Veritas MK II honing guide mini-review

by Denis Chénard

I have been using the original Veritas honing guide for a number of years. While it worked well, there were a few drawbacks, the main one for me being that it was easy to sharpen a blade out of square.

Last year, during a tour of the Lee Valley/Veritas installations, Rob Lee showed me a prototype of what was to become the MK II guide. I have been eagerly waiting since then for the guide to go on sale.

Well, the wait is over, here it is:

The most important innovation is the registration guide, which makes it a snap of setting the blade in the guide.

It works by choosing one of three angle scales (and adjusting the honing guide accordingly), then an angle via the adjustable stop. There are registration holes that the stop locks in, for quick and repeatable bevel angles. Also, and very important, the registration guide ensures that the blade sits square in relation to the honing guide.

There is a scale on the honing guide that allows easy centering of the blade. Here it is set for 2 3/8", the width of the No. 6 blade I was sharpening at the time.

This is a view of the underside of the guide, with the blade square and angle set at 30 degrees.

Here's another, this time with a bullnose plane blade.

Once everything is set up (takes about a minute), clamp the blade using the two knurled nuts on the honing guide, remove the registration guide, and you're ready to go.

Here's the guide with the bullnose blade installed and the registration guide removed.

As with the original honing guide, the roller sits in an excentric mount, which allows for easy micro-bevel setup.

In use, the guide is very stable, more so than the original. It feels good in your hands, and works great.

Downsides? I see a few:

First, while it is very easy to select a bevel angle, you have to know what angle you want. The old guide, with its registration wheel, made it easy to find out the bevel angle on a blade (provided it matched one of the five settings). I circumvented the problem by buying a bevel gauge.

Second, the clamp, with its two knobs, requires more attention than the old guide's single knob. I didn't check that I had tightened the knobs evenly when I installed the bullnose blade, and as a result the blade shifted in use. Once tightened evenly, the guide clamp held without problems.

Finally, unless I missed something, there is no stop for a 38 degree bevel, which is a blade angle offered by Veritas on some of its new planes. You either re-grind to 35 degrees (with a micro-bevel of 37), or go up to 40 (41 or 42 with the micro-bevel). There is one stop on the high angle scale (50 degrees) that comes close, but it isn't identified on the standard angle scale.

Minor quibbles aside, the Veritas MK II is a major advance in honing guides. There is nothing else like it. Very highly recommended.

P.S. The guide has other capabilities (spokeshave blades, etc.), I haven't tested those.