Can i camber a smoother with the Veritas MK2

[James Taglienti]

I am thinking of buying the Veritas MKII honing guide for some chisels and short plane irons. I started with an eclipse guide, switched to freehand, then went back to the eclipse for repeatability but its just about burned out... Can i grind a tiny (1 to 5 thou) camber with the straight roller by flexing the jig, or is it so rock solid that you just cant do it?

[Joel Goodman]

I am thinking of buying the Veritas MKII honing guide for some chisels and short plane irons. I started with an eclipse guide, switched to freehand, then went back to the eclipse for repeatability but its just about burned out... Can i grind a tiny (1 to 5 thou) camber with the straight roller by flexing the jig, or is it so rock solid that you just cant do it?

The straight roller is so wide it's not possible for me to camber with it -- YMMV. Why doesn't LV make the camber roller the default -- you can sharpen straight with the camber roller but not visa versa. Maybe Rob'll read this and offer a choice of roller? I rarely use the straight one. Other than that the jig is excellent.

[Pohgunn Ooi]

Hi James,

To camber with the straight roller, place a narrow strip of hard plastic on one side of your stone. Roll with one side of the roller on the strip to camber one side, then switch the strip to the other side.

Roll the same number of strokes on both side, that should get you an even camber.

Not as convenient as the camber roller but works the same.

A thicker strip of plastic will give you more pronounced camber.

Regards,

Gunn

[Chris Griggs]

Yes, I've done it. No the roller doesn't rock or flex at all but biasing pressure on one corner of the other of the blade will take more metal off that corner of the blade. Like you said, we are talking smoother plane camber here - nothing more than a few thou at most.

[Jeff Bartley]

+1 What Chris said! I did however buy the cambered roller too for heavier cambers.....both work great.

[Michael Peet]

I do that with mine all the time on 1/8" LN blades using the MKII guide. The blade itself flexes enough.

Mike

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I was able to get camber with my MKII, but I think it was mostly because the roller assembly was totally shot, due to years of neglect on my part. I haven't tried it again since replacing the roller.

[Terry Beadle]

For me, it's not the roller that controls the degree of camber during sharpening. It's the concentrated finger pressure at the edges. The pressure removes the metal more than the camber roller. I too use a thin cardboard strip on one side of the stone to get greater camber sharpening results. Cheap and works well.

For jack plane blades, the camber is initially set at the grinder in my shop. Low speed grinder with frequent water dipping. Scribe a 8 inch arc on a scrap of wood and then cut it, smooth. Use it as a pattern with your black marker to scribe the blade or more precisely, you can mark a wider band of black majic marker on the blade end and then use the pattern with a awl to scratch the grinding target arc.

Use the water stones or arkansas ( your choice ) to polish up the blade end from there.

Smoother blades don't need more arc than you can easily achieve with just water stone pressure in the Mark II jig.

[James Taglienti]

Alright! Thanks guys. I think i like it One more thing... I have some butt chisels with blades about 2" long. Will the guide be able to sharpen them? What is the shortest chisel you have honed?

[Jim Matthews]

That's clever, right there.

[Jim Matthews]

To further muddy the waters, I like the Kell guide (http://www.fine-tools.com/G303540.htm).
It gives me greater flexibility holding shorter blades.

It clamps from the side, which is my preference.

I took a class where we thought of the blade as having a bowling alley marked on it.
3 strokes along the gutter 2 strokes 1 down the middle 2 strokes 3 strokes along the gutter

This produced a decent camber using 150 grit sand paper on a granite base.

[Joel Goodman]

I think I'm outvoted -- I'll give it a try with the straight roller just for the heck of it!

[Andrae Covington]

Alright! Thanks guys. I think i like it One more thing... I have some butt chisels with blades about 2" long. Will the guide be able to sharpen them? What is the shortest chisel you have honed?

It depends partially on the bevel angle, as to how much of the blade protrudes in front of the guide clamp. There are three different positions for the roller assembly so it's not so simple as saying shallow angles stick out more.

I once barely managed to get the guide to hold onto the back of a spokeshave blade that was a little under 2" long. I think I was doing 25°. Anyway, that's really pushing the limits. You might not be able to use it with the butt chisels if they flare out to the tang right where you need the clamp bar to go.

[James Taglienti]

I see thank you Andrae

[Zach England]

I think the MKII is a pain for chisels. For all but the widest chisels you have to use a piece of wood or some other material to be able to clamp the chisel in. The clamping jaws are curved and the curvature is too great to allow it to hold most chisels or even block plane blades.

[Andrae Covington]

I think the MKII is a pain for chisels. For all but the widest chisels you have to use a piece of wood or some other material to be able to clamp the chisel in. The clamping jaws are curved and the curvature is too great to allow it to hold most chisels or even block plane blades.

Really?:confused: I've used mine to sharpen everything down to 1/8" chisels, no problem. The top clamping bar/jaw is flat, but it's thin enough to be flexible, so as I tighten the screws down it will curve down slightly at the ends with narrower blades; but it springs back to flat. Are you talking about the LV power sharpener, also called MK.II?

[Zach England]

Really?:confused: I've used mine to sharpen everything down to 1/8" chisels, no problem. The top clamping bar/jaw is flat, but it's thin enough to be flexible, so as I tighten the screws down it will curve down slightly at the ends with narrower blades; but it springs back to flat. Are you talking about the LV power sharpener, also called MK.II?

No. I am talking about the sharpening guide that has a flat roller and a cambered roller and a little gauge to set the bevel. I will take a photo when I get home and post it here. Maybe mine is defective? I have always felt like it was a very over-rated product. Maybe this is why.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I had issues with my MK II honing guide with my narrower Narex mortise chisels - I've got it now, it's a matter of set up, and touch - certainly if you have a lot of blade hanging out, you need to be careful, because with a bit of excessive lateral force, you can twist the chisel in the guide. I wrote LV a year or two ago, and this is what they wrote back:



Thank you for your e-mail. Very narrow chisels, especially thicker ones
like these Narex Mortise chisels, can be challenging to hone in any
guide. Neither the vise-type honing guide we carry and the older style
of honing guide that comes with the sharpening set will offer a better
hold. The MK.II Honing Guide is the best option we offer.

There are some suggestions we can offer that may help you achieve better
results than you are currently getting. First, sometimes the paint
finish applied to the MK.II can cause a problem depending on how it
settles. Ono occasion a bit too much can accumulate on the center cross
piece on the upper jaw. We've included an image with this reply to help
illustrate exactly where we mean. If the pain adheres even a little bit
unevenly or thicker there than on the rest of the jaw, it could result
in a slight pivot point that may be making it harder for you to get a
good solid grip on these narrow chisels. To alleviate this, you can use
a small needle file on this part to take it down so it isn't crowned.
The paint in general may also provide a slippery surface that makes it
easier for the chisel to spin. Passing a very fine abrasive paper over
it may help you get a better grip.

The only other concern might be the handling of the unit while honing.
Hand placement is important as you want as little pressure on the blade
as possible. This is easier to do with wider blades as there is that
much more surface area being clamped across the blade than with narrow
ones. We've included 2 other images showing the proper way to hold the
assembly. As you can see your index fingers should be the only parts
actually touching the chisel, and very light pressure is all that is
needed. With such a narrow tool it will be difficult to seat your
fingers well and it won't take much to accidently push harder with one
finger or the other. It can be done but will take a lot of patience and
care.


Hopefully these suggestions will help, and with a bit of practice you
will find you are able to hone even these more challenging tools.

Another point I noticed, is that with a narrow chisel, it really helps to make sure the blade is centered over the crossbar. (pointed at with the red arrow in the first photo)


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[Andrae Covington]

I have also had blades skew in the jig if I didn't center them and/or didn't tighten the screws enough. You definitely have to get the blades centered, especially with narrow chisels. And try to match the turns on the screws so that one side doesn't squeeze down tighter than the other.

I'm sure these kinds of discussions make the freehand sharpeners shake their heads. After I realized the potential problems and how to avoid them though, it's pretty quick to set up.

I don't think my Ray Iles mortise chisels can even fit in the MkII, and I have a few other tools that I sharpen freehand. For most of my edge tools though, I use the MkII. I like the consistency of angle that I get with the setup jig, and the quick microbevel adjustment.

[James Taglienti]

I guess i will stick with my little eclipse guide the butt chisels still fit ... At least for a few more years... :rolleyes:

[Chris Griggs]

I guess i will stick with my little eclipse guide the butt chisels still fit ... At least for a few more years... :rolleyes:

The MKII is great but FWIW after I learned to freehand, I sold it, but hung on to my little eclipse (not that it is worth anything). Point being, I quite like the eclipse, and after making the little modifications that Deneb recommends in the LN video it works even better. A LOT better.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

yeah, the issue I think I had with the mortise chisels was their thickness (in height, I guess) making it difficult to find a setting that would hold them - that guide just doesn't open wide enough for some of them. I figure the Ray Iles wouldn't fit at all.

I still have my jig, because it's nice when I'm feeling off or want to get a skewed plane blade to the right angle. or just spend a bit of time reestablishing my main bevel or something, but I like sharpening free hand so much more now.

[James Taglienti]

How do you get a consistent bevel angle when you sharpen freehand? All of my cutters and chisels are different thicknesses so when i grind them the bevels are different. I will touch things up freehand if i can find the secondary bevel easily enough but thats about it

[Chris Griggs]

How do you get a consistent bevel angle when you sharpen freehand? All of my cutters and chisels are different thicknesses so when i grind them the bevels are different. I will touch things up freehand if i can find the secondary bevel easily enough but thats about it

Consistency between tools of different thicknesses requires you to adjust the setting on your grinder. I do wonder (suppose I could try) how much angle variation there is in grinding say an older stanley blade and a thick chisel. Sometimes I think I should just leave my grinder setup to grind a 28 degree bevel on a medium thickness blade, on the assumption that at that setting I'll still end up with all my blades ground between 25 and 30 degree regardless of thickness. Don't actually know how this would work though.

Consistency, in honing/rehoning a tool comes from either getting good at honing on the primary hollow ground bevel or using a secondary bevel which is small enough so that it really doesn't matter if your a perfectly consistent, since it will quickly self adjust. It doesn't really matter if you find the secondary bevel perfectly, you just find the primary grind and lift up a little (like the guy who posted that video yesterday or the ALF video with the bird chirping). When/if the secondary bevel gets to wide, steep or rounded over, its back to the grinder. It may not be the "best" way to freehand, but IMHO it is the easiest - you'll he surprised just how easy.

[Mike Cogswell]

Putting a modest camber in a smoother blade is not a problem. Just apply pressure on the corner(s) of the blade. I just got a MKII and have already cambered a couple of blades with it. You'll probably need the narrow wheel to hone a scrub blade or put a lot of camber in a fore plane, but I haven't tried it yet with the MKII.