Veritas MKII Sharpener: Anyone have a review?

Next months Popular Woodworking *LINK*

Eric Hedberg

>See the link below. Chris is going to evaluate the popular systems with his own edgy style.


http://www.popularwoodworking.com/store/backissue.asp?issuedate=6/1/2004

So, Chris, MKII: thumbs up or down?

Mike in Mystic

>That sounds great, but I have $$ burning a hole in my wallet :) I'm tempted to order it since I know LV will honor it's 3 month return policy if not totally satisfied, but I'd rather not waste their money and my time if I can make a better decision.

I subscribe to PW, so you aren't losing any subscribers if you let me in on it :) And I'm only asking about the MKII, after all hehe

Thanks,

Mike

Re: So, Chris, MKII: thumbs up or down?

John Meikrantz

>I got my issue in the mail yesterday! The review of the MKII was very positive. I don't think that I've heard anything bad about it. If you search the archives, there were some extensive discussions about the sharpener. General consensus was very positive. I'm just waiting for my next bonus check!

I'll see if I can find the thread here and stick it in another message.

John

Found original thread *LINK*

John Meikrantz

>This was the first discussion of the MKII. Search current messages for Lee Valley Sharpening or Sharpener and there are additional threads. Don't think I have seen any negatives on this forum or a few others that I lurk on...

John


LV Sharpener Thread

Re: So, Chris, MKII: thumbs up or down?

Mike in Mystic

>Hi John,

Thanks for the heads up. I did a search in the regular messageboard and found a good discussion with some helpful tips for the MKII. I'm sold, the shopping cart is full over at LV right now and I'm about to send more $$ to Canada :)

Just to recap what I found that seems useful:

use PSA backed 0.5 micron chromium oxide abrasive sheets on the 3mm platter to do final honing - the surface can be recharged with honing compound.

the abrasive disks can be cleaned and seem to have a reasonably long life

lapping of plane blades can sometimes me difficult using the MKII, but chisel backs seem to be more straightforward.

I'm stoked now that my mind is made up. I just have to get around to rearranging my wood storage so I can move my wife's ancient piano out of my shop and then build a sharpening station for all the equipment I've accumulated. Can you believe she told me, and I quote, "move the wood out my way or else the piano stays where it is". My wife definitely earns the designation SWMBO :)

Mike

Thanks a lot, John!

Mike in Mystic

>

My thumb is up

Christopher Schwarz

>It's a good system. And that's hard for me to say because I have been an unrepentant hand sharpener for 14 years. I do not even own a grinder (but I have borrowed the services of one).

The hardest part about switching to the machine is remembering that it is a power tool. When I sharpen I go into a trance generally.

This is bad with the MK II.

When Ben Knebel and Doug Evans came down to do a demo last month Ben went into a similar trance. Within seconds, one of their beautiful plane irons was flying across the shop at about 30 mph.

And I have done the same thing. Once. That's all it really takes. My best advice is to modify the tool rest a bit so there's a stop before you come to the center. This will prevent you from getting too close to the brass nut, which can grab the tool.

My second piece of advice is to not slide the tool across the abrasive while you sharpen it. Press in one place. Release. Move the tool. Press. Release. This works very well and creates the most consistent bevel for me.

I think I've sharpened about 100 tools on this (I first started using it for the spokeshave review in the last issue). Now I'm in a chisel review. It involves both power and hand techniques and even more tools.

In any case, it's money well spent.

Hope this helps.

Chris

I tried it today(Long)

Robin Frierson

>A friend loaned me his PS for a few weeks to try out and I got to try it today and some yesterday. My intial feelings are its great. But I do have some concerns over the heat it causes. I am used to a Tormek for the bevel, then Shaptons for the micro bevel and of course cool irons. The plater goes faster than I thought it would and will heat your irons up quick if your not careful.

I talke to Lyn Mangiameli about it and the key is using a very coarse abrasive when doing a bevel or major geometry change, like 40-60 grit. I just got my LN chisels today and sharpened them on the LV PS and it was increbibly quick. You spend more time changing platters than actually sharpening.

I can see you would want to get like 3 tool holders and jig up 3 irons at a time, then do three per platter, letting the iron cool as your work from platter to platter.

You can raise a burr with 15 micron in just seconds. But I do worry about the heat and was told not to dunk A2 as you can get microfractures at the edge. Instead let the iron cool on another metal like aluminum or copper, something to draw the heat out. Lynn has been using this system for a while and has probably sharpened more irons on it than any other, so hes probably the best one to talk to.

I will say it puts an incredible edge on very quickly. I used some of the 3m micron graded PSA sandpaper that Joels sells and just trimmed the PSA sheet around the platter. Then did some end grain paring on softwood with those LN chisels I sharpened tonight and I dont think I have ever used a sharper chisel..But I dont know how long the sandpaper will last so I am still not committed on it. I got loads of sharpening gear already, a Tormek, Shaptons, Norton waterstones,etc but this set up is faster.

But you need to consider your still gonna need something to do the backs with. I am sold on using Diamond paste for the backs. I did the backs of my LN chisels tonight in like a minute, with 5 micron and .5 micron paste on MDF. Those chisels are the nicest I have seen out of the box, hardly needed anything, went straight to the paste with no other flatenning. The last Flea market Witherby I got took forever on the back so these chisels were a delight to get going.

I plan to spend the weekend doing half blind drawers so hope to give the chisels and the power sharpener more use and decide whether I want to get one. If it wasnt for the heat I would be sold already. When you get it I can see already your gonna need at least two extra platters and maybe one or two extra tool holders, so price that in.

Thanks!

Mike in Mystic

>Thanks for the prompt reply, Chris. I haven't received my PW issue yet, so your reply is even more useful to me.

The MKII is ordered now, so I'm excited. I'll try not to have any of my plane irons go flying across the room!

Mike

Re: I tried it today(Long)

Mike in Mystic

>Robin,

Thanks for taking the time to respond. This messageboard is just amazing. I don't know why I waste my time on rec.woodworking anymore.

Anyway, your input is very useful. All of my sharpening has been done with hand power on abrasive sheets or waterstones. I haven't even ever reground a bevel on a grinder. I do use a grinder for turning tools, though, so I have a bit of experience avoiding heat.

Still, I can see how the MKII will require a lot of diligence to make sure no issues come up like that.

As for extra/spare parts, I did order one extra tool holder and 3 extra platters. I also went ahead and got 3 of each abrasive disks, which I'm hoping lasts me for quite awhile. In another thread it was mentioned that the instructions for the sharpener state that the abrasives can be refreshed with either rubber blocks or alcohol, depending on the grit.

And, I still will use either abrasive sheets on my granite plate, water stones, or lapping grit to flatten plane iron backs. I think I'll try chisel backs on the MKII and see how it goes.

Mike

Another concern

Robin Frierson

>Another concern I have is cross contamination of the grits. Since its a dry system, it would seem to be easy to get some of the coarser abrasive particles on the finer platters. I dont know what type of precautions need to be taken on that, or if its even an issue, but it something to keep an eye on. Maybe a quick vacum on the discs?, store them separately, etc.

Re: Another concern

Christopher Schwarz

>The best solution for me has been to keep my discs clean. I use the CMT orange stuff and it works just great. I squirt a little on after every tool and wipe it off like an LP.

Grit contamination is an issue (though I think it's overblown) with all systems. I don't consider this one as suseptible to it as, say, combination waterstones or oilstones.

Chris

Re: Another concern

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>I keep each of my platters in a separate zip lock bag. For the finer grits (like 9, 5, .5, .3) I also clean each one with 99% isopropyl alcohol and a tissue at the time of each mounting.

I truly don't think you will find heat to be much of an issue for maintenance honing, which will be the primary use of the QPSS over time. I never worry about heat build up in the finer grits, only with the coarser ones when making major geometry changes. As you reported, the best way to reduce heat is to use a fresh, very coarse abrasive for major geometry changes or in those rare cases of repairing major damage to a blade. I really do wish that LV would make available a 46 or so grit abrasive for those times. Heat comes from leaving the blade in contact with the platter too long and pressing to hard (which you only are apt to do if are not making sufficient progress with steel removal due to too fine or too dull an abrasive for the job at hand).

Another approach for major geometry changes or edge repair is to first rough in the change on a grinder (even the cheapest of grinders is usually more than sufficient for this task) and then refine and flatten the bevel with the QPSS.

Seriously though, I very rarely ever have to mess with the coarser grits anymore. Once my desired geometry was established, I never have a need to return to the coarser grits, and heat just isn't an issue.

A quick note on charging the finer grit platters with honing compound. This can be very effective and extend the functional life of the disk almost indefinitely. Do, however, recognize that there is a lot of variation in how much abrasive vs filler is in various commercial compounds and the size tolerance of the abrasive particles. I am not really happy with the tolerance of grading of most chromium dioxide (green) sticks that I have encountered and I am definitely not happy with the one LV sells (actually I find it fine for turning tools, but having way too much variance for a final refinement of blade edges). I'm still in search of the best green stick, though I am sure a fine tolerance one is out there.

Re: Veritas MKII Sharpener: Anyone have a review? *LINK*

Tim of San Leandro

>Here is another alternative:

Lap-Sharp. I've not actually used it myself but have spoken with another woodworker who has.

It has a few advantages (well, it better considering the price) over the LV unit:

slower speed, IIRC around 60 RPM.

Larger platter - 12 inch diameter

Finer grit abrasives available - 1 micron. Though it is a simple thing to fashion a generic platter for this or the LV unit and use diamonds or honing compound....


Lap-Sharp

LV CrO2 Sticks

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, South of Miami FL

>Lyn,

How did you determine that the LV product has a large variation in grit size?

Re: LV CrO2 Sticks

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>I have honed blades on a fresh .5 or.3 micron PSA abrasive sheet applied to the platter and examined the scratch pattern under magnification.

Then took the same abrasive sheet (in this case just .5 micron) and a fresh section of the "green stick" and coated the platter. Honed again and that scratch pattern is far more variable and much coarser overall. Frankly, it doesn't even take magnification to determine this.

I came to look at this seriously, as I had originally been assuming that the LV green stick was a could source of uniform .5 micron abrasive particles. Based on three separate sticks, I can now say that definitely is not the case (much to my dismay).

I don't know whether it is that the chromium oxide particles themselves are not sufficiently uniform in size, or if it is other particles (deliberate or contaminant) included in the compound that are the culprits. Functionally it doesn't make any difference.

I'm now in search of a chromium oxide compound (or diamond particles with a suitable binder) that can be applied to the platters to achieve a uniform .5 micron pattern. I will be greatly appreciative if anyone can identify a source or send me a sample of a compound that can be applied to the platters that will yield a uniform .5 micron (or smaller) pattern.

Two practical caveats here. One is that when applying honing compounds in this size range, it is very important to make sure the substrate abrasive sheet on the platter is first clean. Second, the binder compounds will be eager to help bind anything else that settles on them, so make sure you keep these platters separated from your other platters and stored in zip lock or similar bags. Don't just set this platter to the side while sharpening with coarser grits or you will almost surely end up with coarser airborn particals settling on your fine abrasive platter and contaminating it.

Second, I am making a fuss here because I am trying to achieve a uniform .5 micron pattern to replace a previously uniform 1 or 5 micron pattern. The variations I see from use of the compounds is probably in the range of from .3 to 7 microns. For most, this is still a very sharp edge that is as good as they would get from the typical 6000-8000 waterstone (keep in mind that waterstones, natural ones in particular are not all that uniform themselves).

Finally, I am not entirely happy with recent .5 (dark green) PSA abrasive sheets. I find that these too do not have as uniform a scratch pattern as I'd like. Russell Seaton sent me a .3 micron sheet that uses a different abrasive that doesn't have quite the life of the chromium oxide, but is MUCH more consistently graded. I'm not sure the .3 micron range is that important, but the consistent size (keeping it from going above 1 micron) is given my experience with plane blades.

So, by all means do use honing compounds to extend the life of your disks, but know the limitations. I do hope to find a consistently graded .5 micron compound, but am also giving a serious look to whether a diamond compound or gel might have reasonable life when applied to the platters.

Re: LV CrO2 Sticks

Russell Seaton

>As you probably know Lyn, the 0.3 micron PSA sheet I sent you is from Joel at the Museum store. You will have to ask him exactly what kind of particles, etc. are on the sheets he stocks. I did notice the numbers printed on his 3M PSA sheets are different than the numbers printed on the 3M PSA sheets sold by Lee Valley for their power sharpener.

I'll contact you via email and send you some of the green compound supplied by Joel at the Museum store. You can test it to see if it is a consistent size. Of course I could also test it since I have the LVPSS and some 5, 0.5, 0.3 micron PSA sheets from the Museum store. But in some things I'm not too productive and you might be quite a bit quicker at it than me.

Heat

Russell Seaton

>I don't think the heat issue is a problem, unless the person doing the sharpening on the LVPSS is as sharp as a screwdriver used as a steel chisel. The LVPSS (Lee Valley Power Sandpaper Sharpener) will heat the tools up hot enough to make them uncomfortable to hold. But this is hundreds of degrees cooler than hot enough to turn a tool blue or to make A2 steel develop micro fractures when dunked in water.

I put my fingers very close to the edge touching the disk. I will feel any heat very quickly. I will then look at the bevel and see if it is ground enough and then dunk the tool and my fingers in a tub of cold water. If I think I need to grind more I will put the tool back on the spinning platter and grind some more. The tool holding system makes putting the tool back on the gude bar almost perfectly repeatable.

A tip from Lyn is to use a magic marker on the edge of the tool being ground before putting it onto a disk. Then touch the tool to the disk for one second, just one second or less. If the magic marker is gone from the area near the tip, you are done with that disk and can switch disks. Reapply the magic marker to the tool before going to the new disk.

It Borders On Being A Sexual Experience...

Doug Evans

>Chris did not mention that we had few irons available for the demo, and without the LV machine, we would have had a snowball's chance in a hot place of getting fifteen or so done.

We have used the Tormek and in our opinion for sharpening our plane irons, it does not compare to the LV.

We got ours just before the Long Island WW Show last week and it saw about six hours of work before the show. Cant say enough about how it has changed things. A few minutes to a mirror.

Not afilliated in any way whatsoever, given their poor taste in winter sports apparel and unwavering allegiance to the "How many times can you choke--- !!!##@$Senators!"

As always...

Doug (A Guy with a George Armstrong stick in the front hallway and strong tendencies to wear Blue and White in cooler weather).

Thanks Lyn!

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, South of Miami FL

>

Re: LV CrO2 Sticks

joel

>the micro abrasive lapping films we sell are purposely graded very carefully. This is why they cut so fast and evenly. with a tight tolerance you get more abrasive cutting at the same time so you get faster cutting and longer wear. Also a more even scratch pattern. the stuff was invented for critical uses in polishing. polishing the heads of hard drives for example is one application. on the .3 and .5 grits I think the use static to align the abrasive carefully for even more consistent results. It's a pretty high tech product and I think only only the market for the paste decade.

Regular wet and dry paper has a far, far looser tolerance and that's why it doesn't cut as fast or last as long as the equivalent lapping film.

I have no clue what LV uses in their honing bar. I know there are at least two types offered by the company that makes ours. The regular one and ours, which is simply a finer abrasive. However the compound sticks are fairly old technology. As far as I know just a pile of abrasive mixed with wax binder. So I would expect a pretty wide variance in grit. In theory a little sharpening pressure should break everything down to a fairly consistent grit but as Lynn observes I guess it doesn't always. For normal stropping it's fine. We don't actually recommend it for anything except carving tools because you get a better edge stropping with a plain strop. but that's another story.

The very fine diamond pastes have I think about a 1/4 micron grit tolerance. Not much but I would guess if you can see it with green stuff you should be able to see it with the diamond paste. THe 1/2 micron I think is officially graded at 0-1 with a nominal rating of 1/2 and the 1/4 micron is officially graded at 0-1/2 with a nominal rating of 1/4.

As far as I know the most consistent abrasive out there are the lapping films which you are using already.

Re: LV CrO2 Sticks

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>Its aluminum oxide.

CrO2 Stick Usage?

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, South of Miami FL

>Which grit platters to you choose to "recharge" with the LV CrO2 stick?

(I do not have the LVPSS-2 yet, but I am collecting notes from you pioneers)

Re: CrO2 and Compounds; Decisions and Usage? (long

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>I don't recharge the platter that has the white .3 Micron Aluminum Oxide 3M Microfine (Imperial Microfinishing) sheet on it . This makes for an expensive platter as the abrasive has limited life, so I save it for just special blades like those that go in my best smoothers.

I do recharge the green .5 Chromium Oxide platters with Green Rouge sticks. As I said above, I have not yet been able to find a compound as finely graded as the nominally .5 micron Chromium Oxide 3M Microfine sheet, but I use green rouge sticks none the less as it almost indefinitely extends the life of the Microfine substrate and I do have reason to believe that I will eventually find a decent green rouge. More about this in a moment.

I recharge the gray 5 micron 3M Microfine sheets with a proprietary compound called Yellowstone. The "Powerstrop" folks sell this to go with their leather strops. I find it to give a scratch pattern smaller than 5 micron (probably about 2-3) though again, with slightly more variablility in size. I don't know for sure, but my guess is that the abrasive is Aluminum Oxide, though the scratch pattern is a little coarser than I'd expect from Aluminum Oxide "A" (Linde A) which is supposed to be the .3 micron stuff like is used on the 3M films.

These are the platters I usually charge as they are the platters I use most, as the QPSS makes constant refinement of the edge so easy.

I do, however, sometimes charge the 9 micron platter with a compound called Gray Star. Gray Star is another Aluminum Oxide abrasive that is fairly close to the 9 micron (maybe even a little finer) 3M Microfinishing film. The nice thing about the Gray Star I have used is that it has one of the most uniform scratch patterns of any of the compounds (for once advertising matches reality. It's a little hard to find, but can be ordered direct from Matchless Metal Polish Company, though it is somewhat of a hassel to do.

http://www.matchlessmetal.com/index.html

Just some general comments on honing compounds. I tend to go with proprietary "branded" compounds intended for sharpening. The reason is that I have found them to generally be high quality. There is tremendous variability in even compounds that have the same name, color, and abrasive. It is really hard to know how much abrasive is actually contained in the compound. It has been reported that one large manufacturer of green rouge has six different varieties containing anywhere from 5% to 90% CR2O3 in the binder. Not only will this affect the cost (thus sources that sell compounds cheaply are sometimes selling cheap compounds), but adhesion characteristics (maximal abrasive % rarely will have the best charging characteristics). Then, there is the bigger factor of how finely graded the abrasive is, and this is where I am having even greater trouble getting good information. Thus, I have been tending to go with proprietary compounds like the LV green sticks and the Yellowstone and the Graystone in hopes that the supplier has made the effort to work with the manufacturer to get the best product. Unfortunately, I think Lee Valley could have done a better job on this and I hope that Rob and crew will consider researching out the optimal true .5 micron CR2O3 compound, something I definitely don't believe they have done yet (perhaps for pricing reasons).

For those who are adventurous, you might also want to try Zam (a proprietary combination of aluminum oxide and CR2O3) and/or Blue Rouge (or Blue Magic) which is sold by Dialux and is supposed to be a very fine polishing compound that uses Alumina (a type of Aluminum Oxide). There are a number of Jewelry Suppliers on the web who offer this. I just haven't had the time (remember, you'd all like me to get that plane thing written up), to explore this as much as I'd like, but it is a project on the agenda. If anyone has any experience with these, I'd love to read a report.