Veritas Mk. II Sharp Sys. Review

[Jason Tuinstra]

With some of the hope chest profits, I decided to purchase the Veritas Mk. II sharpening system. It just came to the house today and I managed to get it up and running. For those of you interested in a sharpening system, all I have to say is that this one is mighty impressive. I’m relatively new to the world of sharp tools :D so I don’t know how much my opinion counts, but this is a very nice and easy to use system.

In the past I’ve used the scary sharp method to keep things usable around my shop. This is basically the same idea, only with a motor that spins a table with the sand paper. Four basic grits are used, though I did not use the 80 grit. This is only used to repair damaged edges. Let’s just say that this system makes light work of sharpening. Once you get the back of the blade lapped, it’s a matter of minutes (2-3) and you have a highly polished cutting edge. It comes with a 56 page manual that is very clear and easy to follow.

The only block plane I own is an el cheepo from Home Depot. I decided to flatten the bottom on the Mk. II and polish it up to the highest grit. Wow, did that do wonders!!! After getting a nice edge on the blade, I was cutting paper thin shavings at will – with a piece of junk plane, no less?!

In my spending spree, I also decided to get the Veritas Scraping Plane. Again, I’m no expert, but after putting a nice edge on the blade, I was making some wonderful looking shavings!!!

Overall, I give the MK. II 4 out of 4 stars! Great tool so far. We’ll see how it holds up over time.

[Ken Garlock]

Thanks for the review, Jason.

It looks like LV has been watching the craft and has filled a need - an electric scary sharp system. :cool: I had been considering the Mikita sharpening system that has been praised here on the forum, now you have given my a decision to make. :confused:

[Joe Meazle]

Thanks Jason,

i have been eyeing both of those items from LV. I was wonering how the sharpener works with gouges? I have heard nothing but good things about that scraper. I hear it is a much improved desighn over the stanley. keep us posted as you get more hours on both tools.
Joe

[Steve Clardy]

Looks like a nice system. And you purchased from?
Steve

[Frank Pellow]

Looks like a nice system. And you purchased from?
Steve


As far as I know, only Lee Valley sells Veritas.

[Steve Clardy]

As far as I know, only Lee Valley sells Veritas.
That's what I was thinking but don't know if others sell Veritas also.
Lee Valley is great to deal with.:) I have been pondering some other items from their flyers,:o so I'll slide through the phone line now and give this sharpening system a checkover.:D

Steve:)

[Jason Tuinstra]

As far as I know, only Lee Valley sells Veritas.

Lee Valley is where I got it from. I've purchased some smaller Veritas items from Woodcraft, but I don't think you can buy the Mk. II there. I think only at Lee Valley.

[John Miliunas]

Jason, congrats on a couple beautiful pieces! I've heard a lot of good stuff on the sharpener; Appears to be true! :) As for the scraper, there too, some people are actually saying it's nicer than (sacrilege coming... :eek: ) LN scraper for a LOT less $$. :) Have you had a chance to try the scraper with any real figured wood? At any rate, great scores and thanks much for the appraisal! :cool:

[Don Selke]

Jayson:
Congrads on the new system and a great revue. I was wondering if it will sharpen 6" jointer blades?

[Steve Clardy]

Just got back from cruising Lee Valley. Put the sharpening system and extra discs on my WISH LIST, for later ordering.

Steve:)

[John Miliunas]

Just got back from cruising Lee Valley. Put the sharpening system and extra discs on my WISH LIST, for later ordering.

Steve:)


Early Christmas present to yourself, Steve?! :D That's OK...I understand! :cool:

[Jason Tuinstra]

Just got back from cruising Lee Valley. Put the sharpening system and extra discs on my WISH LIST, for later ordering.


Steve, I bought the extra discs, but I don't think I would again. In the manual it tells you to put one grit on one side, and the other on the other side. 4 grits, 2 discs - the math works out :p Well, dummy me, I didn't know this was an option and that's why I bought the extra two discs. So I wouldn't worry about the extra discs if that's why you were going that way.

[Jason Tuinstra]

Jayson:
Congrads on the new system and a great revue. I was wondering if it will sharpen 6" jointer blades?

I don't think so, but necessity is the mother of invention - or - where there's a will there's a way. I think one of those proverbs works :D

[Keith Christopher]

Jason,

I am going to look into this I was looking at the tormax system and I think its a little pricey. I made the mistake of buying the delta sharp-er- dulling system. Oh and I love the plane be sure and post how well it works !

[Frank Pellow]

... I've purchased some smaller Veritas items from Woodcraft ...

I stand corrected. :o I was unaware that Lee Valley contracted to anyone else sell to Veritas tools(which are, of course, made by Lee Valley).

[JayStPeter]

I stand corrected. :o I was unaware that Lee Valley contracted to anyone else sell to Veritas tools(which are, of course, made by Lee Valley).

According to Rob Lee, they are two different (but related) companies. Lee Valley is a retailer and has some house products that are usually contracted out for manufacturing. Veritas is a manufacturing company that builds products. Lee Valley sells the entire Veritas line.

You see lots of smaller Veritas items at many of the retailers. Especially the marking gauges and sharpening jigs. I haven't seen the MKII anywhere but Lee Valley.

Jay

[Jason Tuinstra]

Jason, congrats on a couple beautiful pieces! I've heard a lot of good stuff on the sharpener; Appears to be true! :) As for the scraper, there too, some people are actually saying it's nicer than (sacrilege coming... :eek: ) LN scraper for a LOT less $$. :) Have you had a chance to try the scraper with any real figured wood? At any rate, great scores and thanks much for the appraisal! :cool:

Thanks John. I haven't tried it on any figured wood yet. I'm just reading through the manual right now on how to better sharpen the blade. The other little matter that I need to figure out is how to use this tool when I don't have a workbench to hold the wood :confused: I'll try my Bessy K-body trick to see if that will work, but otherwise I'm just going to have to break down and either get a bench or build one. You certainly can't have a scraping plane and not have bench :D

[Bruce Page]

Jason, I bought the Mk.II last Christmas for LOML. She does some carving and was having a difficult time keeping her tools sharp. She absolutely loves the machine! As is everything that I have seen from Veritas, the Mk.II is top quality!

[Frank Pellow]

According to Rob Lee, they are two different (but related) companies. Lee Valley is a retailer and has some house products that are usually contracted out for manufacturing. Veritas is a manufacturing company that builds products. Lee Valley sells the entire Veritas line.

You see lots of smaller Veritas items at many of the retailers. Especially the marking gauges and sharpening jigs. I haven't seen the MKII anywhere but Lee Valley.

Jay

They are very related in that the Veritas design/manuafacturing plant and the Lee Valley flagship store are located at the same site in Ottawa.

[Tony Sade]

Thanks for the review, Jason. I've had the MK II for several months and think it's a great system, especially for those of us who find the scary sharp method a bit tedious. I really appreciate having a power tool to do a job I don't find to be much fun. (With apologies to those who find such things relaxing.)

I have seen Veritas stuff at some retailers, including Japan Woodworker, which I visited last week while in San Francisco, and which has a ton of the stuff.

Shortly after I got the system, I emailed LV cs and was told they have no plans to make any sort of attachment for sharpening jointer and/or planer blades. Too bad-I think they'd sell a ton.

Again-nice write-up.

[JayStPeter]

They are very related in that the Veritas design/manuafacturing plant and the Lee Valley flagship store are located at the same site in Ottawa.

Since I can't link to another site, I'll send you a PM with Rob's post. It makes it clear as mud.

Jay

[Steve Clardy]

Early Christmas present to yourself, Steve?! :D That's OK...I understand! :cool:
Hmmm. Guess it is kinda early for Christmas. How about a STEALTH Gloat?:eek:

Steve

[Steve Clardy]

Steve, I bought the extra discs, but I don't think I would again. In the manual it tells you to put one grit on one side, and the other on the other side. 4 grits, 2 discs - the math works out :p Well, dummy me, I didn't know this was an option and that's why I bought the extra two discs. So I wouldn't worry about the extra discs if that's why you were going that way.
I plan to buy 1 each of the grits that come with the machine as extras.
80-150 and 350-1200 I think. CR. ha
So there are only two plates, with a disc on each side. It doesn't show that in the pics. So do you think the discs will last a long time?
Steve

[John Miliunas]

Hmmm. Guess it is kinda early for Christmas. How about a STEALTH Gloat?:eek:

Steve


Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....You dog, you! :eek: You're already ordering that bad boy, aren't you?! ;) Guess if I did more neander work, I'd look closer at it. Still, it'd be neat to have! :cool:

[Tyler Howell]

This system got very hi marks from my Neander Instructor. He brought it to class several times and let us play. It was the Ideal item for beating our flea market specials into submission.

After the electron burn, we had to work our way up with water stones. Great toyl. On my wish list too.

[Jason Tuinstra]

I plan to buy 1 each of the grits that come with the machine as extras.
80-150 and 350-1200 I think. CR. ha
So there are only two plates, with a disc on each side. It doesn't show that in the pics. So do you think the discs will last a long time?
Steve


Steve, the owners manual says that the 4mm disc is to have 80 grit on one side and the 150 grit on the other side. The 3mm disc gets the two higher grits, one per side. I didn't know you could do this either, so I bought an extra 4mm and 3mm disc which are not really needed unless I want to use other grits. For highly polished blades, they recommend taking an old dress shirt, attatching it to the 3mm disc with spray adhesive, and using the green honing compound to get the blade extra sharp - perhaps even "scary" sharp :p

The 1200 grit is going to wear out the fastest for obvious reasons. As a result, if you order a system, I'd get a more 350/1200 than anything else to have as back up. Right now, I haven't changed the paper yet, and it's still going strong after a number of chisels and two plane blades.

[George Summers]

Not being able to link: At the top of page 7, in the Shop Shots section of WoodCentral, is a good write up of a visit Ellis made to Lee Valley/Veritas recently. Good read.

George

[Steve Clardy]

Steve, the owners manual says that the 4mm disc is to have 80 grit on one side and the 150 grit on the other side. The 3mm disc gets the two higher grits, one per side. I didn't know you could do this either, so I bought an extra 4mm and 3mm disc which are not really needed unless I want to use other grits. For highly polished blades, they recommend taking an old dress shirt, attatching it to the 3mm disc with spray adhesive, and using the green honing compound to get the blade extra sharp - perhaps even "scary" sharp :p

The 1200 grit is going to wear out the fastest for obvious reasons. As a result, if you order a system, I'd get a more 350/1200 than anything else to have as back up. Right now, I haven't changed the paper yet, and it's still going strong after a number of chisels and two plane blades.
I'll have to go back and see if I actually ordered [put on wish list]the discs or PLATES? as extra. I think it was the actual sanding disc's that go on the plates. CRS.
I am in the house and don't have the Lee Valley link here. It's on the shop puter, where I do most of my net cruising.
I haven't punched the order button yet, but will today.

[Tony Sade]

I've copied a post from Lyn Mangiamelli over on Woodcentral dealing with what kind of accessories for the Mk.II might be useful. Hope I'm not breaking any rules. Tony



"It depends a little on whether you already have some sort of grinder or verticle belt sander to do very coarse geometry changes. If you don't, then I'd suggest getting an extra 4mm platter to put 36-40 Zirconium grit abrasves on one side and 60 grit on the other. This will make initial set up of your blades a lot quicker, cooler and less frustating. Lee Valley doesn't sell these grades, but you can get them through the Supergrit Catalog (not always findable on their website). Get a catalog here:
(link to Supergrit removed)

I'd also recommend getting a second 4mm platter to mount the intermdiate "medium" (120/220)grit sizes LV offers but doesn't include (Supergrit offers the same thing for cheaper prices).

The reason on this end is that you want to go immediately to these medium-coarse grits for minor geometry changes and small nicks. Since it is so easy to switch platters, I recommend making more brief small steps, than spending more time on larger steps.

On the finer end of the spectrum I recommend getting at least one 3mm platter and obtaining 5 and .5 micron PSA paper sheets from LV (or .3 micron from Joel). Just apply the paper and trip out the hole and aroud the edges with an Xacto or similar blade. If you really want to splurge use a seperate platter for each, to reduce contamination, which is more significant in these finer grits. Life of these finer grits is more limited and can be extended with honing compound (but at the cost of even easier contamination as the wax base of the compounds lets everything stick to it), thus you want to use them only breifly after preliminary preperation is done on the regular fine grits.

I recommend you store all your platters in individual zip lock bags, or seperate containers you can obtain from jewelry supply outlets.

Know in advance that initial preparation of you blades on the QPSS will seem a dirty and hot task if you are making geometry changes (likely, if for no other reason than to match them to your precision jig) and grinding a lot of tools. This will actually be an unusual event, as soon you will be doing little more than quick maintainance of your edge, when the heat of grinding and grit will be almost nonexistant.

I still use mine constantly, and just love it."