chisel and plane blade honing guides

[Bob Deroeck]

I have been using my original Veritas honing guide for 10+ years, but I'm losing patience with it due to chisels pivoting around the single hold down press screw, putting the chisel edge out of square. So, I've got a few questions:

1. Does the newer Veritas MKII honing guide prevent this type of blade rotation? And, what are the pros and cons of the MKII vs the orginal veritas honing guide?

2. What other honing guides besides the Veritas do a good job of holding the blade square to the honing guide, are easy to use, and give good results?

Thanks.


Bob

[Mike Henderson]

Nope, the MKII still allows a chisel to pivot, especially very narrow chisels - for example, a 1/8" chisel is a challenge. I've learned how to work with it but I sure wish LV would come up with a design that would hold narrow chisels in place.

The design of the honing guide is that there's a bar that clamps down on the blade. The other side appears to have some rubber or something that I assume is designed to hold the blade in place. But for narrow chisels, it just doesn't work well enough. Any slight jar to the tool gets it out of square.

It works great on wide chisels and plane blades, however.

Mike

[Lee Schierer]

Can you use some double sided tape and some 320 grit sand paper on the surface to give it some bite on the chisel?

[david brum]

I glued some sandpaper to the hold down on my Mark ll a few years ago. As long as I remember to tighten the knobs evenly, I don't have a problem with chisels pivoting. Before the sand paper, it was indeed frustrating.

I should stress the importance of the knobs being evenly tightened. I learned (the hard way) to look at the front of the jig to make sure the hold down is level. If it's angled because of uneven knob tension, stuff slips.

[Steve Griffin]

To answer question #2 : My Tormek holds the chisel very well :)

[shane lyall]

Stay away from the cheapo Stanley on Amazon. I bought one to try and its better than nothing but not by much.

[Prashun Patel]

Mike H has way more experience than I, but I have not experienced the same pivoting with the MKII. I find it holds narrow chisels very well; in fact, it's the main reason I purchased it. I will caveat, though, that I use mine with a Worksharp, so I'm not rolling it a lot; I hold it still, and the sharpening surface spins underneath it. If yr using it on stones, perhaps it's a problem.

[Terry Beadle]

I agree with Mike on this. I must have a half dozen sharpening jigs and none of them hold a chisel worth a hoot.

For chisels : http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/kellhoningjig2-58incapacity.aspx

This Kell guide is expensive so I recommend you learn to sharpen your chisels by hand. It's not hard to do. Especially if you hollow grind the chisel on a low speed grinder first. It's very easy to get a good primary and micro bevel set up this way. However, if you want a good jig, the Kell is the way to go IMO.

You should also check out this web site for sharpening advice : http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpen/jig.html

You could easily adapt his plane blade jig to a chisel format.

Enjoy the process.