Plane iron and chisel sharpening

Re: Plane iron and chisel sharpening

Dan Donaldson


>Paul, there is really no system to purchase. If you can get a couple pieces of thick glass, that is fine, or if not, go to the nearest big box store and buy a couple of the 12 x 12 marble squares. Have them cut them in half for you. Get various grits of wet or dry sandpaper and you are good to go. If you want to use a sharpening jig, that is the same no metter the method so pick one to buy. Joel carries them at www.toolsforworkingwood.com, Lee valley has them, Woodcraft has them and most other ww stores also.

Look in the WC articles in the hand tool area and there are several articles about sharpening. If you have other questions, please feel free to ask.

Dan D.

Re: Plane iron and chisel sharpening

Thom D


>I agree, you don't need to buy the packaged system, and those who invented it passed it around for years until someone developed a product version.

You don't really need a super hard or flat base. I do just fine with pieces of wood. I like scraps of birch plywood, the good stuff. The fact is that the paper is a little giving itself, so it will distort a little under pressure whether it is backed with marble or wood the result is much the same. It's like sitting on an ample pillow over a marble or wood floor you're comfratable either way. Of course a super flat hard and heavy base has it's advantages. I like the lightweight birch for portability which is what I originally got it for, and just never felt the need for a change when it became one of my shop systems. I just use two grits of sandpaper for my system but I guess one can use a lot more too. The sandpaper holds up really well, quite an amazing product.

Re: Grit Sequence - Badger Pond

paul womack


>Does anyone remember the post back on Badger Pond from a member of a woodworking club that actually performed experiments to find an "optimal" grit sequence for SS.

BugBear

I think

Ron in Kokomo


>It was 220 unless major damage

400 then 1000 then 1500 then 2000

and then some of us go to the green magic powder and leather to finish

read article in Articles section of WC

bill tindall

Likely our post. importance of sequence

bill tindall


>The information is in the Articles section. The sequence information came from tech service staff at Klingspor and 3M.

What is important in choosing a sequence of grits is inventory vs abrasive life. The smaller steps one takes the less work the grits need to do and the longer they last and the faster sharpening becomes. With optimum grit selection the abrasive lasts a very long time. I minimized the inventory problem by using 3 grits ( in 2 1/2" wide strips) per side of a 12 x 12" glass plate. 2-3 plates, depending on where one starts, is all one needs.

Dealing with the disadvantages

bill tindall


>You will hear two complaints about using abrasive sheets to sharpen- the abrasive wears out quickly and you have to have a lot of stuff on hand to do it(inventory). If you choose the optimum abrasive, and that would be aluminium oxide or alumina-zirconium in the coarser grits, and you do not make huge jumps between grits, it only takes a few strokes per grit to sharpen and the abrasive lasts a very long time. It is really no different issue than sanding wood. Jump from 100 grit to 220, or worse start at 220 and be prepared to sand forever and wear out paper at a great rate.

When recently rediscovered & popularized(there were references to abrasive sheet sharpening in fine Woodworking long before invention of the internet) the authors recommended silicon carbide (wet or dry) for the coarser grits sizes. This material crushes quickly with tool steels and hence doesn't last very long.

Many fasten full sheets to a substrate. This approach generates an inventory problem if a lot of grit sizes are used. Better is to fasten several strips of decreasing grit size to a 12 x 12 plate. We use 3- 2 1/2" wide strips per plate. For example I used 1000,1500 and 2000 on one plate, 320,400,600 on another, etc. Three plates covered the entire optimum range. The rolls of paper for replenishing were kept in a box.

Practiced in its most convenient form I think you will find this system more convenient than water stones.

Re: Plane iron and chisel sharpening

woodburnbob


>I am interested in the scary sharp method of sharpening my plane iron, chisels and carving gouges. Anyone care to discuss this method or advise otherwise.

Paul, no one has stepped forward to disparage SS, so let me be the first.

If you have plane irons, chisels and carving gouges, you presumably have an "old sharpening method", or methods. You are planning on trying other methods, beginning with SS, hoping you'll find one that suits you and your edge tools better or BEST? By all means try SS. But don't expect Nirv�na. You'll be disappointed.

I really like Thom's analogy comparing sandpaper to a pillow. He was mainly discounting the need for a stone substrate versus a wood substrate. But, I encourage you to visualize the surface of the pillow as you push a piece of steel into it.

The first time I tried SS on a plane blade back, I nearly fell over about the gleaming mirrored finish. Then I noticed that the refection of straight-lined things in the "mirror" terminated at all edges with a curved parabola! Alas, while the gleaming edges implied incredible edge perfection, the blades weren't that sharp, and some seemed to get duller the more I polished. Therein lies the deception: you can have shinny gleaming surfaces that meet at a straight edge, but microscopically they are so rounded over they aren't sharp.

I know there are lots of fellows here who swear by SS and use it proficiently and successfully. They must have developed ways to compensate, e.g. stiffening the pillow, not pushing hard, perhaps using a slightly convex substrate. Who knows. Maybe it's simply that I'm a klutz.

I didn't like all the little oily or watery boards, and tiles, and squares of glass laying around.

Really, I think the key is figuring out how to grind the bevel well before you get to the SS, whetstone, waterstone, diamond plate questions. Do you start with a hollow grind or a flat grind? What are the tradeoffs between one and the other, especially with regard to how to go about honing and polishing the edge?

Then, are you going to finish things off with microbevels, "ruler tricks", stropping and buffing? More risks and potential benefits. Where does it end? Turns out the SS question is really a tiny part of the big equation.

To me the pilgrimage ends when you decide what's a good-enough edge.

But then I'm probably wrong about all this.

Re: Dealing with the disadvantages

Charles


>Very well said.

Re: Plane iron and chisel sharpening

Thom D


>You make some good points. I use scarry sharp completely dry and find it the least messy method.

I first started using it when I was doing seminars and I would sharpen my tools before going, and didn't think there was a lot of added value to trucking around my waterstones. I wanted a method to touch up an edge if I felt I was loosing the edge. I used a swatch of PSA around 360 paper and the second finesh LV paper on plywood. I did much of my sharpening for several years on that block, and I would experience a loss in edge quality. But I found it convenient to use a dry method for the winter in my cold shop. I still have the original paper from that seminar, it's unrecognizeable as it's original grit, but it could still touch up an edge. One of the things about using many steps is that you may have to change out variouos papers just because they no longer fill their slot perfectly, fair enough. With one coarse and one fine paper I just kept using them for the fun of the experiment.

The only thing I don't like about SS is there can be a certain amount of sanding dust in the air mostly made up of crushed abrassive, which can't be as healthy as waterstone run-off. And also the fact that the final scratch pattern is parallel to the blade.

SS works...

Denis Ch�nard, Orl�ans, Ont.


>But like any method it's not perfect.

The best edge I've ever got has been with the LV 0.5 micron sheets (which in theory should be equal to the Shapton 30,000 grit stone, yet LV rates it at 9000... different grading, I guess), which I use wet on a granite plate. It still is my "go to" system for the absolute keenest edge I can get with the resources available to me. I haven't got the edge rounding that you've encountered, I guess the surface tension keeps the sheets in place and prevents the pillow effect.

This said, it's not necessarily faster, and all those sheets can make things messy when using water.

For regular sharpening, I now use a white grinding wheel to establish the bevel, then on to 1000 and 8000 stones, freehand, blade at 45 degrees to the stone. I rest the bevel, lift the rear end a bit to establish a secondary bevel, and off I go. Takes a dozen strokes on each stone to do the job. I clean the back using the ruler trick.

The stone work takes a couple minutes at most, and that's what it takes to refresh a dulled edge.

The end result is not as keen as the 0.5 micron paper, but for regular use it's good enough.

DC

Re: SS works...

Paul Waddle


>Thank you all very much for the informative discussion. Based upon the furnished info,I will buy abrasive paper at tools for working wood, and the veritas jig from Lee Valley. I will get some granite tile from HD. I thank you all for the depth of the sharpening process discussion and the explanation of the differing techniques.pw

Re: SS works...

Richard Rerra


>Yep, SS works well, is inexpensive, and in my life ended the torturous subject of really expensive stones. Always wondered what the cabinetmakers @ Williamsburg and the other 18th century wood workers used. Adam??

by chance, did you push the tool

bill tindall


>We always pulled the tool across the paper and never observed any problems with the edge. Furthermore, if one makes the huge jumps in grit size that some people advocate, or use worn out abrasive, the finer grit just polishes the scratches of the coarser grit.

Backs are a different story. I do not believe it is possible to flatten a back with an abrasive sheet.

PW, another suggestion

bill tindall


>Buy and use a good quality 10X hand lens. This amount of magnification is sufficient to asses quality of sharpening. My lens stays with the sharpening stuff to follow sharpening progress. You will learn to sharpen better, faster by following progress with observations at 10X magnification.

Re: by chance, did you push the tool

woodburnbob


>Hi Bill,

Maybe you're keying off my phrase "not pushing hard", when I mentioned hypothetical compensations made by expert SS practioners to avoid edge rounding. I meant not pushing down hard, in a purely vertical direction.

On SS, I found it very difficult to get accurate tactile feedback and couldn't ever safely "push" the blade along horizontally. Thus, I avoided all movement into the edge, always using a "pull", most often alternating diagonal pulls in an X shape. Straight pulls always gave me a concave edge, like Derek Cohen showed in his recent photos.

Regarding the tactile feedback, I prefer free-hand honing (basically the same grip as Joel showed in his recent pictures) using the "feel" of the hard cutting edge and the heel of a hollow grind to guide the blade at a consistent primary angle. This is something that largely disappears for me using a jig or device. But I did also experiment with both the Veritas jig and the older...is it Eclipse...jigs back then.

I'm not saying one can't get something darned sharp using SS, just that there may be more skill, learning and practice involved than is immediately apparent to the novice. One special secret may be knowing when to stop at each abrasive step. Anyway, I have no doubt that your thing is sharper than my thing.

What intrigued me was your comment that it's impossible to get a back flat with sheet abrasives. Why wouldn't the arguments you might use to explain that assertion apply equally to the bevel side?

Do You Roll the Honing Jig On The Paper?

Tom Colligan, Peoria


>In Brent Beach's article in FWW he recommends using short pieces of paper and not to run the honing jig onto the paper. He must have a reason for it.

Is this what others refrain from doing or do you run the honing jig on the paper as well? Tia, Tom.

Re: by chance, did you push the tool

William Duffield, on the Cohansey


>  pulls always gave me a concave edge

Do you have any idea why this is happening? I haven't experienced the problem when using SS�, or at least have not observed the effect. I'm not saying that I doubt you are experiencing the problem, and (unlike some rather boorish opinions expressed in other threads) I'm definitely not implying there's something wrong with you if this happens to you.

Some possible mitigating circumstance to think about: Do you adhere your paper to your substrate with water or with spray adhesive? If the former (I'm grasping at straws, here), maybe your roller is pushing the water under the paper to the sides, depressing the paper in the middle of the blade. This might be plausible, since Derek reports the problem to be more pronounced with the cambered roller, which puts even more pressure on the paper under the center of the blade. Maybe I haven't seen the problem because I use a light coat of 3M 77 (a spray-on contact cement), and immediately roll it out flat on the glass with a lot of pressure from a heavy-duty J-roller. I've been doing this mostly to flatten out any boogers from the spray nozzle, but it might have other effects as well. If this is what is happening with water under the paper, it seems like it would happen preferentially on the pull stroke, since surface tension would have less time to pull the water back under the center of the paper, leveling it. OTOH, it would not do much to explain it not occurring with the X-pattern you describe using to better effect. Another experiment you might want to try: If it is due mostly to the surface tension and viscosity of the water film, adding a little detergent or other surfactant should change the effect. I suspect it would significantly decrease the concavity by thinning the water layer.

BTW, I can usually get away with both pushing and pulling the blade, using either Veritas honing guide, except on the 1500 and 2000 SiC w/d grits, where the slightest bit of inattention digs into the paper on the push stroke.

Note that I am speculating here (a thought experiment). These theories are extremely difficult to test conclusively, due to the vast number of uncontrolled variables involved. Also, I probably won't try the investigations I am suggesting for myself, as I am trying to migrate away from SS to diamond paste on acrlyic, phenolic or cast iron, as recommended by Bill Tindall and others.

Re: by chance, did you push the tool

woodburnbob


>It's okay, William. Even if you were implying there's something wrong with me, I'd be the first to agree.

Unfortunately, my comments in this thread stupidly mixed matters of abrasive form (SS) with matters of manual technique of abrasion (free-hand, jigs, push, pull, and so forth). Thus, the two flaws of sharpening I mentioned, round-over of the cutting edge in one dimension and non-linearity along the edge in a perpendicular dimension, got intermixed. Explanations for one may or may not apply to the other.

Your theories seem to me completely plausible. But my main guess about the cause is a little different.

I think there is an inherent risk of round-over and edge curvature involved when the surface doing the abrading (honing) is also the reference surface that guides the movement or geometry of the tool being abraded (honed). These risks are then compounded by any maldistributed force vectors holding the tool against the abrasive surface.

I know that paragraph sounds like unadulterated, pretentiously pompous bull-shit. But I can't think of another way of saying it without rattling on forever.

Obviously, my speculations would have more impact when using coarser grits than finer grits. And, I admit I have zero empirical proof.

At a practical level, I still use a variety of honing substrates and spend a minute or two getting an adequate edge. I've set aside the quest for the perfect edge. I rely on quick and good-enough. I'm a big fan of Voltaire's Candide, especially the last page.

couldn't agree more

bill tindall


>"I think there is an inherent risk of round-over and edge curvature involved when the surface doing the abrading (honing) is also the reference surface that guides the movement or geometry of the tool being abraded (honed). These risks are then compounded by any maldistributed force vectors holding the tool against the abrasive surface."

I doubt that I have ever made a truely flat back. At 1 micron diamond all I have to do is slightly shift weight distribution on the tool being passed over the flat cast iron and I immediatly see the scratch pattern change, indicating the cutting on the face has changed. Fortunately it doesn't matter in most practical cases for edge sharpening. I have come to understnad the utility of good enough too.

I roll on paper

bill tindall


>Or at least I used to before going free hand

This might interest you then, Bill *LINK*

woodburnbob


>All this talk of flattening hardened steel got me reading something again that still just amazes me. So, I've posed a somewhat analogous question to those who might have special historical knowledge about processes and tactics. I'm hoping Forrest Addy will respond with a detailed disgorgement and not dismiss the question.


Semi-relevant post to PracticalMachinist

Re: What was I thinking???

William Duffield, on the Cohansey


>Bob, first let me apologize for the misunderstanding. I did not intend to imply that your opinions on the other thread were boorish. Far from it. They were very reasoned and reasonable.

Second, when I wrote my ideas about what might have been happening, I must have had my head screwed on backwards. D'oh! Thinking about it today, I realize that what I proposed doesn't make any sense at all. OTOH, your theory, and Bill's, are quite reasonable, are clearly and succinctly explained, and have some connection to reality.

Re: What was I thinking???

woodburnbob


>William, no apology need. I didn't misunderstand you. I didn't at any time think you aimed the boorish arrow at me.

I do remember seeing the word boorish in "that other thread", but don't remember who unveiled it. It's not in my working vocabulary, so at the time I bothered to look it up:

1. Of or pertaining to boors; rustic, clownish, uncultured, rude, coarse, ill-mannered.

2. the vernacular of a boor; rude, illiterate speech. humorous. Obs.

Even in my most self-deprecating moments (all of course meant to be comedic), it would be hard to see myself dressed in those robes. So, no, I didn't think you meant me.

And, I don't think your ideas and advice about my SS problems are goofy or off-the-wall.

Anyway, William, I think we'd better drop this gentleness for now or some of those watching may think we're falling in love with each other.