How-To
Modifying an inexpensive honing guide
All it takes is a file and a little time
Sep 09, 2016
Most of us head out to the shop to work wood, not sharpen. You’re much more likely to sharpen a dull tool if you make it as easy and quick a task as possible. Honing guides make sharpening quicker because you can easily get right back to the same bevel angle as the last time you sharpened. In this video, Bob Van Dyke shows you how he takes a $15 honing guide and modifies it to perform like one many times the price. All it takes is a little filing and this bargain-bin honing guide will hold your chisels and plane irons with ease.
Comments
I use then same honing guide and have the same problem. Thanks for the tip to fix this!
Bob - I want to build a honing guide setup board and I am looking at yours in the video and am curious about the function of some of the stop blocks. Maybe a future video. Thanks for the good tips!
Thanks for an informative lesson. My problem w/ the new cheaper guide that I have is that the notches meant to hold the narrower chisels are out of alignment, which defeats the purpose of a guide, I can't see a way to overcome this issue. Any tips?
Great lesson Bob! Thanks for sharing. Peace.
I did this not long ago and was able to salvage the honing guide from oblivion. The filing took a little longer than expected, but was worth it. Until this time, I had been using another guide. So a case of a great idea but poor execution in the manufacture of these mass market guides.
Norman
You did a great job in finding what is wrong with this guide. I wonder if this is supposed to be a "new and improved" version of the old tool that is out of production. I guess that the company does not go by the old adage of, if it ain't broke don't fix it.
I have an original Eclipse jig, so I'll check it out and fix it if required. The chisel section will definitely need treatment, but perhaps not the plane blade holder. Greattip. Thanks.
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