i would like some advice and opinions, unbiased of course, on the different sharpening methods out there-proa and cons-i’ve not sharpened any tools before-haven’t had to-but now i would like to have a system to keep tools sharp-i’ve done some reading about stones vs. sand paper-different kinds of sharpening guides-glass lapping plates-motor driven grinders, etc.-i’ve acquired some used planes recently and want to refurbish them as well as chiesels and any tool that needs to stay sharp
thanks
jcutrer
Replies
Call me simple, but I use one of the older methods around. A cheap six inch Delta grinder with white wheels and a ½” conduit tool rest mounted at the wheel centerline and a can of water to keep the edge cool. That gives great hollow grinds. Then I hone on a hard white Arkansas oil, (YES OIL), stone judging the angle by eye, (you can hone until the hollow grind is gone, then back to the grinder). Maybe strop on an old leather belt and cut wood. I know there are all these new high tech ways to sharpen, (and take your $$$$$), millennia old cutting tools, but this works very well for me as well as it did for generations of woodworkers prior to us.
Check out Tage Frids books, he grinds on a belt sander in bench vice! And most of us would love to do work as good as his.
Just remember, get the back of the tools polished as bright and flat as you can.
Halleloooleeah, brother-someone who understands what GRINDING is and how to apply it to woodworking tools, either by use of abrasive wheels /stones or coated abrasives.
Ah fooey. I am not going there-the phillistines will be at the gates and or the the scareysharp ghosts will be on the , er, haunt....:)(:Philip Marcou
Are there only two of us who think it should be simple???
Napie-we could be shot at dawn....Philip Marcou
Phillip,
Those dovetails I cut last night may be suspect due to the inexpensive sharpening method used......
I think woodworking has replace fishing as the number one way to remove cash from some peoples pockets.
unbiased of course ... Ya came to the wrong place!
jcutrer,
There are three of us working in our shop. We all prefer different methods--sand paper, water stones and oil stones. It's not the method or the sharpening medium, it's following the proper steps.
Once the rough process of grinding is accomplished, raise a burr on each of the grits in the sharpening system. Do this on both the face and bevel of the edge. Each step, remove the old burr and raise another. These will get smaller at each grit as you go through the steps. Strop away the small final burr after the finest grit. If you can't feel a burr at any change to a finer grit, you're not ready to move on.
Once the back has been flattened and polished, you only need to hone the back on the final grit. You can reduce the burr with progressively finer stones, though frankly just two, or perhaps three, levels are needed. I go from the wheel to a medium or fine india stone, and then to a hard arkansas. In most situations a stropping on bare leather is all that is needed to produce a VERY sharp edge (ie. pare trahslucent shavings from end grain). I do sometimes go to my translucent hard arkansas for a fine polish but I am not sure of the benefit.
Why oil versus water. Probably main reason, thats how I learned. Other reasons include preferring to leave steel tools with oil than water, and not having to worry if the shop freezes after I have sharpened. The oil stones also stay flat longer.
My completely biased opinion is to try out the scary-sharp method. Google it or search the archives. You don't need to get as elaborate with it as some do. Automotive silicon carbide papers taped on the cast iron table saw table or jointer bed will give you an idea of how it works for less than $10.00.
If it makes sense to you, you can invest in dedicated glass plates or 12 x 12-inch marble tiles and a honing guide (training wheels) unless you are macho enough to go freehand.
I use a honing guide for grinding the bezel and then freehand the secondary bevel. I do strop on an old leather weight-training belt with Dico brand jeweler's rouge for a final edge and for periodic touch-ups. But everyone is different and your results may vary.
Beauty is that you can try it out for short money.
There is an A$$ for every seat, so try different methodologies.
Best Regards,
David C
I grew up hand-sharpening on stones, but I tried the sandpaper on glass method recently, and I love it. I got the glass free at a glass shop just for the asking. I asked if they had any scrap plate glass that I could buy for cheap, and they had a whole rack of stuff "they didn't think they'd ever use."I got a little $12 honing guide to make it nice and mindless on my part, and went to work using only a few grades up to only 1500. It worked very well, and was cheap.
jcutrer
I like to use the sandpaper method to get them flat and up to speed, then use old oilstones to touch them up.
What I like about this forum is it's wealth of knowledge, sense of humour, lack of self agrandisement & bredth of geographic locale but ask about sharpening anything & what a can of worms you'll open. Fair dinkum you'd get a less biased opinion from congress.
I work with 2 others who were trained by me & thru' trade school. We use 3 different methods but the net result is in all methods a keen edge. As has been pointed out you are familiar with most of the methods - pick one or two & do what works for you, let us know if you strike a hassle & no doubt someone will help you overcome it.
J, I said I wasn't going there, so can you go? Go to http://www.shavings.net/SCARY.HTM. It is a nice little story which has some salient points to make.
J, on second thoughts I am going there-but only as far as telling you that sharpening or honing is one part of a two part process;the other part is grinding.
Grinding is not sharpening-it is preparation to make sharpening easy and effective. If you have ground your primary bevel correctly you can then go onto sharpening/honing with confidence that you are well on the way to a sharp cutting tool, and this part should take no time at all. Ofcourse the honing process can be refined by stropping , but if you have finished with a fine enough stone the benefits of this are possibly more mental than actual.
The more simple way to grind is by use of a bench grinder fitted with a wheel suited for use on tool steels-and most importantly the wheel should be DRESSED properly and often.
A good book on the subject comes to mind-"Sharpening-the Complete Guide", by Jim Kingshott. He gives a no frills survey on methods and equipment, from the point of view of the professional who has many years of training and experience.You can avoid a lot of b/s by reading this book .
Seems like waterstones are chronically underrepresented around here, so in the spirit of being unbiased (well, or biased in the other direction), I'll put in my $.02.
Long version:
I've only been woodworking for a few years, but I use handtools almost exclusively and I think my tools are as sharp any anyone's (if I may be so bold to say so). All my sharpening needs are taken care of with 4 waterstones: 220, 1000, 4000, and 8000 grits (actually I use a 1000/4000 Norton combo, so only 3 stones). IMHO, the best thing you can do while learning to sharpen is trying to do it freehand. It took me maybe a week of a lot of frustration, but then I just got it. Must be one of those "muscle memory" things, but after a while, you learn to feel the bevel and keep it fixed on the stone. My motivation to learn to freehand was because I just couldn't get a consistent and square bevel angle with a honing guide without wasting a lot of time playing with it every time I put in a chisel/plane blade. Now it takes only a minute or two to sharpen a blade, mostly just on the 4000 and 8000 and back to work. A honing guide also wears the stone more quickly and creates a dish in the usual travelling path. If you hone freehand, you can just use the whole stone and hardly ever have to flatten it.
As long as I'm rambling, I'll just keep going. I experienced a lot of confusion when reading opinions on sharpening while I was learning. One of it had to do with keeping stones flat. Some suggested flattening waterstones on a diamond stone, but that's $100. I tried using sandpaper and plate glass as has been suggested, and found that it turned out pretty expensive after a while, and REALLY messy. Now I just rub all my stones against the 220 stone (which I hardly ever use for sharpening except for flattening the back of a new blade, or changing a bevel angle). I've read that you shouldn't do this to avoid "contaminating" the finer grit with the coarser stone, but I really haven't any problems with this (someone please correct me if I'm wrong about something here).
The other point of my confusion had to do with using a grinder. I feel like I must be missing something, but to this day I haven't found that I need a grinder to sharpen tools, except maybe for taking rust off an old blade. I'm sure many people will disagree, and the ones that do, please enlighten me here, and I'm not trying to be a smarta**.
Short version:
Waterstones are great, and they don't have to be expensive. I use Norton 220 (~$30) and 1000/4000 combo (~$50?), and King 8000 from Lee Valley (~$30). These will last until your chisels are shortened by many fractions of an inch. Get a rubber waterstone base, and a plastic container and you're all set. I use the Lee Valley plastic tub system and it's great, but a bit pricey. I sharpen in my kitchen close to the sink, but your living partner may not be so accommodating.
This topic is just about as much fun as 'which table saw' or 'what's on your shopping list'.
We all have opinions. Here's my experience: forever (like, 15 years) I just used oil, water and diamond stones. A couple of honing guides. Didn't own a motorised anything. Would have liked to, just never did.
Then, a couple of months ago, I bought a cheap Chinese version of one of those combination machines - small diameter, wide, white gridstone, running fairly slowly, and a big horizontal circular artificial pink-coloured 'stone' with a drip-feed water source. Switch on, they both rotate. The process couldn't be simpler, quicker, easier, or better. Quick grind to produce a hollow-ground edge, few seconds on the water-lubed wheel to produce a shiny cutting edge, flip and polish flat side. In business. If you're particularly anal, spend a few seconds stropping on a leather pad with some honing compound.
Talk about sharp! Period.
Malcolmhttp://www.macpherson.co.nz
Here it is
Mhttp://www.macpherson.co.nz
Over the past seven years, I have tried the three most popular methods: water stones, sandpaper, and oil stones. For a while I did settle on sand paper and still sometimes use it on tools with large curved shapes, such as a scorp for Windsor chairmaking. You can simply attach the sandpaper in various grits to dowels and have a very good system for this. However, I did not find sandpaper to work well at all for carving tools. They seem to sharpen much better on a solid surface that can wear very well and stay consistent. That led me to oil stones and that is what I have been using for the past couple of years for chisels, plane blades, carving tools, etc. and I am pleased with this method.
I think it has a lot to do with what you get comfortable with. My oilstone system consists of four grits of stones, an Eclipse type jig (available at Woodcraft, LN, and various sources), and a dedicated sharpening area in my shop. I also use a Butz leather strop for final edge finishing. I keep my grinder near this area and it has a 80 grit wheel for most of my turning tool work, and a 60 grit wheel for when I want to regrind an edge, etc. I still use the sandpaper system occasionally when I know it would be more handy or practical.
Hope this helps.
Just a question.. I thought carvers (I can't) mostly used slip stones that were sort of 'made' for the tool? and hardly ever ground the tools?? I guess I'm wrong again!
No, you are correct, as far as I am concerned. I don't grind carving tools. My grinder is only used for sharpening turning tools and reshaping an edge. However, most of my carving tools are sharpened on their outer bevel first on a flat stone. I have found this to be difficult on sandpaper. Oil stones hold up and maintain a flat surface while this process tends to wear hard on the sandpaper. I use oil and ceramic slip stones on the inner bevel of many carving tools. Since I prefer the oilstones for carving tools, it is easy and practical enough for me to use the same flat oilstones for plane blades, chisels, etc.
My interest in carving is pretty much limited to needs that arise in my chair making and furniture making. If you want more information on sharpening carving tools, you may try Richard Butz' book on the topic. He offers a basic, concise, and solid method for sharpening these tools with flat stones, slip stones, and the strop.
I have used various methods including grinder, oil stones, water stones, sandpaper, and a slow speed wet wheel. What I have pretty much settled on is a coarse diamond stone for reshaping the bevel, a fine diamond stone for refining the face and secondary bevel (no guide, but that new Veritas one is tempting me) and a cardboard wheel with buffing compound for final polishing the edge. I really like the cardboard wheel -- it replaces the last three grades of paper in the scary sharp method, yields a mirror finish and is quick (less than a minute). You need to make sure the wheel is turning away from you though, or you'll find a chisel in your thigh before you even know what happened.
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