Free Hand Honing with Slippery Hands and Tools

[Chris Griggs]

In the last couple months I've gotten pretty comfortable with free hand honing. I even sold my LV MKII honing guide this past weekend. However, I still have one issue with my free handing and that is driving me nuts. That is, my right (upper) hand tends to slowly slides down the blade until it hits my left (lower) hand and/or the stone itself. This is worse with chisels than plane irons and slightly worse with oil stones than water stone (oil is slippery), but it happens to some extent or another in all case. I've been working on holding chisels up near the bolster/handle when honing, and while this does prevent slipping it is much harder to hold the angle with such a high center of gravity. When I grip the chisel low I can hold the angle very consistently, that is until my hand slides into the stone.

Does anyone else have this problem? If so, what's your solution? a Latex glove perhaps? Athletic tape on a couple of fingers of the right hand? Advice is appreciated...

[Roy Lindberry]

I actually lock my hands together (as far as it as feasible) when honing chisels and plane irons. I learned the method here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWJxSLQiaYo) watching Cosman sharpen plane irons, and I just carried it over to chisels. Obviously, the grip has to be modified a bit for chisels, but I find it to be effective.

[george wilson]

I just kept my fingers out of the oil,back when I was using oil stones. Are you using too much oil,and getting it all over everything? Maybe you need to cut back on the oil?

[Chris Griggs]

I'm trying not to use too much, and am careful not make a mess with it. That said yes sometimes I pour out more on than I need to. Even when I don't use a lot it seems to slowly creep up the blade and make things slippery - of course maybe that means I'm still using to much even when I think I'm only using a little. Thanks George, I'll try using less.

I tried the finger locking thing for a while that Roy mentioned and didn't love it, but perhaps I need to work with it some more. More and more I'm gravitating to side honing as I find I get the most consistent results with it.

[David Wong]

I have also been trying to hold onto the chisel handle or near the socket with my right hand, and apply pressure on the blade with a finger or two from my left hand (I am right handed). The front edge of the chisel is angled to the stone by 30 - 90 degrees. Holding the chisel this way feels awkward at first and is almost a leap of faith that you will be able to maintain the bevel. The important points for me are to pay attention to the sound and resistance of the bevel on the stones as you move the blade around. It is also important to only apply light pressure with the left hand. When the bevel is flat on the stone, the blade will slide with little resistance and make little noise. If the bevel is not flat, you will feel more resistance and hear a harsher noise on the stones. A side benefit has been a reduction of the chattering during sharpening wider chisels.

In this learning stage, sharpening takes longer than using a jig. I hope to improve on the speed with practice. Every now and then, I will have a complete loss of confidence that I cannot feel the bevel, and will need to use a lower grip - especially on narrow chisels.

[Chris Griggs]

I did some honing last night, with less oil and some adjustment to my grip. Yes using a bit less oil did help, but in messing with my grip I remembered that I actually experimented with several grips in the past few months and had success with more then one. Lately, I had settled into using a grip where I was pinching the sides of the blade between my thumb and fingers fairly low down - pretty much like the side sharpening technique shown here:http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolReviews/Side%20Sharpening%20and%20The%20Sharp%20Skate.html

(http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolReviews/Side%20Sharpening%20and%20The%20Sharp%20Skate.html )I settled on using it because I find it makes it very easy to tell if I'm holding the blade right on the bevel - however, it has also created the slipping problem I described. For some reason I didn't realize until went back and started messing with other grips again that I hadn't had the slipping issue until I settled on this technique. Come to think of it, I did use a grip similar to the one Roy linked to with good success for a while. Guess I'll go back to using that grip - it gives a bit less feedback then the very low side grip, but I think David Wong is correct regarding his "leap of faith" comment as well as using other aspects of the feel to tell if one is maintaining the angle.

[Terry Beadle]

When I have a grip problem on a blade, I some times use a rare earth magnet or two placed on the blade where my right hand fingers can use it to make a solid holding point. You can make a more elaborate holding jig to augment your grip but I find that 2 ~ 3 rare earth magnets have plenty of gripping power to help. This is a especially helpful method on small marking gauge blades. Great stocking stuffers for xmas too !