it seemed sort of obvious. They were a bit of a novelty back then.
Eventually I got a bit exasperated by fiddling with jigs and made an effort to get back to basics. A sudden moment of truth! Never regretted it - simple, fast, cheap, effective, etc etc.

 

[essexalan]

Much the same for me except we only did one year of woodwork.
Years later got drawn in to trying a jig as it seemed sort of obvious. They were a bit of a novelty back then.
Eventually I got a bit exasperated by fiddling with jigs and made an effort to get back to basics. A sudden moment of truth! Never regretted it - simple, fast, cheap, effective, etc etc.

Ours was mixed in with metalwork as well.
Nothing wrong with jigs but rumbling them around on diamond plates or oilstones is not my idea of fun. Once you have found out what sharp really is then you can experiment if you want to. What I have now works for me so no need to change very little wear on my Sigma stones so they will see me out and they handle any steel I throw at them. Cheap, effective and fast enough but then I am not in a hurry.

 

[Tony Zaffuto]

Absolutely love these sharpening threads-if anything, they teach us there are many ways to achieve our goals, with none right and none wrong.

As I posted long ago in this thread, my sharpening began on a powered belt sander, with rounded bevels. Next (weeks/months/maybe years?) I began to refine edges on a carborundum stone. That served me well, until decades later, when I started to read woodworking mags that implied I was doing it wrong. So, backwards I trodded into a few jigs, stones and such. Today, it is freehand, with an occasional reshape on powered CBN. Stones are natural oil or Spyderco’s, really whichever is closest. My edges work for me and the species of wood I work with (Cherry or white oak).

So, there it is and I guess I’ll never make the cover of American Woodworker or have followers on YouTube, but so what?

 

[Stuart Moffat]

As a boy in Junior school me and mates would sit in the playground and sharpen out penknives on paving slabs. We all had very sharp penknives! imagine that in school today!

 

[CMax]

As a boy in Junior school me and mates would sit in the playground and sharpen out penknives on paving slabs. We all had very sharp penknives! imagine that in school today!

Many school kids in London have knives these days. Don't know their sharpening methods, though.

 

[D_W]

As a boy in Junior school me and mates would sit in the playground and sharpen out penknives on paving slabs. We all had very sharp penknives! imagine that in school today!

pocket knives weren't uncommon when I was a kid in school early on, either. I don't remember anyone having them sharp, but stuff like swiss army knives and such were sort of toys.

I recall a much older aunt talking about going to school in the 40s or 50s and how at some point, they stopped allowing kids to bring guns to rural schools in the US.

If you're wondering what the kids were doing with guns......

..........they were taking them to school to trade (think hunting rifles and shotguns), sometimes trading with teachers.

By the 90s, the schools took liberties breaking into students cars and doing random searches at any time. But guess what they were really looking for...
.......kids who brought cigarettes onto school property, even in a car. Automatic suspension. Do recall one kid getting "caught" with some restaurant prep knife in his car trunk - which he probably only had because he'd lifted it from his workplace. Not the kind of kid to ever be involved in offensive physical altercations, but suspended nonetheless in the first instance I ever saw of a "zero tolerance" rule at school in the 90s.