Where to get Honing Compound?

[sitefive]

Bought my very first used Handplane ,however the blade was just totally unusable because how not-sharp it was, after several goes with 240grit sandpaper-the max that I had it made it a bit better but still it's rubbish ,
I see the best way to sharpen a handplane is with a honing compound but I'm totally lost as to what one I need.
I do not want to invest lots of £ in this as the record handplane only cost me 10quid , and I got it only to play around.

I have found few items on ebay:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Honing-Compou ... SwpDdU3JS8

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fine-Honing-p ... SwPcVVumXZ

but I have no idea if they are the correct ones, or which one is the best?
can anyone maybe link me to some decent stuff which doesn't costs much more than £5 ?

 

[thick_mike]

I'd say you don't need honing compound to get a plane blade sharp enough to work on normal wood. If you want to use the abrasive paper route, you need to get a good bevel first. If the blade is really knackered, you need to establish the bevel (using coarser abrasive/India stone/bench grinder) first. Once you have both sides of the iron meeting at a point, you can go down through the grits.

If you use honing compound to try to sharpen a blunt blade, you will just make the blunt bit shiny.

 

[bugbear]

Bought my very first used Handplane ,however the blade was just totally unusable because how not-sharp it was, after several goes with 240grit sandpaper-the max that I had it made it a bit better but still it's rubbish ,
I see the best way to sharpen a handplane is with a honing compound but I'm totally lost as to what one I need.

(fine) Honing compound will take a blade from fairly sharp to very sharp. It's very much the "last stage" of a sequence of grits.

If you're currently finishing at 240 grit, I wouldn't worry about honing compounds, strops and substrates.

Get to an auto-parts store, and buy a mixed pack of wet 'n' dry, (which should go up to 1000 or 1200 grit).

Work your blade through the grits (a jig might stop you digging a hole in the paper, if you can't hold the blade at a constant angle by hand).

Having (as you said) played with a sharp blade got this way, you can decide where you want to go, sharpening wise.

Synthetic oil stones, natural oil stones, waterstones, diamond stones, ceramic stones, diamond lapping.

All work, all have fans, and all can have quite high costs if pursued to the max.

But a coupla' quids worth of mixed wet and dry sheets will show you what a truly sharp blade can do.

BugBear

 

[blackrodd]

Bought my very first used Handplane ,however the blade was just totally unusable because how not-sharp it was, after several goes with 240grit sandpaper-the max that I had it made it a bit better but still it's rubbish ,
I see the best way to sharpen a handplane is with a honing compound but I'm totally lost as to what one I need.

(fine) Honing compound will take a blade from fairly sharp to very sharp. It's very much the "last stage" of a sequence of grits.

If you're currently finishing at 240 grit, I wouldn't worry about honing compounds, strops and substrates.

Get to an auto-parts store, and buy a mixed pack of wet 'n' dry, (which should go up to 1000 or 1200 grit).

Work your blade through the grits (a jig might stop you digging a hole in the paper, if you can't hold the blade at a constant angle by hand).

Having (as you said) played with a sharp blade got this way, you can decide where you want to go, sharpening wise.

Synthetic oil stones, natural oil stones, waterstones, diamond stones, ceramic stones, diamond lapping.

All work, all have fans, and all can have quite high costs if pursued to the max.

But a coupla' quids worth of mixed wet and dry sheets will show you what a truly sharp blade can do.

BugBear

At last, Everything you need to know in 1 post!
Rodders

 

[AJB Temple]

May I add - if you are using wet and dry to sharpen plane blades or chisels for that matter, then it is very helpful to do it on a perfectly smooth and flat surface. Some people use glass. I use a large granite place mat that is about 18" by 12". Mine came from Sainsbury's (they still had them last week) and was about £12. You can use a bit of spray tack to hold down the wetland dry, or tape it, or some people just find that you get enough stiction from wetting it.

I am not a great expert on plane blade and chisel sharpening as I don't blunt them fast enough, but I do have a great deal of experience sharpening Japanese kitchen knives of single and double bevel. Really, to get extremely fine edges, you need to gravitate to sharpening stones, diamond fattening plates and so on, ending up with diamond spray on strops. But this is overkill and you will get a perfectly usable edge as bugbear describes above. There are you tube videos aplenty about how to flatten the back, get the main bevel, secondary or micro bevel, deburring, wire edges and so on. Have fun. Sharpening stuff can become an obsession!

 

[JJ1]

You say you've sharpened it but it's still 'rubbish'. If that's the case then honing compound won't make it sharp, it'll just make it 'polished' rubbish. You need to get the blade sharp first and then hone it, if desired, but not essential.
Get yourself some fine wet & dry paper and go up through the grits until it is sharp. 180, 240, 400, 600, 1000, 2000 and 5000 works for me.

 

[Jacob]

Not sure what "honing compound" is. I've never used it in 40+ years of woodworking. There's a lot of garbage out there being sold to catch out the beginners.

What you need is an oil stone and some thin oil e.g. 3 in 1, wd40, diesel, white spirit, etc. The you don't need any of the other gubbins at all. Save loadsa money and sharpen faster and more easily.

 

[mouppe]

I haven't found honing compound to make any difference to my blade sharpness after polishing with an 8000 waterstone, but I do use it to polish my gouges as my slip stones only reach 4000 grit. So if you are stopping at 240 honing compound won't make much difference at all.


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