Starter sharpening stones

[Picalilli]

Hi all, just looking for some general advice on a good starting set up for sharpening chisels/plane blades.

Ideally want to spend somewhere in the region of £50 for the stones - so much variation in price though, I’ve been looking at the Axminster combination stone:

https://www.axminstertools.com/axminster-rider-double-sided-diamond-bench-stone-951777
but also this trend one:
https://www.its.co.uk/pd/CRDWSB6FC-8''-x-3''-CraftPro-Bench-Stone---CoarseFine-_TRECRDWSB6FC.htm

are These reasonable quality? I know you can get a lot cheaper on eBay but dubious about the quality. I also know you can go a lot more expensive!

axminster also seem to sell individual plates at around half the price so wondering if it’s maybe better to buy two separately.

I’ll be needing a honing guide too so don’t want to spend too much....Wondering if I need some coarse wet and dry to get started too? I got a used Stanley Bailey no.4 on eBay but taper is quite rounded on it so looks like it will need quite a bit of sharpening back

very new to all of this, all advice very much appreciated!

 

[Sideways]

Ultex are good value. Thick steel plates and a decent size.
Fine stone 1000/1200 grit double sided is great for maintaining an edge. You can use scary sharp self adhesive abrasive if you need an even finer honed edge after the diamonds.
Get a fine and a coarse (300+600) double sided pair and you're all set.
The trend one (assuming this is the same as the one I've peeled apart, is made of two thin sheets of steel carrying the diamond, glued with evostick to a 1/8" thick piece of not very stiff plastic. Vastly inferior.

 

[D_W]

If you need a honing guide, get a cheap honing guide (eclipse style with center wheel). The diamond stone you're linking is probably fine, as are the inexpensive chinese hones on ebay. Until you go with something like Atoma or the plastic DMTs, none are guaranteed to be totally flat, but don't worry about that for now.

Here's what you'll need if you feel like you'll want to use waterstones or this diamond stone with WD40 or some other similar oil-based thin lubricant:
1) a roll of PSA sandpaper to flatten really out of flat tools and to refresh bevels. 4 inches by 10 feet, PSA backing - 80 grit. You can stick it to any flat surface. When you wear one piece down, keep it for less sharp work (A medium stone can follow worn out 80 grit paper without issue)
2) some kind of medium stone (anything marked like 1000 grit - the diamond hone is fine)
3) autosol and a piece of wood to refine the tip of the tool after you use #2

Use #2 and #3 each time you sharpen and go to #1 when #2 gets hard to complete

You don't need any expensive fine stones (but you can buy one if you want one). They're generally less fine than autosol on medium hardwood scrap, anyway, and not any faster to use.

I would personally rather work with autosol on wood than any of the really expensive fine synthetic stones, anyway, and I've used all or nearly all of them and taken a lot of pictures of their work. There's nothing in the above setup that needs flattening, either, and if your hardwood is reasonably flat, that's good enough. The polish step doesn't need to have the the same extreme flatness that beginner's like with the prior step. It'll also be the only step that you need to use on the backs of tools, so it's not the end of the world if the diamond hone is perfectly flat.

(flatness on diamond hones doesn't always correlate with price, so don't be tempted to buy anything with talks of flatness other than the DMT plastic core diamond hones or an atoma)

 

[D_W]

I wouldn't buy that trend stone that you linked, by the way. Best sharpening stones sold the axminster diamond hone you linked with the same base. It's OK. I you link any of the milled steel chinese plates on ebay, I can tell you buy visual look if I"ve tried any. My experience with teh 8x3 2 sided diamond stones directly from china for about $20 (with a milled steel core) is that they are pretty close to the axminster stone pictured, with more minor undulations in small areas but no difference in overall absolute flatness.

Just don't let yourself get suckered into any of the guru talk about needing to have near optical flatness in stones - you don't. It's a waste of time. Use your sandpaper on any good flat surface (glass, stone, whatever) to get initial flatness and maintain it with the autosol on a medium hardwood scrap.

 

[Picalilli]

Thanks for the detailed advice. Think I may end up going with the Axminster one as I’ll go there on Saturday anyway.

Was hoping to get their basic honing guide for £13 but seems sold out, loads of things seem sold out right now - not sure if this is covid impact on supply (or maybe just loads of people getting into woodwork during lockdown!)

I’ve never heard of autosol but this sounds like a good, cheap solution.

 

[Jacob]

A lot of people don't go the modern sharpening way and have gone back to trad basics: freehand on oil stones. Ideal for beginners as it's cheap, easy, quick. Once you've got it it's ideal for professionals too.
Double sided Norton IB8 stone is a good starter and will do everything. When you have the knack you could add one more finer stone and a scrap of leather for a strop. That's almost all you'll ever need and the stones last for life.
Paul Sellers shows the method here and other places Sharpening chisels—forget weaker micro bevels using diamond plates but same can be done on oil stone.
Whatever method you use the one essential, the absolutely key thing, is to know how to raise the burr and then to take it off. Google around there's absolutely tons of info!

 

[Nigel Burden]

Autosol is a paste polish that's used for polishing chrome and other metals. Many people use it to put the final finish on a blade after honing on stones or diamond plates.

As for a honing guide, you could pick up an old Eclipse guide on ebay for a few pounds.

Nigel.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

There are several types of sharpening stone - oilstones of various types, diamond stones, water stones, abrasive films, ceramic stones - they all work. Which one suits you is a matter for you, really.

The one thing to remember with tool sharpening is that whatever method you use, you get better with practice. If your initial results are a tad indifferent, don't fret, just keep working wood, sharpening again when tools are dull, working wood again, sharpening again - and so on. There is no magic method that guarantees instant razor-sharp everlasting edges. Like almost everything else in life, you get better at it with practice.

By all means research different methods, read the books, the forum advice, watch the videos, but the one thing that makes a good sharpener is getting stuck in and doing it, time after time. After a few months, you'll wonder what all the fuss was about.

 

[D_W]

A lot of people don't go the modern sharpening way and have gone back to trad basics: freehand on oil stones. Ideal for beginners as it's cheap, easy, quick. Once you've got it it's ideal for professionals too.
Double sided Norton IB8 stone is a good starter and will do everything. When you have the knack you could add one more finer stone and a scrap of leather for a strop. That's almost all you'll ever need and the stones last for life.
Paul Sellers shows the method here and other places Sharpening chisels—forget weaker micro bevels using diamond plates but same can be done on oil stone.
Whatever method you use the one essential, the absolutely key thing, is to know how to raise the burr and then to take it off. Google around there's absolutely tons of info!

Other way around -forget working the bulk of the bevel at all with stones. It's a waste of time and usually leads to incomplete sharpening at the edge. I've received a lot of tools from people using full bevel methods and not a single one was actually finished at the edge uniformly, and I'm sure they spent several times longer honing than I did (I could tell by how much metal they were working by hand).

Even if hand grinding, it makes little sense to touch anything other than the tip of the chisel with more than the grinding stone.

Most edge failure is at the edge and not in the bevel. If someone is crow-barring a chisel and breaking part of the bevel off, they would be killing the edge, too.

FWIW, a 32 degree microbevel on the tip of a 25 degree primary bevel holds up far better than something like a 28-30 degree single bevel (or rounded bevel terminating at that. )

It does take a little study and measuring to figure this stuff out, but not much.

 

[Jacob]

I've got two wrecked No4s (ebay) untouched by human hand (probably a half trained gorilla). I'll do a demo of how to restore and perfectly sharpen the blades entirely freehand. Yes will take longer than machine, but not a lot.

 

[D_W]

I did one of these on youtube - 12 minutes for a plane out of the box to be flattened and prepared and planing curly maple without tearout.

Sharpening my way takes about 30 seconds on a dull chisel and a minute on a dull plane iron. Success is almost guaranteed (you can never trust everyone to do something right) because the grinding occurs where the grinding needs to be done and the honing is only at the tip.

I have seen the demonstration a million times. I've done it plenty. It's OK if you have no access to do my method. Otherwise, it encourages a lot of time wasting.

I posted an article on another forum with my method (which can be done with or without a buffer). The article includes pictures of edges with a 20 degree primary grind and a small secondary 23 degree bevel just before addressing a very steep tip. I haven't yet had a person who uses the sellers method describe better success with it, but the method that I'm suggesting removes the need to have any of the stones being particularly fast or closely graded.

This is the quality of a dursol edge (right at the tip - this is 2 hundredths of an inch top to bottom).

This is the edge off of a shapton 12k grit waterstone.

It takes less time and costs less money to do the one at the top (and the edge is more durable).

Like I said, it does take some looking at results and continuing to look after you really need to. Sometimes you find things you weren't looking for.

I stepped backward into this - by being lazy one day and then ending up with an incannel gouge that was stronger and faster through wood than I've ever gotten with slips. *then* I went backwards into looking at what was going on and found that I couldn't really match it working more than just the tip of a tool. The tip of the edge was so strong that silica on a rosewood guitar neck spiderwebbed grooves all over the outside of the gouge, but the edge didn't chip.

I've run into many people who know for sure that spending more money, time and effort is better. They just know, and they'll always know because they know they won't look to the left or right of the tracks they're on.

We also have people in the US who know that alloying elements make steel wear shorter and need sharpening sooner. They know this despite standardized tests performed across a forty year period. All it takes to know forever is to never deviate in the direction of anything else.

 

[Picalilli]

Thanks for all the info. Hadn’t heard of the eclipse honing guides but there are a lot of them on eBay - should be able to get one for a few quid.

D_W - not sure if there were meant to be links in the post to the article/methods you mention? Maybe just didn’t work for me

what are peoples thoughts on best fluid? Glass cleaner? Water? Oil? When they say to use glass cleaner, assume they just mean windowlene?

 

[D_W]

Not sure what happened there.

Shapton 12k edge



Dursol finished edge (same as autosol, autosol stinks a lot less)

...I can't get the dursol picture through imgur on mobile, but here's another place that i posted it (see bottom picture)

https://www.woodcentral.com/woodwor...ad/id/495161/sbj/dursol-autosol-metal-polish/

 

[D_W]

Found the autosol picture, also
https://www.woodcentral.com/woodwor...d/495628/sbj/tying-up-loose-polishes-autosol/
The difference between the two is reflectivity. The uniformity at the very edge is the important part.

 

[pgrbff]

Shapton. Cheapest place I have seen them is Amazon Japan. You can select English language. Economical and hard. The most important thing to bear in mind is that you MUST flatten the water stone often, and that is where the expense comes in if you want to make life relatively easy. You need a 400 diamond stone, also needs to be flat, to regularly flatten the waterstones. Atoma is very popular and normally flat.

 

[Jacob]

Shapton. Cheapest place I have seen them is Amazon Japan. You can select English language. Economical and hard. The most important thing to bear in mind is that you MUST flatten the water stone often, and that is where the expense comes in if you want to make life relatively easy. You need a 400 diamond stone, also needs to be flat, to regularly flatten the waterstones. Atoma is very popular and normally flat.

My reply here, as ever, is that if you need to buy a diamond plate to flatten a sharpening stone why not use the plate for sharpening and just bin the stone?

 

[Picalilli]

I think I’m leaning away from water stones because of the maintenance factor (although I think you can just use float glass and wet and dry to flatten?). I actually have a 1000/3000 grit combination whetstone that I use for my kitchen knives, but need something a bit coarser for the planes/chisels...unless I just get some sandpaper then go with the 1000 side of the stone... Don’t have access to running water in garage either so something that would just work with a spray bottle and doesn’t need soaking is ideal.

 

[Jacob]

I think I’m leaning away from water stones because of the maintenance factor (although I think you can just use float glass and wet and dry to flatten?). I actually have a 1000/3000 grit combination whetstone that I use for my kitchen knives, but need something a bit coarser for the planes/chisels...unless I just get some sandpaper then go with the 1000 side of the stone... Don’t have access to running water in garage either so something that would just work with a spray bottle and doesn’t need soaking is ideal.

If you need float glass and wet n dry to flatten a stone, why not use that for sharpening and just bin the stone?
Another tried and tested traditional trick to keep things simple - sharpen your kitchen knives with a steel.
As you see modern sharpening is a bit of a hornet's nest!
I went down the same route myself until suddenly saw the light and reverted back to double sided oil stone freehand.
Didn't stop me buying a Sorby Proedge - excellent machine well made well designed. I eventually realised I didn't need that either and sold it. Do use a disc sander occasionally, for really badly damaged edges and turning chisels.
It's all harmless fun, not to be taken too seriously!

 

[Corset]

I have gone full circle, i started on waterstones but hated the mess, then went through diamond stones which are good and i still use for flattening backs etc. I now use oilstones and a strop. It quick and i like the oil as it fends off the rust in my garage which is cold. I tend to sharpen freehand so maybe that is a factor

 

[Jacob]

I have gone full circle, i started on waterstones but hated the mess, then went through diamond stones which are good and i still use for flattening backs etc. I now use oilstones and a strop. It quick and i like the oil as it fends off the rust in my garage which is cold. I tend to sharpen freehand so maybe that is a factor

Ditto. Except I started with oil stones but then thought I might be missing out with all the wonderful kit and magical alternatives being offered.
I've still got some Eze lap plates which aren't worth trying to sell so I do use them now and then. 3 plates at £90 = £270!! I must have been off me bonce! though it may have been a special offer, can't remember. I can't ebay them as the assumption will be that they are worn out. No use telling people "only lightly used" who'd believe it!