Honing Jig/Guide/Whatever

Re: Honing Jig/Guide/Whatever

paul womack

>These puppies are not "quality critical". Buy whatever one you see first, and get sharpening!

Here in the UK, they are often called "Eclipse" guides, after the best known maker. Wether they invented the style, I know not.

BugBear

Re: Honing Jig/Guide/Whatever *LINK*

Christopher Fitch @ Memphis

>You mean this one?


Vise-Type Honing Guide

Richard Kell Honing Guides *LINK*

Marc

>Here's all you need!


Richard Kell Honing Guides

Re: Richard Kell Honing Guides

Don Thompson - Cutler Ridge, Florida

>Those are quite nice, but the track is to wide!

Charlesworth Method

Don Thompson - Cutler Ridge, Florida

>That one from LV looks about right - do you have one? I think I have heard that some brands are better than others, but I do not remember which was the good one.

I just got done watching the David Charlesworth sharpening video, and he advocates a narrow-roller guide so that it can be ever-so-slightly tilted to get an arc on a smoothing or jointing blade edge. (plus the now famous "ruler trick".

Re: Alternative approach

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>David has a technique that works very well for some, but may not be so desirable for others. I'm one of those others. It will depend a lot on how much you wish to crown your blade, the intended use of the blade, how much you care about repeatability (and other factors will allow it), and how good your basic hand control of the blade is.

Most of the time, I want to be able to achieve the straightest and most repeatable geometry possible, especially for chisels and plane blades used for joints. This means I prefer the most stable base possible on a honing guide and find almost all honing guides to have rollers that are too narrow. One of my favorite hand honing guides has been the FastTrack because I could obtain and mount a second roller. The two mounted side to side are almost exactly the width of a Shapton professional stone, or they can be seperated to make for an even wider base when using abrasive sheets. If I need the corners dubbed off, I can easily do that by hand after all the other geometries are precisely set.

Re: Richard Kell Honing Guides

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>These are beautifully and well made, and have some decidely positive features (inluding relatively wide bases and ability to handle the #140 blade and dealing well with some narrow blades). However, they are not without their own drawbacks, not the least of which is the high price of the combined pair to handle a wide range of blades. One of the problems inherent in the design of the side clamping model is that the large rollers result in a high fulcrum which means that blade projection will be very short for the most used bevel angles. This makes it very hard to hold this jig and maintain even pressure and direction ahead of the fulcrum, which is the most stable arrangement. Indeed part of the need for the wide base is to try to compensate for this, but it cannot not overcome it entirely and still leaves what many will find an awkward and uncomfortable method of manually manipulating the blade and guide. The skew blade guide has it's own issues, one depending on your belief on what is the best choice of registration surface.

Even the pair of them are not "do it all" guides for me.

Re: Alternative approach

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>What does the FastTrack guide look like? When I do a search, I get a lot of career info.

Thanks,

Pam

Re: Alternative approach *LINK*

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>HI Pam,

If you have an OLD (like maybe a year) Garret Wade catalog, you should find some photos there. Since Duginske sold out to Kregl, I haven't seen the FastTrack honing/grinding components shown in a catalog. I'm hoping that since Kreg has updated the FastTrack bandsaw fence and a few others, that they will be updating the honing guide as well and making it available again.

It wasn't/isn't perfect, but it gives the option of side or center (through the slot) clamping of plane blades, side or top clamping of chisel and solid plane blades), has removable rollers, and works great on either their dry grinder stand or fitted up against the Tormek arm.

Well, after I just wrote all that, I tried an old bookmark and see it is still shown available for sale at the link below. Look at all the sections because the first photo isn't that illustrative. You can also get an extra 30 degree roller (not show at the sight) if you just call them. BTW, obviously you are not limited to a specific angle by the roller, rather the specific angles possible are a combination of roller height, blade extension, and the front to back width of the jig (with respect to shorter blades--though the offer a narrower body should this be desired).


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

Re: Alternative approach

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Thanks, Lyn, it really looks nice. How about if you added wheels to the LV MkII blade holder?

Pam

Re: Alternative approach

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>Without getting myself in trouble, let me just say that I am not expecting roller width to be an issue in the LV final production units. 'Course I could be dissapointed.

Re: Alternative approach

Don Thompson - Cutler Ridge, Florida

>Hello Lyn,

I mostly use the LVMkIIPSS for straight and flat blade bevels (and Shaptons for the backs).

I have not felt comfortable with my efforts at getting a gentle arc on a smoother or jointer plane iron, though, and Charlesworth's method, using a side-clamping, narrow-wheel (Eclipse-type?) honing guide looked like something worth experimenting with.

[time out read notes]

Hmmm... I read your note about using both the leading and trailing sides of the LVMkIIPSS with wide blades, which makes a bit of a crown. I think I had forgotten that.

When do you hand-hone on stones with the aid of a guide, and what do you think of the Ruler Trick back bevel?

Re: Alternative approach (long and technical)

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>You ask:

"When do you hand-hone on stones with the aid of a guide, and what do you think of the Ruler Trick back bevel?"

Why when I am evaluating hand honing guides, of course! :-) :-)

More seriously, mostly for the very blades I've been discussing earlier: narrow and unconventional shafted chisels, skew blades, and blades over 2-3/8 such as #8 plane and #12 scraper blades. All of these don't work well in the NUSS/QPSS power honing systems--mostly because of the limitations of the carriage (with much the same limitations applying to the Tormek flat blade carriage as well).

David has popularized the "ruler trick" which is just a convenient way to apply a very small anglel back bevel. Brent Beach has an excellent (which really isn't a strong enough superlative) discussion of wear bevels (both top and bottom) which explains why a small angle back bevel can be useful, whether the blade is used with the primary face bevel up or bevel down. Both Brent and Steve Elliot (another outstanding site) have discussions on how they apply these back bevels. The advantages of back bevels are many, beyond their ability to modify effective cutting angle, as Brent and others have explained. The primary advantage is the ability to quickly establish a refined edge opposite the face bevels.

That said, I must emphasize that "ruler tricks" and back bevels in general do not reduce the need to flatten much of the back of a blade. For Bevel Up blades, you need to flatten the entire back to insure full seating against the (hopefully equally flat) bed, otherwise you will introduce stresses into the blade, and reduce bed damping. For Bevel Down blades, you must have the area flat where the (hopefully equally flat) chip breaker mates to the blade. I find it easier to maintain good registration (and thus flatness) by working the entire back on the abrasive surface (paper, stone, plate etc.) and I believe it is worthwhile to regularly hone the entire back to insure the surface stays flat (no warps, burrs, etc.). For me, this is easily done by honing the entire back on a 12000 Shapton stone after each face bevel honing.

Now Brent's work might suggest that a quick honing of the entire back may be insufficient to compensate for the wear bevel that develops during use. I think that under some circumstances he may be very correct and of course, regulary establishing a back bevel of some sort (by ruler trick or other method) would likely insure this would never happen. I think such a circumstance would be mostly likely to happen if one is slow to re-establish the primary bevel, and then only lightly hone the front and back sides with an ultra-fine abrasive.

In practice, I don't encounter this. I regularly hone my smoothing and jointing blades and magnified examination indicates that I appearently do so frequently enough that I stay a head of wear bevels that can't be erased by fine honing. On the flip side, for blades used for coarser use, such as major dimensioning, I sharpen more infequently and a power sharpening system allows me to start with more aggressive abrasives and work quickly through to very fine final honing in the range of .3 or .5 micron. Under these circumstances (and as Brent acknowledges) the removal of material from the face bevel likely carries one behind any wear bevel that has developed on the back.

So, the short of it is that I don't use the "ruler trick" technique. I hone frequently on smoothing blades and aggressively on dimensioning blades, and with both, I always repeatedly rehone the back on a very fine stone (8000-12000). The only exception to this is for those blades I deliberately employ (and renew) a back bevel in order to change the effective cutting angle of the blade. Even on these blades, I'll still quickly hone the entire back for the reasons discussed above.

All of this not meant to discourage anyone else from using the "ruler trick" as we all sharpen a little differently (and perhaps with less magnified examination of the edge), and the different technique may best suit your style of edge maintenance.

Re: searching

paul womack

>What does the FastTrack guide look like? When I do a search, I get a lot of career info.

You need to work a little harder at searching. I'm guessing that you knew you were looking for sharpening jigs, but you didn't tell the search engine. Despite clear market requirment, search engines are't telepathic yet.

This worked well;

google:fasttrak sharpening

For more help on searching, try my website.

BugBear

Re: Alternative approach (long and technical)

paul womack

>Brent Beach has an excellent (which really isn't a strong enough superlative) discussion of wear bevels

That discussion appears to come very close to invalidating the whole "flatten and polish the back" concept...

BugBear

Re: searching

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Well, Paul, I do know a bit about searching. For example, one of the phrases I used was something like "fasttrack honing guide."

Pam

Re: Richard Kell Honing Guides

Rusty Miller-Tye, Tx

>Lyn,

How do you hold Japanese chisels on the Tormak? I find that trying to grind the primary bevel at 25 degrees, it won't let me lower the guide rod enough without it hitting the wheel. Have you made up something to overcome this?

Any help?

Rusty-Tye, TX

Back Wear Bevel Removal.

Don Thompson - Cutler Ridge, Florida

>"I regularly hone my smoothing and jointing blades, and magnified examination indicates that I apparently do so frequently enough that I stay ahead of wear bevels that can't be erased by fine honing."

That is the key, isn't it? Is enough metal being removed when honing the desired bevel that the backside wear bevel disappears.

I think that maybe I should be looking for this after honing, and adjust the amount of metal removal to the appropriate level. Back to the microscope.

[Down Todd, Down!]

Re: searching

Ted Owen, Pittsburgh

>I usually get better Google results with two search words rather than three. Don't know why.

Best, Ted

Re: searching

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Gives Google 50% more words on which to base their advertising related searches. :)

Pam

Re: Alternative approach (long and technical)

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>Gee Paul, I thought half the point of my post was to say that while wear bevels on the blade back are an important consideration, they did not invalidate all the reasons for flattening backs, and that for some sharpening styles the approach of refining the back is as valid as ever.

Re: Richard Kell Honing Guides

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>Hi Rusty,

I don't do chisels on the Tormek as I almost always use the LV powered systems for flat blades (Tormek sees action mostly for turning tools).

That said, I think the scissors jig should work well for these. I'll take a look tonight or tomorrow at the short tool jig, the scissors jig and the FastTrack and see which might work the best for this.