Sharpening Angles, Hand-Sharpening

[Jared McMahon]

This may be another issue I'm simply over-thinking but I figured I'd ask regardless.

I see a camp of people who assert "Learn to sharpen by hand, aids aren't necessary.", and a camp of people who take a rather scientific approach to optimizing bevel angles for particular tasks, types of wood, etc. These two approaches seem to be at odds; I have trouble thinking that a person's hands can maintain a particular angle to within a few degrees while vigorously swishing a chunk of metal across a stone.

So I ask, what's your sharpening philosophy?
- Sharpen by hand and don't micro-manage the angles
- Sharpen by hand and practice a lot to get it exactly right
- Establish the angle with an aid, freshen it up by hand
- Sharpen with an aid, dial in whatever angle desired

And I'll be the first to admit, this question arises largely from my inexperience.

Jared

[David Weaver]

You can definitely learn to sharpen within several degrees even without a reference hollow.

Sharpen with a jig where you need a jig, and without one where you prefer to not use one, as long as no matter what you do, you get your tools as sharp as you want to get them.

There are some tools that don't lend themselves well to jigs, including a lot of types of chisels.

I use a jig only for one thing - sharpening smoothers, and at that, it depends on my mood. For something like a panel plane, I like the control an eclipse-style jig gives me to precisely camber the corners of an iron, and I sometimes do that with a panel plane where they need to be taken off a little more than a smoother but not drastically. Using an eclipse jig helps lenghten the time between grindings, too, because...well, if you try both methods, you'll see why, when you're sharpening something freehand that has a hollow grind, is wide, and has been honed about 3 or 4 times already.

Also, what a lot of people call freehand isn't truly freehand, it's honing a hollow grind, where the hollow dictates the orientation of the bevel to the stone.

Don't get too swept up in anything - find something you can do quickly and proficiently, and that you can assure yourself you'll get good results on every time, and just do it. There's no need to try every single method out there once you find something that works for you and isn't onerous. The process should be a little more natural than it's made out to be online.

[Larry Williams]

This may be another issue I'm simply over-thinking but I figured I'd ask regardless....



Jared,

It's simple. I learned by following all the sharpening information out there when I started in the 1970's. Grind at 25º and hone about 30º. Just set the bevel on a flat stone and lift a little. You can cut a thin piece of wood with a 30º bevel for a reference as to how much. I've tried a lot of stuff but haven't improved on what I started with. Here are the sharpening instructions on the back of a Stanley block plane iron from the 70's and it has all the information I find necessary except how to keep stones flat so a repeatably flat face can be maintained:

http://www.planemaker.com/photos/Stanley.jpg

[Russell Sansom]

I agree with the advice to use a jig when a jig is required. For some decades I used an eclipse jig because I could easily repeat the micro-bevel and touch it up. You just can't do this by hand...well, more than once...without rounding the microbevel over. Or your first hand re-sharpen is too blunt. Then what? There's no recourse but to re-do the microbevel. My goal was always to consume as little blade length as possible and to keep a bevel I completely understood.
This is a bit at odds with the "just get it done" school, but my personal choice was to understand every angle, to see how it worked, and to let that guide the future.
These days I'm using the Tormek to get a fine large-radius hollow. Using, say, an Eclipse guide is a waste of time here because it only takes a couple "no jig" swipes on finer stones to put a perfect microbevel on these tools using the top and the bottom of the hollow as built-in guides. One of the benefits of a well-jigged up grinder is the repeatability and the easy precision it affords. I'm able to keep track of all my honing angles.
But I still find tools that want the Jig. Spokeshave irons, 1/8" inch chisels, hard-to-hold stuff, and tools I don't want to hollow grind.
Here's a questions I had to answer: what do I do with all my barely-usable tools while I practice-practice-practice to learn some unsupported sharpening method. I couldn't wait for that day. My priority was to get my tools sharp so I could get to work.

[Andrew Gibson]

I have to say that the more tools I acquire the more I don't think there is a perfect answer to sharpening...
for basically all my plane irons and chisels I use a cheep sharpening jig. I restore my primary bevel on my 200 grit king stone, then usually refine it to 1200. then I micro bevel 4000, 8000, then strop with green compound. This keeps me off of the grinder. I can also establish a camber quite easily with the guide and the more camber I want the coarser the stone I start cambering on... once it is established its quick and easy to resharpen.

I recently acquired possibly the most difficult to sharpen tool I can think of. a Stanley 79 side rabbit plane.... tiny little skewed irons, no way to hold them in a jig without serious thought and a custom clamp. when I got it the irons had serious camber. I ended up cutting a block of wood at a 25* angle and using it as a honing guide until I got a flat, then I free handed the iron. I ended up with very good results. I got the angle corrected and now have 2 nice sharp cutters... (the left had cutter is just a touch out of the correct angle)

All that being said you could not pay me to get rid of my honing guide, but when there is a tool that does not suit the guide, you will just have to go for it.

I find on tools that i sharpen by hand I can maintain the angle much better if I only stroke in one direction, either a push or a pull stroke.

What was the question?

[Jim Koepke]

+1 on what Andrew said, there is no one correct way.
Each system of sharpening will have advantages and disadvantages.

Lets start with the bench grinder. One big advantage here is the hollow grind produced. The disadvantage is getting the grind close to the edge is going to burn some steel. They also take a lot of steel from a tool real fast. I have seen a lot of poorly sharpened blades that were done by someone who thought a bench grinder was a sharpening tool. It is a blade preparation tool. There are low speed grinders or wheel sharpening systems that are made to get the blade to a useable sharpness.

As others have mentioned, a hollow grind on a blade does make it easy to feel when the blade is set solid on a stone for honing.

Other power systems of sharpening include sanding belts and disks. I have not used the belt systems, but my understanding is they are preferred by knife makers.

My power system is a disk system made by Veritas, the Mk II Power Sharpening System®. It is very versatile. Mine has been used to sharpen and rehabilitate chisels and plane blades, but also axes, shovels, gouges and just general grinding of other tools. A couple of days ago it was used to turn a piece of tubing into a paper/boxboard drill.

Much of this could be done on a wheel, but a wheel is not good for working on the backs of blades to get them flat.

My understanding is an inexpensive wheel grinder can be bought in the $50 range. The Veritas or Work Sharp systems cost more.

As for hand sharpening systems there are many systems to choose between.

Many start with the scary sharp method. There is a lot to be said for this and it is good to learn this system as it comes in useful even if you have a few thousand dollars invested in higher end sharpening equipment. One of the problems with scary sharp is the abrasive sheets can "bubble" ahead of the blade and cause a rounding of the edge. So it may be necessary to sharpen on a pull stroke. This has a useable side effect of raising a burr on the edge that lets you know when you have abraded the full width of the blade.

In my early days I was frustrated with oil stones. That is one of the reasons for purchasing a power sharpening system that was reviewed and compared to other systems in a wood working magazine.

That was when I first learned what pretty sharp was. Then I bought some water stones and got a bit sharper. The difference between a blade that has been sharpened on a 10µ stone and one sharpened on a 2µ stone is noticeable. It is not a difference that will keep one from doing good work. Though sharpness can become addictive. One of these days I do want to be able to buy a 0.5µ stone just for the challenge of the ultra sharp.

When it comes to using a holder for sharpening, I find this is most useful when working on a blade that is in bad or abused condition. These blades are mostly found if you do a lot of flea market, yard sale and ebay purchases. For most of my regular use blades, the sharpening of them rarely needs to get below a 1000 grit water stone. Those are most often the A1 blades that chip along the edge or other blades the chip on a knot or other impediment.

Most of the time I sharpen by hand. For me, it is faster than setting a blade in a holder and then sharpening it. A holder does let one move faster through the grits, for me most of the time an edge is just being touched up and only one or two grits are being used. Watching the edge on an oil or water stone will let you know if you are on the stone properly. My method is to give a few strokes on the back of the blade to start. Then when it is set on the bevel the reaction of the fluid on the back of the blade will indicate contact of the edge to the stone.

Most of the time my blades are honed with a plain flat bevel. Very few of them have any thing like a camber, micro bevel or back bevel. Though at times for expediency the blade will be lifted a little to get the edge and only the edge. This was done the other day with a block plane blade. A very slight back bevel was used to get rid of some nicks along the edge and then the main bevel was lifted a little producing a micro bevel. This is an A1 type blade and is a bit harder to work than the other steels. This sped up the process and also produced a good result.

So, there are a lot of words above just to say, there are many more ways than the eight paths of the lotus when climbing the mountain to a keen edge grasshopper.

jtk