Oil Stones, and Sharpening a Cabinetmakers Gouge

Re: Oil Stones, and Sharpening a Cabinetmakers Gou

paul womack

>Great page and write up (and lovely linen folds too).

But (there had to be a "but").

This motion must maximise wear in the centre of the stone, which is a hell of stranmge way to minimise dishing :-)

BugBear

Re: Oil Stones, and Sharpening a Cabinetmakers Gou

jared

>remove 1 for email

Hello: Is it possible to make up a leather honing wheel like you used on your own or is it neccessary to buy one? If they must be bought, where are they available? Thanks Jared

Re: Oil Stones, and Sharpening a Cabinetmakers Gou

L. Hanson

>"This motion must maximise wear in the centre of the stone, which is a hell of stranmge way to minimise dishing :-)"

You're right of course, but I think the randomness of how you make the "eight" would distribute the wear a bit more evenly:

It's as much about developing a flowing motion while sharpening as anything, I suppose. I'm afraid I don't know of any way of moving the blade on the stone that will wear the surface of the stone evenly. If it concerns you, then just use a straight line.

Leif

NorseWoodsmith.com

Re: Oil Stones, and Sharpening a Cabinetmakers Gou

L. Hanson

>"Is it possible to make up a leather honing wheel like you used on your own or is it neccessary to buy one? If they must be bought, where are they available?"

If you're handy with leather work, I don't see any reason that you couldn't make one up. I'm not that handy, myself. I don't know of a wheel that's available unless you get one from Tormek - though a couple other options are possible:

A leather belt for a 1" belt sander:

Woodcarvingstore.com

Leather wheels:

Woodcraft.com

You could also make a wheel out of MDF and use that...

HTH

Leif

NorseWoodsmith.com

Stropping???

Brad in Ottawa

>Leif,

Great work... I am trying to sharpen a few carving tools at the moment so this is timely. I have a couple of questions that hopefully you or someone else can answer.

1) Regarding the MDF/Cardboard wheels. I have heard of mounting them to bench grinders but never a drill. How did you do this?

2) Secondly, this question is a general question but... I could be mistaken but I thought stropping plane blades could potentially round the blade. If so, then why is it okay to strop carving chisels???

Brad

Re: Stropping???

L. Hanson

>"1) Regarding the MDF/Cardboard wheels. I have heard of mounting them to bench grinders but never a drill. How did you do this?"

A bolt through the center of the homemade wheel, held in place with a locking nut and a couple of those serrated washers, then just chucked the end of bolt up into the drill. I usually then mounted my drill into my vise (it had a good metal case on it, not the plastic ones of recent times) to hold it steady and used a piece of wire or a nylon to tie the trigger open.

"2) Secondly, this question is a general question but... I could be mistaken but I thought stropping plane blades could potentially round the blade. If so, then why is it okay to strop carving chisels???"

You can round off the edge if you aren't careful, but I know of no better way to put the finest edge on them. Think of the old time barbers stropping their razors on a strap of leather - it's the same basic concept. You do have to watch yourself- it only takes me about 10 seconds to strop them - just hold the chisel at the right angle so you aren't rounding them over, I guess - and move quickly and evenly across the wheel (or whatever method you are using).

Leif

NorseWoodsmith.com

Why not Tormek?

Jim Reed @Tallahassee

>Just use the little butt chisel jig, or do them freehand using the bar. Even though it is slow, the mighty T beats stones anyday.

Re: Why not Tormek?

L. Hanson

>Oh, don't get me wrong - I love the Tormek.

There are a lot of times that the edge I get right off of the Tormek is good enough - but it does fall short in a few areas. It is just a glorified grinder, after all. For example, it excels at reshaping bevels on nearly every tool - but as I try more carving, it's obvious the edge right off the tormek on those tools simply isn't sharp enough. Sharpening a V-tool properly on one is an exersize in futility, and it removes material far too fast to be consistent on small carving tools, such as a 1/8" wide gouge. It also gets wasteful on an expensive carving tool, when they usually just need a touch up - which is best done on a stone, IMO.

I find the Tormek also falls short for sharpening turning tools - while it works wonderfully at sharpening them, IMO, I find that sharpening bowl and spindle gouges wears grooves into the wet stone far too quickly. With that in mind, I usually set up a homemade wolverine type system on my regular grinder when using those tools.

So, I do love the Tormek, and am glad I have it - it is only one part of a sharpening system. There are definitely cheaper substitutes you can use, and I simply cannot recommend that everyone get one, they are simply too expensive and overpriced for what you get. But now that I have one, I won't be giving it up...

What pushed me to get some new oil stones is that for those carving tools I have been using water stones to get the final edge - but kept digging grooves into the stones when sharpening the gouges I have. It was getting very annoying to have to flatten them every time I wanted to use them, especially for flat irons. Granted, the water stones I have are inexpensive ones which may have added to the problem I was having with them - so I tried sandpaper on glass for a while, but kept tearing the paper. Since I lost my old oil stones 10 years ago I've been missing them... and now seemed like the perfect time to upgrade.

So there I was, looking purchasing oil stones, and I was having a hard time figuring out exactly what was what - the stones I had previously were hand-me-downs, and I wasn't having any luck looking for vintage replacements at a reasonable price where you knew for sure what you were getting (most people selling old ones don't have a clue what they have), and there wasn't any good local source where I could check them out close up, so I decided just to buy new. To do so, I thought a little self-education was prudent, and went ahead and got some. I'm very glad I did - I think I'll be extremely happy with the set up I now have.

I just hope there some useful info in what I wrote about for somebody else.

Leif

Re: Stropping???

Ed Mulligan, Cape Cod

>IME stropping does tend to round over the chisel edge while making the edge sharper. After a number of stroppings you will detect the tool causing tearout and/or you will have to raise the handle to engage the edge, resulting in less control. When this happens it's time to rehone.

Ed

Re: Oil Stones, and Sharpening a Cabinetmakers Gou

L. Hanson

>I took your post to heart, and removed the graphic for the figure eight - and replaced it and it's accompanying text with the following:

"It's also a good idea to move around on the stone, and try to use as much of the surface of it as possible to avoid unnecessary wear patterns developing on its face. You can alternate using a figure eight movement, an elliptical movement, and/or a straight across movement to maximize as much the of the stone as is possible. In the end, however, it is more important to make sure you are grinding the bevel of the tool evenly across its width."

I hope that clears it up a bit... Thanks for the help!

Leif

Re: Oil Stones, and Sharpening a Cabinetmakers Gou

Chris Knight

>Leif,

That is a great write-up on sharpening. I use pretty much the same procedure for carving chisels although I prefer to establish the initial grind on the Tormek by holding the tool at a right angle to the stone, resting my hand on the toolrest and rotating my wrist (similar to the way you subsequently use the Arkansas stones).

I find a compound is essential to get a really keen edge at the stropping stage and it's worth playing around to find a good one, most are designed for use at higher temperatures than the Tormek rotational speed will produce and as a result they flake off the leather wheel.

I have used MDF discs in the Drill press to good effect. Again, I rest my hand on the table, holding the tool horizontally.

Chris

Re: Oil Stones, and Sharpening a Cabinetmakers Gou

paul womack

>Good write-up.

The figure-8 thing is a bete noir of mine (he said, avoiding a better known phrase ;-).

I have seen the claim that figure 8 minimises dishing rather often, and it's self evidently untrue, traditional or not.

BugBear