Veritas� Sharpening System

Re: Veritas� Sharpening System *LINK*

Paul M. in San Diego

>Hi Murph,

Here's a link to the thread I started when I got my MKII unit. It works great for me.


Old MKII thread

Unpowered: Veritas� Sharpening Components

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>It is sometimes confusing that Lee Valley has a Veritas Power Sharpening System as well as a Veritas Sharpening System that is unpowered. I understand you are talking about the latter.

There are a number of honing guides out there, and more to come. Some do a very credible job, but almost all have some major weakness. I'm of the persuasion the even with their weaknesses, they are, on balance, much to be preferred over free hand techniques for most blades in the hands of most woodworkers.

The guide system you are considering is much better than most, having a simple method to establish secondary ("micro") bevels, the ability to clamp a wide variety of blades (including skewed blades) and a fairly convenient way to set the initial bevel angle. For its price, I think it is a good buy and an effective tool.

My greatest fault with this guide is that the single point clamp with no side support makes it all to easy to have the blade shift (become angled) during use, particularly if you are somewhat heavy handed. Some have a lot of trouble with this (including me) and others never find it to be a significant problem. It is something to be cautious about when using, as if your blade becomes skewed for even a few strokes, it will be time consuming to repair the damage.

The other problem with this guide is that it offers no precise way to insure the leading edge of the blade is initially set orthogonal to the sides of the blade (of course this is a desirable feature when working with skewed blades). Much cheaper "Eclispe-style" side locking guides do a much better job at this, and thus have an advantage in this area when is comes to plane blades and chisels, though they often lack the capacity for larger blades or blades that have unusual sidewalls.

My favorite currently available honing guide is the Fasttrack one which allows for center clamping of blades, has side supports that can be used to both ensure orthogonality and maintain it, will handle very wide blades, and can be configured with a wide roller to insure the guide istself doesn't rock from side to side as it is used. The downside to this honing guide is that it is more expensive, less commmonly available, and lacks convenient microbevel adjustment (the latter of course lacking on all but the Veritas).

By Fall, a new guide will be on the scene (based on Rob's glimpses into the future)that will have excellent capabilities yet remain modest in price. Alas, that doesn't do you much good now.

So, in your current situation, only you can decide whether it is worth getting an inexpensive jig like the Eclipse to tide you over until you can see what Fall will bring, get one of the better but more expensive current systems (for example, the Veritas or FastTrack), or do without for a few months. There are other guides out there, but I have not mentioned them either because I believe they are much lower in quality (e.g, the General and the Stanley), much more expensive (some of the new British Guides) and/or much more limited in function (doing only chisels, or only small blades, etc). Others may feel more favorable out them and recommend them accordingly.

Re: Veritas� Sharpening System

Gary

>I have been using the Veritas precision honing guide for a few years now. I really like it for giving me repeatable and predictable results. The ability to set a slightly increased angle for creating a micro-bevel is the key feature IMHO. The only draw back has been the increased stone wear because of the roller on the guide. Overall, I would recommend it.

Lyn

Dan Donaldson

>Do you have a source for the fasttrack guide? I would like to see a picture of it.

Oops!

Paul M. in San Diego

>Sorry about the misdirected answer!

Re: Veritas� Sharpening System

david charters durham nc

>I recently got the Veritas sharpening system you are talking about, and I did have trouble getting my chisels in there square and found that I really had to crank down to get it in there securely. I found a system online which seems interesting and addresses the problems I have (I think):

http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpen/jig.html

I am planning on whipping up a couple of these jigs and trying out this system. I�d be interested in what others think about this system, as well as what they think of back bevels on plane irons. As a side note, I just took the hideous hand honed edge off of my chisels last week and produced mirror smooth �scary charp� edges! Wow I never knew I had a Caddy!

Re: Lyn *LINK*

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>Below is their retail website.

It used to be shown in the Garret Wade catalog, but I don't know if it is in the current one


http://www.prairieriverwoodworking.com/products.asp?parid=10

Jig for the Veritas Jig *LINK*

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

>This topic came up a little while ago and I posted a picture of a jig I use to improve the Veritas.

Regards from Perth

Derek


Jig for the Veritas Jig

Re: fasttrak

paul womack

>I've always thought of this as the #55 of the honing jig world :-)

BugBear

I missed that thread, thanks for the repost!

Matt Malin

>

Re: Veritas� Sharpening System

Greg Sloop

>I've got a crude setup, but it works pretty well for me.

Since I have only LA planes and I like to sharpen a number of different angles, I can't use the veritas angle setter for all of them.

I have two that I do at 45deg and ~52-3 deg.

I simply took a spare piece of MDF. Make sure one side is square and true.

I then draw/mark/etch/cut a line exactly perpendicular to the edge. I can use this to set the blade square to the veritas angle jig. (I believe you have to flip the jig over (upside down) so the edge of the MDF is up square against the end.

I also carefully setup irons in each of the angles I use regularly. Then I take these and mark the reference projection, again on that same piece of MDF.

Thus, when I jig up to sharpen, I insert the plane iron, or chisel, and flip the jig over. adjust the projection of the blade to the right marked angle and also mostly square it if it is wide. (This give a large reference surface to match to the wide marked projection mark which is also square. For chisels this won't work as the end of the blade isn't wide enough to verify square-ness.)

I then move to the line which is perp to the end and adjust the squareness if needed. If I have to move it very far to sqare it up, I also move back to the projection marks to be sure I've not altered it much.

This sounds complex, but it probably only takes 15-30 seconds at most.

(If someone wants pictures of the dang ugly thing, I'll be willing to take some - but be warned, it looks ugly and like a cludge.)

Cheers,

Greg

Re: Squaring Up (pics)

Mark Meier (Ann Arbor, MI)

>>>The other problem with this guide is that it offers no precise way to insure the leading edge of the blade is initially set orthogonal to the sides of the blade <<

Yup, that's a problem. This is what I've been doing to solve it... Just take a small square and align it with both the edges of the guide and the side of the blade.

And for blades which taper along the edges towards the rear (like Veritas blades), I use the front of the guide to rest the square on:

Of course careful observers may ask, "Okay Slick, if your method works so great how come your (rather wide) micro bevel isn't precisely parallel to the leading edge of the blade???" Hey, quit nitpicking okay! :)

I look forward to seeing the new Veritas guide.

Mark

Honing Guide alternative *LINK*

Matt Malin

>A month ago I ordered the large Kell honing guide from Dieter Schmid. I finally have it and will use it this pm. There is no squaring up problem. Europeanhandtools.com is going to have some soon. I plan on getting the skew blade guide from them.


small and large Richard Kell guides