Miraculous freehand conversion

[David Ragan]

It finally happened.

What has bothered me forever is that despite all the jigs on the market, when you set up any jig, it may not be exactly what the bevel was ground the last time.

I have traditionally favored the MK II. Once you set it up, sometimes, it is not spot on. The microbevel roller mechanism, although ingenious, only does so much.

Regardless of pros and cons of the Mk II, whatever jig or system one uses, you have to do all the set up and dial it in every time-and then see if that particular set up will precisely give the exact grind where you want it.

So, today after about 2 hours in frustration, playing with it, and grinding and grinding off more steel (no use grinder or Tormek) of a 2 3/8" blade to re-establish the bevel.

Then....in total frustration-I thought....hey, what do I have to loose, I took the blade out of the dang jig.

I marked the edge with a black magic marker (again) held sideways with my left hand/fingers applying pressure down @ the edge, the right hand rocking the blade till the bevel sat on the stone--in this case 80 grit :eek: carbide wet paper. Moved the blade sideways up and down the stone. Just a few strokes. No big deal. Too easy.

In this very simple way, I was able, by just afixing my arms/elbows/wrists/fingers rigidly to my trunk, etc, and rocking to and fro with my legs slightly, was able to get the exact edge I was seeking.

One thing (for me) is to not look directly @ the blade/stone--I keep it all in peripheral field. Somehow, this is another level of awareness on keeping the angle exactly where it needs to be to grind precisely.

The very best thing???? It only takes 3-4 swipes at each grit And, you can see the scratch pattern refine as you go--no black marker needed.

So, I went right on up my grit system till I wound up @ 16K (I know-overkill)......did a couple swipes on leather.

Then the test---no light reflection from the edge, and (my fave) the hair on my forearm jumped off ahead of the blade.:D

Let me tell you----if you have never had the confidence to try freehand sharpening, give it a try. It only takes a few swipes at each grit and is soooo much easier, and faster.

I'm sure narrow blades are harder, and severely dishing the stone is possible if you dont move laterally.

I am a convert. Thanks for your attention.

[Brian Holcombe]

I usually rely on jigs for bevel setting, but I have a few chisels that cant be jigged (easily) so it's a worthwhile skill to have, IMO. I had to set one recently that is a fishtail chisel which was 45 degrees from the smith....and bring it down to about 30 degrees, a bit tedious but I managed to do so with only a minor curve to the edge (hamaguri).

I know some people can keep the edge perfectly flat, but I'm not there yet. A hamaguri edge is super strong (good for heavy chopping) but not ideal for paring chisels.

[lowell holmes]

Try placing the hone cross ways with your body, positioned in front of your body. Place the chisel on the hone with the bevel flat on the hone.
Stroke the chisel on the hone laterally in front of your body, locking your elbows and wrist. After a number of lateral strokes lift the but of the chisel very slightly for 3 or 4 strokes for the micro bevel. With your elbows and wrist loacked, you do this by rocking your body back and forth sideways.

The bevels on my chisel are absolutely flat using this method. I have a Norton cd that shows this method. I also saw a Mike Dunbar video where the showed the same technique. It was where he demonstrated the scary sharp system.

The Norton Video is available at the link below

http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/show_product.do?pid=56082

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks Lowell, I'll give it a shot.

[lowell holmes]

I found the video. It is the joel moskowitz sharpening video. It is available on Amazon and also Tools for Working Wood.

I am serious, it is the best video on sharpening I have seen.

[Jim Koepke]

So, I went right on up my grit system till I wound up @ 16K (I know-overkill).

David,

If you can now freehand up to 16K, it isn't over kill, it is a skill, a skill well worth having.

Welcome to the club.

jtk

[Walter Barbier]

I've encountered problems lately, even using jigs. Your method sounds pretty good, definitely will give it a try. Thanks.

[James W Glenn]

My boat work set up has been a worn 220 diamond plate, one or two restored Arkansas stones and the shattered parts of a magic translucent stone epoxied to a apiece of mahogany plywood.
General sharpening is done free hand with the bevel adjusted to the wood and the work. A jig is occasionally used with the diamond plate to redefine a bevel that has become too convex to grind out free hand. The stones are given a frequent rub on the diamond plate to keep everything very flat.
I have parring chisels and a "fine" plane blades that have a deep convex cut into the bevel with a Dremel tool. This gives a solid bevel register for free hand sharpening and greatly reduces the amount of metal that needs to be honed away to sharpen. This really helps when sharpening "modern" aftermarket blades on oilstones.

[David Ragan]

Correct about potentially putting a convexity on the bevel (not meaning camber).... This occurred to me yesterday as a possible complication. if/when this happens its Tormek time, right?
From what I can tell the one great use for a hollow grind is for registering the bevel for freehand sharpening

[lowell holmes]

Not to be redundant, but if you will try the system described, I think you will eliminate the issue.

If you are stroking from right to left, place your left forefinger on the back of the bevel and press down so the entire face contacts the hone, the face will be flat.

Actually, regardless whether your strokes are back and forth away from you, or cross ways, your finger on the back of the bevel should eliminate convexity.

[Brian Holcombe]

Unless you work with Japanese blades, then a hollow grind is not recommended.

[Christopher Charles]

I had the Joel / Norton video as well. Started with that method, works well for me. The key as noted above is a combination of hollow grind for registration and moving from the core of one's body.

Brian, curious, why do you state a hollow grind is not recommended for western blades?

[Jim Koepke]

Unless you work with Japanese blades, then a hollow grind is not recommended.


Brian, curious, why do you state a hollow grind is not recommended for western blades?

This threw me for a bit, then I realized Japan is to the west of us.

jtk

[Brian Holcombe]

Christopher, it's my understanding that there are multiple reasons, including that the shape will be less than ideal for this sort of laminated construction with a very hard edge. The edge remains intact because it has the soft steel to support it, with that partially removed it would be more prone to chipping.

Many of my hard use chisels are purposefully made with a 'Hamaguri' shape to the edge, this is a very strong shape.

This photo applies to knives, the idea is the same, but the particulars (angles/sizes) are different;

http://i2.guns.ru/forums/icons/forum_pictures/002709/2709666.jpg

My lament above is for paring chisels or light chopping where I prefer a flat edge with very very very minor microbevel (like 3 swipes on the finish stone).

I expect that a large slow wet wheel followed by removing the hollow on flat stones would probably be fine, and I would not be shocked to find that there are people who are doing that with success.

What I would definitely avoid is grinding with a high speed grinder, the extremely hard edge will be damaged by that in many cases. Some chisels are tempered as low as 100C, so it's important not to build heat at the edge.

[David Ragan]

Thanks for participating, as I try to get my head around this whole freehand thing, now that I see it is attainable to a part-timer.

this morning, the blade on the 112 scraper was harder to keep registered with its narrow 45* bevel. However, by not deviating from my original posture and motion, everything went well. I go front to back, maybe a little skewed to accommodate better wear pattern on the stone. It does require complete concentration.

Jim Matthews suggested in a PM to try the figure 8--am not there yet.

The most common error I'm making is letting the back end of the blade drop a little, and grinding the heel of the bevel. this happend only with the very narrow beveled 45* blade today.

I dont have any Japanese blades.

Have never taken a cutting edge to a regular grinder. Scary stuff:eek:.

[Jim Koepke]

Jim Matthews suggested in a PM to try the figure 8--am not there yet.

On oilstones with gouges the figure 8 works for me. With flat blades, back and forth works fine for me on oil or water stones.

jtk

[Christopher Charles]

Thanks Brian, I misread your note. I'll add that I use a slow speed grinder and (for now) only have western chisels. David, I do also have a jig and don't hesitate to use it for blades such as a scraper plane blade (for which i've never had luck hand sharpening).

Cheers,
C

[Karl Fife]

I found the video. It is the joel moskowitz sharpening video. It is available on Amazon and also Tools for Working Wood.
I am serious, it is the best video on sharpening I have seen.

Plus the video is made of silicon carbide. Check the specs.
http://www.amazon.com/Sharpening-Woodworking-Norton-Waterstones-Moskowitz/dp/B000H6FSLS

All of my other woodworking videos are made of some kind of tough silvery plastic. No match for SiC.
For $4 delivered, seems like a deal.

[Robert Engel]

Correct about potentially putting a convexity on the bevel (not meaning camber).... This occurred to me yesterday as a possible complication. if/when this happens its Tormek time, right?
From what I can tell the one great use for a hollow grind is for registering the bevel for freehand sharpeningI hollow grind only to speed up sharpening you're taking off less metal.

Eventually you will loose the hollow grind thru repeated sharpenings. Most of the time once I reach this point as long as the bevel is flat and not concave I don't regrind.

However, once you get enough practice in and the muscle memory that comes with it might not matter thatmuch.

I just like to be able to rock the blade to find a starting point to sharpen from.

[David Ragan]

Hi guys,

Please check out my method here.

Am getting chatter.

Any ideas?

323112

I am pushing down slightly (to secure bevel) with the left hand, and feeling for proper seating of bevel and moving blade toward me and away with right hand.

In actual practice, my right hand is far more down toward the bevel.

This seems to work-last wkd anyway; now it chatters.

As always, thanks

[Allan Speers]

I became a freehand convert only after getting a CBN wheel and grinding slight hollows into some of my blades & chisels. (Thanks, Derek ! ) Someday I'll get them all done. Man, what a difference. It makes it much easier to feel when the blade is level, as it rests on two thin edges,

I haven't tried this on a stock Stanley blade, though. Dunno if it would help. Then again, at some point I'd prefer not to have any blades that thin, anyway.

-----------------------------

FWIW, using a hollow grind has other advantages: Less sharpening time. Less wear on your stones. Slightly more relief under the bevel. - And probably a little less effort to push through the work. I suppose the downside is that the edge is a little less robust.


A nice thing about freehand in general, besides the ease of doing a quick tweak-hone, is that if you use water stones, it actually saves a lot of wear:

With a jig, because the roller is so far behind the cutting edge, the total footprint of the system on the stone is very long. Thus, the stone has to always be really, really flat. That means you have to constantly flatten the ends, causing a lot of waste. When you freehand, the stone only has to be flat in localized areas. A slightly concavity doesn't matter much, so you don't have to level the stone nearly as often.

[Jim Koepke]

This seems to work-last wkd anyway; now it chatters.

Don't you just hate when that happens?

There are as likely many ways for this to happen as there are people sharpening their blades freehand.

This happens to me mostly right after flattening my stones and trying to hone a thick blade.

My belief is it is caused by a form of stiction from the interaction between the flat bevel, the flat stone and the water.

323124

When this happens my solution may be to put a micro bevel on the blade.

jtk

[Bruce Mack]

The use of applied contrast makes it easier to effectively sharpen the very edge. I use Dykem blue layout fluid on my bevels. It contrasts well with metal and is less thick than black marker ink. It comes off immediately with denatured alcohol.

[Tom M King]

I hollow ground edges for a LONG time, but as the flats gradually got wider, to the point of taking over the whole bevel, the need to hollow went away. Now, I only put something to a grinder if the edge has a chunk out of it.

[David Ragan]

When my mother in law started taking pictures, we had chatter marks on the stone. After all the re-takes, now they aren't there....but the chatter is with the actual sharpening.

It occurred to me that some sort of suction/friction dynamic was happening is this the dreaded 'stiction'? Of course, when doing a micro-bevel (or my version of one), it did not chatter.

If it continues, I may get the Tormek out-really dont' want to do that, though.

[Allan Speers]

When my mother in law started taking pictures, we had chatter marks on the stone. After all the re-takes, now they aren't there....but the chatter is with the actual sharpening.

It occurred to me that some sort of suction/friction dynamic was happening is this the dreaded 'stiction'? Of course, when doing a micro-bevel (or my version of one), it did not chatter.

If it continues, I may get the Tormek out-really dont' want to do that, though.

It sounds like stiction. Sometimes it helps to add a drop of dish detergent to your water. That breaks-down the surface tension, especially with finer grit stones.

[Allan Speers]

I hollow ground edges for a LONG time, but as the flats gradually got wider, to the point of taking over the whole bevel, the need to hollow went away. Now, I only put something to a grinder if the edge has a chunk out of it.

I also have no problem free-handing wider blades. However I still prefer to grind a hollow, as this saves both time and wear on the stones.

[Mike Holbrook]

Derek Cohen has a great many tutorials about sharpening on his Blog/site.
Just the other day I decided to put a 6" radius on a 1 1/2" wide Veritas PMI blade I bought for a Stanley 5 1/4, original blade was used up. I followed pretty much the same procedure Derek suggests on his site. I marked a 6" radius on the blade, using an old set of dividers with one side a pencil holder. I set my SB (Stuart Beatty?) tool rest at roughly the same angle as the bevel on the blade (yes it came with a Micro bevel, I just worked around it). My tool rest is rounded on the end facing the user, which I think helps in making convex bevels. Within just a few minuets I had a 6" radius on the blade with a near perfect shallow hollow grind all the way around. From there I took the blade to a Spyderco, medium grit and then a Spyderco ultra fine grit. In a very short time I had a plane blade ground for stock removal all ready to use.

I do not typically try to sharpen my blades sharp enough to shave hair. I want the blade to cut thin strips of paper easily. When I first started sharpening knives I read something written by Beau Randal, the custom knife maker. Mr. Randal explained that a knife sharp enough to shave has an edge that is thin and fragile that will dull/chip easier than the same blade with a slightly less tapered bevel. He was talking about steeper bevels being less fragile than more acute ones. I have learned since then that even a knife, chisel, plane blade with a steep bevel can be made sharper by honing the two edges as perfectly smooth as possible. Still I think there is an area of diminishing returns where fine honing a blade very sharp for rough work does not return the investment.

I am so happy to be able to sharpen so much faster than I use to. When I started reading about all the sharpening jigs, special stones, water wheel slow speed grinders.... on these pages, I took it all to heart and abandoned my old hand sharpening methods from younger years. I like the hand sharpening theme of this thread, because like David I have found that it has been my return to hand sharpening methods that has made sharpening more fun and much more productive.

I love my CBN wheel, even if others find them unnecessary. I have spent hours standing at a Tormek working the bevel on a thick bevel up blade, only to find as the hollow finally started to emerge that it was not in the correct place/orientation, probably due to incorrect pressure on a jig. Having the immediate feed back about what the wheel is doing to the blade has been invaluable in helping me to learn to grind bevels, particularly cambered bevels. I spent years trying to find a way to do this and never came up with anything that worked for me like the CBN wheels, but then I sharpen lots of tools for landscaping and construction work too.

[Pat Barry]

Have never taken a cutting edge to a regular grinder. Scary stuff:eek:.
Some time ago this discussion regarding danger of grinding the hollow bevel came up. George Wilson kinda eased my mind that it really isn't all that dangerous. I have since tied it, freehand at first with trepidation of some nasty kickback, and then with a straightedge coupled to the blade in order to do a better job of making a consistent edge. To this time I have not had a kickback of any sort. I think it is because the angle of convergence of the bevel / tip and the spinning grinding wheel is pretty shallow