Wolverine Flat Tool Sharpening & Honing Jig *LINK*

Unnecessary and here is why,and how

Bill Tindal, E.TN

>I know, every time someone says you don't need a crutch one thinks well maybe they don't because they 1. have 20 years experience, 2. they are 10X more coordinated than I, 3. etc.

I will boldly state that anyone can free hand grind a plane iron or chisel on a bench grinder if it has a good tool rest and wheel. My dovetails are NOT flauntable, my M&T's sometimes wiggle before gluing, I couldn't carve a pointed stick and I own and use, and NEED every other Worverine jig they make. But free hand grinding a bevel on a plane iron is easy, even relaxing. I think the main impediment is simply fear.

I showed someone the other night and here is what I remember that was important.

1. get comfortable. I sit on a stool Hummm or play New Age Music.

2. have good light. I have one of those desk lamps the extends and swivels

3. Have a proper wheel and dress it slightly crowned. I dress flat with.....the Wolverine jig...... and then round slightly with one of those diamonds on a stick affairs.

4. Own the Wolverine tool rest or equivalent. The tool rest needs to be big and easy to slide tools upon. This part is very important.

5. Go slow with touch and go motion. I drift the tool toward the grinder and just kiss the tool with the wheel starting near the edge but not at the edge of the tool (it is very easy to overgrind the edges for reasons I don't know so I stay off the edges at the start. Apply very light pressure and you will be able to feel the wheel nestle into the hollow of the bevel. The move the tool laterally almost to the opposite edge and then remove it. Remove tool and look at what was ground. ****Grind to the edge but don't grind away the edge.***** The old edge is your straight edge to guide the grinding. The light grind followed by looking provides feed back to train the fingers to proper technique and by looking you know what you did and what still needs doing. I may do this touch and go on the wheel 50 times for a very abrasion resistant iron, or 20 times for a Stanley (these are guesses as I never counted.) I think the secret is 1. remove only milligrams of metal each pass and 2.keep the old edge for reference to gauge progress. I grind right down to the old edge leaving a fraction of a mm of the old bevel which I remove in the 1 st honing.

Practice on some old Stanley balade. They grind like butter compared to A2 so you can make faster progress and make corrections faster for training.

Bill T just has the knack.

Chuck Nickerson

>The handskills for freehand sharpening are distributed in the population just like running speed. Everyone can get faster with practice, but not everyone can set the world record, or run fast enough to escape the bear. My first woodworking tutor felt as Bill does. After 100+ hours of unsharpening blades, I was done with woodworking for eight years. Bill T often posts great information, but I don't care for others to lose the time I lost because of this issue.

Re: Bill T just has the knack.

Gary Karner

>I have that attachment and it works wonders. Because of that I have no desire whatsoever to learn to grind bevels by hand. I only have so many hours to work on wood and I don't want to waste them learning a skill I don't need, and may never get really good at.

I also use a LV MkII jig to hone my blades and chisels and I suppose that a lot of people will think that is a waste of time also. I find that it takes me only a few seconds to set it up and touch up a micro bevel so anytime saved would not be much.

Grind and hone by hand if you can, but I for one am going to use some help.