Honing/sharpening guide

[Adam Cruea]

So when I bought 2 #8 jointers, it never hit me that my Veritas sharpening/honing guide was too small for the 2 5/8" blades to fit. Woops! :o

Does anyone have a suggestion for a guide that works with the big blades? I've looked at the Veritas stuff, and the MkII looks like it would handle the jointer blades well, but maybe someone knows of something that will work just as well for cheaper (or that's slightly better).

[Mikkel Frederiksen]

I use an eclipse type honing guide for my jointer blade.
My blades are the swedish Erik Anton Berg type and they are 7,5 mm wide (Sorry about the metric).
(Derek Cohen wrote about these blades some time ago: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeTools/NowTHISisablade%21.html

They would also fit in my Richard Kell honing guide, but because the rollers are on the sides of the blade on this guide, the guide will be too wide for my waterstones.

[Archie England]

So when I bought 2 #8 jointers, it never hit me that my Veritas sharpening/honing guide was too small for the 2 5/8" blades to fit. Woops! :o

Does anyone have a suggestion for a guide that works with the big blades? I've looked at the Veritas stuff, and the MkII looks like it would handle the jointer blades well, but maybe someone knows of something that will work just as well for cheaper (or that's slightly better).

With that size and heft, it was easier for me to transition to freehand sharpening. Why not try it? Use your grinder to establish a hollow grind and then follow up on a couple of stones to hone that smaller portion of surface. Once you've learned on the larger blades, just work your way down. I made the transition from the LV Mk2 prior to getting an "Eclipse" style jig. Freehanding greatly improved my sharpening skills and stone maintenance.
Ec

[Adam Cruea]

With that size and heft, it was easier for me to transition to freehand sharpening. Why not try it? Use your grinder to establish a hollow grind and then follow up on a couple of stones to hone that smaller portion of surface. Once you've learned on the larger blades, just work your way down. I made the transition from the LV Mk2 prior to getting an "Eclipse" style jig. Freehanding greatly improved my sharpening skills and stone maintenance.
Ec

Well, once I realized that the blades were too wide, I did try to free-hand it. Didn't do too bad on my 1000 and 6000 grit stones, but I kept digging into my 13000 stone. :(

[Dave Parkis]

I use both the Veritas Mark II and an eclipse style jig for the big irons. When I use the eclipse style jig, I just set my Wixey angle cube on it, adjust it until I get the angle I want and lock it down. The advantage of this is that I can get an angle other than 25/30 degrees.

[Dave Beauchesne]

Well, once I realized that the blades were too wide, I did try to free-hand it. Didn't do too bad on my 1000 and 6000 grit stones, but I kept digging into my 13000 stone. :(

+ 1 to what Archie said Adam.

Try skewing the blade as you hold it - I think I hold the cutting edge of the blade about 45 degrees to the long side of the stone.

Good luck!

Dave B

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Skewing definitely helped me get free-handing down. I usually never need a lot of work on my polish stone, so sometimes if it's easier, I just work on the pull stroke, doing each stroke separately. I also find when I gouge it's usually because either I tilted the blade angle forward or didn't focus my movement parallel to the stone. I find I can fix both of these problems (for me) by focusing my movement somewhere other than my arms. Moving my arms back and forth, the tendency is to change the angle as you've got so many joints that sort of need to pivot and turn to get a full stroke. I like to find my bevel angle, and lock my arms to my side and make my movements with my core - moving over the stone by moving at my hips, which I'm sure probably looks ridiculous to anyone else, but no one's usually around while I'm working. A big part of this, of course, is finding a place where the working height is comfortable for this kind of sharpening movement. My workbench is too low for this, so I sharpen on the kitchen counter, which is just the right height for this kind of movement.

And again, skewing really helps, as does sort of a figure-8 motion.

[jamie shard]

I use the Veritas Mark II. It's the easiest way for me to get a sharp and gently cambered blade. Even for non-cambered honing, it just is easier. I don't feel it is time wasted to use a guide since I value the precision more than the time.

[Michael Peet]

When I use the eclipse style jig, I just set my Wixey angle cube on it, adjust it until I get the angle I want and lock it down.

That is brilliant. Thanks for the idea.

Mike

[Jim Barrett]

So when I bought 2 #8 jointers, it never hit me that my Veritas sharpening/honing guide was too small for the 2 5/8" blades to fit. Woops! :o

Does anyone have a suggestion for a guide that works with the big blades? I've looked at the Veritas stuff, and the MkII looks like it would handle the jointer blades well, but maybe someone knows of something that will work just as well for cheaper (or that's slightly better).

I use an eclipse jig for my handplane blades...I have a jig that I made up probably 20 years ago where I can quickly and accurately set up the bevel angle. Think I got it from Woodsmith magazine. Similar to what Deneb from LN uses...
The MK II will work fine for this size blade as well...just a bit more $$
As far as stones...my primary bevel is usually set at 25 degrees. Then I hone a secondary bevel at 33 degrees using a 1k waterstone. Then I hone a small 35 degree bevel using a 8k stone....also known as a tertiary bevel... This I learned from Rob Cosman.

Jim

[Adam Cruea]

Does the 35* bevel help with tear out or interlocked grain? Just curious why you chose that instead of the 30* bevel (as I might change a few blades if it helps reduce tear out for my bench top).

[Sam Takeuchi]

Does the 35* bevel help with tear out or interlocked grain? Just curious why you chose that instead of the 30* bevel (as I might change a few blades if it helps reduce tear out for my bench top).

It's not going to make a lick of difference on bevel down plane whether you have a 20 degree bevel or 40 degree bevel when it comes to tear out. No matter what bevel angle you give to your blade, cutting angle will always be 45 (or whatever angle your plane happens to be).

[Chris Griggs]

Does the 35* bevel help with tear out or interlocked grain? Just curious why you chose that instead of the 30* bevel (as I might change a few blades if it helps reduce tear out for my bench top).

The 35 degree bevel gives a good bit more longevity to carbon steel. It also makes it so the edge fails better. It dulls more consistently rather than chipping or rolling so as it wears you are less likely to end up with streaks from micro chipping and rehoning is more consistent and quicker. I just started doing this with my smoother (and only my smoother) on Dave Weavers advice...in theory it creates a clearance issue, in practice I have found it to be a noticeable improvement.

[Jim Barrett]

I use both the Veritas Mark II and an eclipse style jig for the big irons. When I use the eclipse style jig, I just set my Wixey angle cube on it, adjust it until I get the angle I want and lock it down. The advantage of this is that I can get an angle other than 25/30 degrees.

I purchased a Wixey cube a month ago for the table saw and just for grins I did what you suggested...I was pleasantly surprised that when I set up my eclipse honing guide at 30 degrees using my 20+year old jig that I use for setting the bevel angle, it measured 30.9 degrees. :)

Jim

[Adam Cruea]

It's not going to make a lick of difference on bevel down plane whether you have a 20 degree bevel or 40 degree bevel when it comes to tear out. No matter what bevel angle you give to your blade, cutting angle will always be 45 (or whatever angle your plane happens to be).

Right you are good man, right you are. Last time I post before having my morning coffee. lol *sheepish grin here*

[David Weaver]

The 35 degree bevel gives a good bit more longevity to carbon steel. It also makes it so the edge fails better. It dulls more consistently rather than chipping or rolling so as it wears you are less likely to end up with streaks from micro chipping and rehoning is more consistent and quicker. I just started doing this with my smoother (and only my smoother) on Dave Weavers advice...in theory it creates a clearance issue, in practice I have found it to be a noticeable improvement.

It improves the resistance to chipout on everything, carbon, A2, M2. Steve Elliot did a project about 10 years ago or something where he examined the final angle that A2 was optimized, and his sample, it was 32 degrees, I think. That's about where edge longevity and clearance will be maximized as a combination (i.e., maximum clearance while still not chipping out).

If you finish with a smoother (and no sanding and no scraping), chipout avoidance is important. I don't do it on any of my other planes, though, either, I just don't care to take the time to put an iron in a guide.

The couple of times I've tested irons against each other, when they were similar types, the one that chipped out first always lasted the least. It takes forever to do a realistic test on an iron in wood if you sharpen it properly, though, so I did that only a couple of times. It doesn't make sense to do that kind of stuff unless you're looking for a specific answer.

If you have to do something big where you have to finish both sides of panels, though, you get plenty of time working the good faces of a panel to tell which irons last longer.

Anyway, though, an properly cambered iron that fails only by wear and not chipping is an awfully nice thing to have in a smoothing plane. Zip two passes across a panel to finish plane it and done.