Tell me about sharpening stones

[mseries]

I am quite confused about sharpening stones. For general purpose use, chisels and plane irons, what grits do I need ? Oil stone or water stone ?

 

[G S Haydon]

Hello mseries,

All sharpening mediums have their pros and cons but most importantly they all work! You have to choose what you fancy. A good starting point is to watch some video tutorials and see which stone/method tally with the kind of woodworker you are, then go for it and try to avoid being a sharpening tourist. Practice with you chosen medium and master it, then move on and enjoy the woodworking.

P.S. Don't dismiss oil stones http://blog.lostartpress.com/2011/07/27 ... -whatever/

 

[RossJarvis]

I am quite confused about sharpening stones. For general purpose use, chisels and plane irons, what grits do I need ? Oil stone or water stone ?

Good advice from GS, there's no simple quick answer to this and many opinions, quite often contradictory, abound. A good cheap starting place is the Stanley double sided oil stone set;

http://www.axminster.co.uk/stanley-stan ... prod31764/

My own preferred route is Japanese water-stones but this is vastly more expensive. For these, a general guide is three stones, a coarse one; 120 to 240 grit, a medium one; 1000 grit or there abouts, and a finishing stone; 5000-6000 grit. You can get combination stones for these, so one or two of these may be fine. This is a good place to get these and get more info;

http://www.fine-tools.com/scharf.html

As GS said, your sharpening technique is probably more important than the stones.

 

[Cottonwood]

I use a norton india comination oil stone now. Very un-cool 8) , but they are under rated pieces of kit. Mine was bought around 7 years ago, then quickly put aside in favour of jap stones-until I had a Kingshott moment quite recently and rediscovered how efficient they really are....It does what I want-quickly get a sharp edge with minimum of fuss. Virtually indestructible.
I made the tool well on the bench to exactly fit the length of the oilstone box, so it is held nice and snug while honing

 

[marcus]

I use a norton india comination oil stone now.

Agree these are good, and probably the best and easiest option if you are on a budget and just want to get on with it.

 

[Jacob]

I am quite confused about sharpening stones. For general purpose use, chisels and plane irons, what grits do I need ? Oil stone or water stone ?

Oil stones best, cheapest and least problematic. I don't know why they went out of fashion. I've still got my first one from 40 Years ago. It'll probably last another 40 - I'll just have to hang on to get my monies worth.
One essential is to freshen them up occasionally. I use a 3m diapad as I happened to have one but other abrasive will do no doubt. It's slightly bendy so it'll follow the curve. Just a quick pass every now and then.
I also lift off swarf with a magnet - keeps things clean and save on oil.
Even if you fancy having a go with crazy sharpening techniques I'd still have oil stones around as default first option. You don't really need anything else.

 

[Paul Chapman]

If after honing on an oilstone you want a finer, sharper finish, just use a flat piece of wood with some Autosol and oil. Very inexpensive and works well.



Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Jacob]

Even better if it's spinning slowly on a lathe tailstock. You can round the edge for inside gouges. Or any shape for that matter. A very good polish achieved very quickly.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Roughly speaking, you can divide 'sharpening' into three categories - grinding to repair chipped or damaged edges, honing to put a sharp edge on the tool, and polishing/stropping to refine that edge for finer work.

Grinding can be with an offhand power grinder, wetstone grinder, belt sander, hand-crank grinder or by coarse abrasive stone (slow, but you don't need a power tool).

Honing can be done one of five ways - oilstones, waterstones, diamond stones, ceramic stones or abrasive papers and lapping films stuck to something suitably shaped (flat, usually).

Polishing can be with a very fine grit oilstone, waterstone, or diamond stone, ultra-fine ceramic stone or by stropping - a very fine abrasive applied to a 'strop' of leather, wood or whatever.

A 'general' approach would be a grinder of some sort, a medium honing stone of whatever sort takes your fancy, and an ultra-fine honing stone and/or strop to put a polished, ultra-fine edge on when it's required. Most people also eventually aquire a small selection of slipstones or pieces of shaped wood with abrasive papers stuck on them to deal with such things as gouges, carving chisels, wooden-type spokeshave irons, moulding plane irons and such which.

It's also worth noting that sharpening is a very personal thing. Some people take to one method, but can't get on with another. Read up as much as you can, take a good look at Youtube videos of the various methods, pick one that appeals to you and stick with it while you get used to it. There are quite a few people with strong opinions about how to sharpen - their method works for them, but it may not necessarily be the one that works for you. I'm afraid that in the end, you have to find your own 'right' way - there isn't one single 'right' or 'wrong' way of going about sharpening edge tools.

 

[mseries]

Thanks for the input folks. My Dad showed me sharpening with an oilstone about 35 years ago so that is what I know. Even if other technique and products were around back then I doubt my Dad would have known about them. I have an oilstone that he gave me along with m y old school chisels, not perhaps the same one that we used back then, it's quite concave so I am considering a new one rather than spend project time renovating this one. Reading around the internet I learn that there are other techniques, waterstones and emery paper. I'll probably stick with oil as it is what I know and I have practiced with this. I think I'll save the cleaning/flattening of my stone for when I don't have anything else to do !!!

 

[tobytools]

There is a book called:
The ultimate guide to sharpening for woodworkers by Ron hock.

I recommend it. Covers a lot of frequently asked questions and has some interesting stuff

TT