Sharpening settup questions

[Andrew Nemeth]

I am in the process of setting up a dedicated sharpening station as I begin to aquire hand tools (primarily planes and chisels) and I wanted to get some feedback and reassurance before parting with my cash.

Here is what I am thinking about purchasing for bench stones:
DMT Diasharp coarse (325mesh) 8"x3" plate for flattening stones and re-establishing bevels
Shapton Glass Stone 1000 8"x3" stone
Shapton Glass Stone 8000 8"x3" stone
Eventually i will probably add a Shapton 4000 as well

Is this a reasonable first bench stone setup? Are the grits and sizes appropriate? Do I need to be thinking about doing something to the edge after the 8000 grit shapton? Maybe honing compound on leather or MDF? If so, what specific honing product should i be looking for?

I already have a 12"x18" granite surface plate but I am searching for a longer granite scrap to make easier work of flattening irons, chisel backs, and plane soles. I also assume this would be a faster method to remove deep nicks than to use the coarse Diasharp plate.

Does anyone have and recommendations for specific grits and brands of PSA abrasives rolls that are commonly used to flatten? Should they be wet/dry? What grit abrasives would be good for working out deep nicks?

Thanks for any information or thoughts,
Andrew

[Stuart Tierney]

Hi Andrew,

I think your plan is generally sound, but could be done better.

Did your mother ever tell you to say something nice, or don't say anything at all?

I won't comment on the Glass Stones. See above.

The DMT, I'd be looking at a duosharp, something coarse on one side, extra coarse on the other. Use the XC to flatten stones with, the C for flattening blades. Someone else will probably correct that, but #300-400 is a good, all round flattening diamond grit.

If you must buy local, then seriously consider either a Shapton Professional 1K-8K pair (not ideal, but serviceable for everything up to A2 steel) or the Bester LV has now. Far better bang for the buck than your original plan. Even Norton would be a good choice, although they'll need more flattening than either Shapton Professional or Besters.


(I don't use Bester, Norton or Shapton for my own tools, but I've used them both enough to know what they're like. Good, decent stuff and something I can easily recommend.)

Maybe not what you wanted to hear, but I'm not a fan of Glass Stones, and I couldn't just sit here, 2 hours past my bedtime, and let you just buy them...

[paul cottingham]

I have an 800, that I use occasionally, but still wouldn't be without, a 4000 for honing and rehoning, and an 8000 for final honing. I flatten my stones on a glass plate. I use a Veritas mk II honing guide. I get great results with this set-up.

[Jim Koepke]

It seems like tastes for sharpening set ups are almost as personal as tastes in selecting a spouse. What may work best for one person may not work well for another.

My preference is for water stones. One big problem is during the winter, things in my shop freeze. Of course, some people would consider getting heat into the shop or not working in the shop. Well, as long as it is about 20° or above the little electric heater blowing a warm stream my way is enough for me.

So, during the cold times I have taken to using oil stones. Years ago when living in a warmer climate I had given up on them. It seems my learning to sharpen has made them useable.

Most of the time I try to not let my blades get dull enough to need more then a touch up on the 8000 water stone or the translucent hard Arkansas stone.

jtk

[Casey Gooding]

I think your setup is a great start. You will learn what you like and don't like about it as you go. Jim has a good point about freezing shops. I use microfinishing film in the colder months to avoid having my stones potentially freeze.

[David Weaver]

As stu said, swap the glasstones for shapton professional stones. I have some of both.

Find some decent quartersawn wood and glue the professionals to it and shaptons comments about the glasstone being glass because you can't use the bottom of other stones just goes away.

If you use any compound following an 8000 grit stone (which really shouldnt' be necessary, but you may run into high speed steel or something that benefits from it), use the green chromium oxide compound sold as "microfine". LV sells it, so does rockler, and woodcraft probably does, too. There may be others that fit this description, but it is the only cheap compound I know of that is significantly finer than a 2 or 3 micron stone, and it cuts a lot of steels well.

[David Weaver]

for long paper, btw, psa stick-on rolls of 80 grit and 220 grit aluminum oxide. You can go to stones after 220 grit.

Any of the more exotic things (blue zirconia rolls, etc) fracture too quickly under hand pressure and are actually a waste of money for hand honing and flattening. Sandpaper is made to run at high speed and low pressure, and hand use is the opposite, so paper life is fairly short no matter what you use.

[Russell Sansom]

but I'm not a fan of Glass Stones, and I couldn't just sit here, 2 hours past my bedtime, and let you just buy them..
Stuart...would you say why you're not a fan of Shapton's glass stones. I don't mean to be defamatory or get on a rant, just curious as a heavy Shapton user. I prefer the "professionals" but for odd reasons. What are yours?

[Andrew Nemeth]

Stu-
Thanks for your input as I have read a few other posts you have responded to and I value your opinion. However, for the sake of education, what is it in particular that you do not like about the glass stones? I was leaning that direction for a few reasons. First, even the 1000 only requires spritzing with water prior to use. I currently work in an unheated space where I would be concerned about traditional waterstones freezing. Second, from what I have heard the glass stones are easier to keep flat than the professional shaptons. Is this true? Lastly, many of the sharpening guru's endorse shapton glass stones as their preferred premium stones (rob cosman, some of the LN guys, ext.) I know all of them have had a vested interest in selling them, but I also assume they could have sold the shapton professional stones if they wanted to.

So, do you have to soak and saturate the shapton professional stones? Are the professional stones as "user friendly" as the glass stones? Why do you prefer the professional stones while many others who have access to both choose the glass stones to endorse?

Thanks again for your input (or anyone else who would like to chime in),
Andrew

[Andrew Nemeth]

Do you use the coarse PSA dry or wet? Any brand preferences or sourcing info?

Thanks,
Andrew

[Joerg Bullmann]

Hi Andrew,

Do you know what you are doing? Is this the first time you are looking into sharpening? I am new to all this and want to try it out too. My decision was to go relatively cheap and cheerful: I got myself a KING combination stone 1000/6000 and I am in the process of lapping some heavy bricks with sand blasting grit to use those flattened surfaces for flattening the KING later. I am taking photos of all this and intend to post some kind of writeup of it eventually. In case you speak German, there is a very good write-up by Friedrich Kollenrott titled "Schärfen von Hobel- und Stecheisen" (On sharpening Plane Cutters and Chisels).

I want to start sharpening chisels, then maybe plane cutters too (the small ones of a plough plane first). For this I guess the KING 1000/6000 should be a good starting point. The moment I need more elaborate or other stones, I'll get them.

My progress is slowish as spare time is limited.

Cheers,
Joerg

[Bruce Haugen]

Joerg Bullmann says
"... I am in the process of lapping some heavy bricks with sand blasting grit to use those flattened surfaces for flattening the KING later. "

Hi, Joerg,

As I try to envision the process of lapping those bricks, I go weak with the effort it will take to make them flat enough for a reference point. That's far more work than I would put into it.

Do you have drywall sanding screens (http://www.amazon.com/3M-9089NA-Drywall-Sanding-Fine-Grit/dp/B00004Z4AI) available in Germany? They work much better than other methods I've tried to get my coarse stone flat. Then I use that flat coarse stone to flatten the finer ones. If that's too coarse for you, then try 100 grit wet or dry paper lubricated with water.

[John Coloccia]

I like my Shapton glass stone. I have a 16000. As my other stones wear out, I will replace them with glass stones. They don't wear nearly as quickly as any other stone I have, so it's easier to keep them flat in the sense that they go out of flat slower.

[Joerg Bullmann]

Hi Bruce,

Thanks a lot for the sanding screen tip. I have so far spent an hour or thereabouts cutting grooves into the stones with an angle grinder and then one evening (about two pints worth) lapping those stones and I guess after another few hours they'll be fine. This is not at all that bad and has a meditative quality about it that I truly appreciate. I want to try this out once at least. It is this slowness of it all that brought me to woodworking only a little while ago.

Cheers,
Joerg

[Stuart Tierney]

Hi All,

I'll be frank here, I don't actually have enough time to bash out a long diatribe of why I am absolutely unconvinced of the superiority of Glass Stones. I'd like to, and it's in my nature to do so, but I have things that I need to get done and they won't wait.

I'm also new enough here that I know linking to my website might be seen as 'pushing the limits' because there's an online store attached to the blog report I'd really like to point you all to, where all the information is laid out as to why the Glass Stones just aren't quite as good as 'they' say they are.

The point is, I've put in 7 months of time and effort comparing waterstones, side by side and back to back. I compared them as impartially as I could manage, and the Glass Stones, in comparison, aren't that great. I'll never willingly own one, I only have the ones I have now because I need to know what they can and can't do. It's part of my job to know these things.

I'll stop now, since this is getting more long winded than I can afford (only 4 hours sleep, and not at all well) but I'd hope that someone out there familiar with the little stone comparison I've been doing recently could kindly post a link to it. I don't want to step on any toes by doing it myself.

(And yes, another installment is coming. I just need to get a few hundred planes listed by the end of the week first...)

Stu.

[David Weaver]

I'll say my bit, and it has nothing to do with stu's test.

Glasstones are 1/3rd the abrasive of a pro stone, and from what I can tell, they don't cut, polish or wear any better than a pro stone.

You can put a pro stone on a base, or as derek has done, just put it on glass, and get a lot more for your money.

If anything, I have found my 1000 glasstone to wear/dish a little faster than my 1000 pro stone, but without doing a side by side test, i'm not sure of that.

I have used the 16000 and 30000 glasstones (but don't own them, own a 15k pro stone, instead).

I will say this, glasstones work well for western carbon steel - especially the 1000 - they cut it really fast. As stu's noted with some research, they are actually about the same coarseness as most other folks' 800 stones. The finer stones (16,000 and 30,000) are bright white, well, all of them are, but it's handy on the finer stones to give you a tell-tale tire mark showing where the iron has been cut. Dark finish stones are not so great for stuff like this. The pro stone color for 1 micron size is cream, so it does it just fine, too.

I have been bugging stu for a while to find the magic soakless stone that cuts HSS as fast as Rc55 carbon steel and doesn't dish. So far no luck. I guess it's the issue of reality. Finishing off an HSS iron on a powered and charged leather strop (be it a disc wheel or a belt) negates the need a stone that will do that, anyway.

Of all the stones, i personally like the pros because they cust most things acceptably well, they stay flat well, they wear for a very long time and you don't have to soak them. You can get stones that cut tough steels faster, but there are compromises with them (dishing, soaking, etc), and if you are in a semi-heated shop like I am, putting your hands in 40-45 degree water is not enticing. I haven't tried any other soakless stones except the naniwa superstone. I like that one OK, I guess, but just like the shapton better. The superstone has a softer smoother feel, but it's too soft.

[Robert Culver]

I have worked with alot of different things now and this is what im doing now and why. falting with a diamond stone tthis is a time consuming prosses and where water stones fast if you use water you end up spending as much time flating the stones as you do the tool. once its flat I swich to ceramic to clean up the bevals and start the polishing stage again no time spent flating stones. once the bevels are all cleane up I swich to scary sharp metho to polish up the bevels and created a keen edge then last but not to skip I strop all the micro bevals and backs on a piece of horse butt leather with green compound then it is razor sharp I only repeat the step prior to stoping when I nee to clean up the beval save lots of time I like this metho alot right now....

[David Weaver]

I can't say I've ever spent that much time flattening waterstones, definitely not enough to justify using sandpaper - i hate that it changes its aggressiveness as it wears and you don't get the same good feel as a stone.

I do the same thing for interim sharpenings (only go to the stones when I need to), except my strops are powered and I hit the backs on a 1 micron stone instead of stropping the back. The powered strops have the ability not only refine the edge, but to cut the steel a little, too, which is why they are a little too aggressive to use on the back of an iron more than once in a while in a pinch.

I did have to spend about $25 on two square feet of leather, but i'll be able to change the disc on my sander about 8 times with that, which will be years.

[Orlando Gonzalez]

I had the Glasstones, in fact I had David's 16K, and the Pros and sold them all, with the exception of the 8K & 12K, which are currently in the classifieds, and the Pro #120 which is a nice stone. Stu turned me on to the Sigma Power stones and these stones are, in my estimation better than any of the Shaptons.

What I use as my normal routine are the 1K, 6K, 8K, 10K, and a Japanese natural waterstone that is approximately in the 30K-40K grit range. I spend very little time on the 6K, 8K, 10K, and natural stones.

For heavy metal removal I use the #120, #240 Select II, and 3F Carbon #700 Sigmas. I also have a Chosera #400, Arashiyama 1K, and Suehiro Rika 5k that get used here and there.

I like to sharpen that's why I have so many. Listen, being a public school principal for the past 15yrs can drive you insane. :eek:

Sharpening brings me back to boderline normalcy.:D;)

If you want to read Stu's test results on 1K stones and see the Sigmas go to toolsfromjapan-dot-com and follow the links to the store and his blog.

[David Weaver]

Orlando, do the sigma ceramics need to be soaked?

[Jim Koepke]

Do you use the coarse PSA dry or wet? Any brand preferences or sourcing info?

Thanks,
Andrew

I use mine dry, but there is surely good reason for other opinions. My abrasive is paper backed so water might cause a problem.

Instead of having a liquid, I have a magnet wrapped in paper. This is passed over the abrasive after a few strokes to pick up the iron filings. Then the paper is just taken off the magnet over a trash barrel to get rid of the filings.

I have found Supergrit dot com to be a good source of abrasives. They also have and 800 number and are nice to deal with on the phone.

jtk

[Orlando Gonzalez]

Dave,

According to Stu they are true ceramics and can be soaked. SP recommends that from the #120-1K be soaked. Now the soak time for the 1K is 1-2 minutes max. The #120, #240 Select II, and #700 need about 5 minutes max. By the time you get ready to work they are done.

[David Weaver]

I go dry, also. 4 inch wide mirka psa rolls from supergrit, too - 80 and 220 are the only ones I use. Supergrit is about 5 miles from my parents' house. It's an interesting place if you go there in person - much easier to find things on their internet page than in person (but the psa rolls aren't hard to find, they have hundreds of them). You need a guide in the store if you want something specific and don't see it right away, some of the stuff is out of sight, anyhow.

Good place to do business with.