Work Sharp Wide Blade Attachment

[Mike Bosdet]

Anyone have one of these? Are they effective for larger plane irons, like a #6 or #7? Thanks!

[Doug Shepard]

I dont have a ton of mileage on mine. I bought the attachment about a year ago but didn't get around to installing it til a couple of months ago. In the meantime I'd managed to misplace the instructions for it so I'm still not clear how their blade holder is supposed to work with the included angle setting jig. I've ended up just using my LV MKII jig mainly because I needed to do a couple of skewed chisels and have the skew angle attachment for the MKII. That seemed to work out pretty good so i just kept using it with wide blades too. The outrigger table attachment is pretty self explanatory (even without the istructions) but did take a bit of fussing to get the flatness to the disc dialed in. You need the outrigger table regardless of whether you use their blade holder or a MKII but knowing what i do now, I would have bought just the table if they offered it separately.

[Ray Knight]

Yes it works fine for wide blades. I just did two wide blades last night, starting with rough old blades for a Stanley 8 and a 4 1/2. I had tried it a couple months ago, using the roller clamping bracket they supply, which doesn't even clamp the blade well. Last night I used my LeeValley MK11 honing guide and worked fine. You have to get the table flush with the top of the paper, If it a bit off side to side, you get a skew to your blade. And with the LeeValley guide you can easily do micro bevels. I haven't cambered a blade on it yet. Ray

[Jim Paulson]

Hi Ray,

I have the worksharp too and while I was able to sharpen chisels fairly well, sharpening plane irons without a slight skew is now my goal. I'm still using the guide that came with the wide blade attachment. Yesterday,I used a precision steel straight edge to line up the table and the paper on the wheel and yet it still gave me a skew. Frustrating to say the least.

Earlier, I did all the fussing with the adjustments to get the chisels to be straight. Any thoughts?

Jim

[Jim Kirkpatrick]

Does anyone notice you have to reclibrate the table height every time you change to a finer grit? The finer grit paper is thinner and when you change wheels the table becomes higher, changing the bevel on your iron.

[William M Johnson]

Hmmm I have had one for a while and have not noticed a skew. There is none visible to the eye anyway. Micro bevels are very easy, you flip the stop so that the arrow points to you instead of away and reclamp the blade. As far as changing the height due to changing the grit, you have to be kidding. I will go home tonight and put the micrometer to the 400 and 1000 grit, but I bet there cannot be more than a couple of thou difference.

My only problem was self induced. I rolled the jig onto the wheel a couple of times and flat spotted it. Still works good though. Razor sharp in a minute or so.

[Chuck Tringo]

This all sounds good, I bought the wide blade attachment a few months ago but have not attached it yet (see location :rolleyes:) but have been looking at the clamp quite a bit in the package and at pictures on line and wasnt so sure about it. Lucky for me a MKII came up on fleebay the other day fr $30 buy it now and $6 shipping with a bonus stone. I thought about using the MKII on the table and was gonna ask if anyone had tried it, I guess I dont have to now...

[Jerome Hanby]

Any chance you have any pictures of this?


Yes it works fine for wide blades. I just did two wide blades last night, starting with rough old blades for a Stanley 8 and a 4 1/2. I had tried it a couple months ago, using the roller clamping bracket they supply, which doesn't even clamp the blade well. Last night I used my LeeValley MK11 honing guide and worked fine. You have to get the table flush with the top of the paper, If it a bit off side to side, you get a skew to your blade. And with the LeeValley guide you can easily do micro bevels. I haven't cambered a blade on it yet. Ray

[Chuck Tringo]

I haven't cambered a blade on it yet. Ray

I'm definitely interested in seeing this if you do....I was thinking of putting the MK II camber guide in with my next Lee Valley order (don't ya love buying your own Birthday presents? ;)) and was wondering if it could be done on the WS or if I will have to go the stone or scary sharp route to put a camber on the blades where I want one.

[jay gill]

I've used it for my Sargent 418 blade(#6). Works great. I love it. I worked all the way from the 120 to the 1000 and the strop disk. It is serious overthinking worrying about the thickness of the paper plus glued on abrasive.

As to aligning the table perfectly I don't see how it really matters. In reality you should only have to put it on once and after that everything is relative. If you higher or lower by a couple thousandths so be it. Your angle is +/- .02 degrees or so, but the next time you sharpen or hone it's still based off of the same reference plane. You think 100 years ago when everyone pretty much freehanded it, fractions of a degree mattered?

I also caught the wheel on the sanding disc and have a flat spot. I can still shave my arm hair when im done sharpening.

One of these days I'll break into the water stone kit I bought...until then I'm perfectly happy and my tools are sharp.