Best Sharpening Method

[Christopher Kurdziel]

I have tried multiple ways of sharpening my plane blades and chisels. Right now I have water stones 8000/4000 1000 and a dmt diamond plate (300 grit) that I use to flatten them and to establish bevels. I just got oil stones as well to try them, but i'm not getting as nice of a finish on the oil stones as I was on my water stones (I don't think the final oil stone is as high of a grit as my 8000 stone). My problem is that my dmt diamond plate takes forever to remove material. I think I may have messed it up by pushing to hard on it. What would everyone else recommend doing? Ditch the water stones and get a finer oil stone? Keep the water stones?

I was considering either,
getting a trend diamond plate
Replacing the DMT plate
Getting an Atoma plate

[Warren Mickley]

Welcome to the forum, Christopher. It would be helpful to know what kind of plane irons and chisels you have, what kind of water stones, and what kind of oil stones you have. Otherwise you might just get everyone's personal sharpening method with no regard for your situation.

[Christopher Kurdziel]

I have Stanley Sweetheart blades (3,4,6) and Stanley sweetheart chisels. Norton waterstones. Oilstones from sharpeningsupplies.com (their brand)

[Tom M King]

The DMT may have been dulled by flattening the 1000 grit stone. Those Norton stones were my first Waterstones. At the time, I was using 80 grit wet-or-dry sandpaper on a granite surface plate to flatten the stones. That paper did fine on the 4000 and 8000, but would quickly be used up by the 1000 grit stone. I used oil stones for a couple of decades before I ever had my hands on Waterstones. Either will do fine sharpening, but Waterstones are a lot faster.

[Lenore Epstein]

I don't know what the difference is between you and me and all the folks who love sharpening with DMT stones, but I had the same experience after trying to use one as a substitute for a grinder (which isn't practical because my shop is essentially in my living room). Now I use good-quality coarse power sander belts on a flat reference surface to 'grind' when I need to remove a lot of material, and picked up a King Deluxe 400 grit stone, which is much more dish-resistant than other Kings, for minor flattening or reshaping before moving on to my 1000/5000/8000 (tel:1000/5000/8000) grit waterstones.

But a grinder is the most popular option for serious material removal, and is handy for all kinds of other tasks, so you should consider picking one up. It doesn't sound hard at all to learn to grind without torching or damaging edges, gives you the option of a hollow grind on chisels if that appeals to you, and is a lot faster than just about any stones.

EDIT: I never used my DMT for waterstones, just flattening a few chisel faces back when I was experimenting with sandpaper sharpening (I may have used too much pressure, so maybe it wasn't entirely the stone's fault).

I later bought an iWood 150 (from toolsfromjapan.com) for coarse waterstones and an Atoma 400 (on Amazon) for the 4000 & 8000. Both of them are flatter and seem to be higher quality than the DMT and the iWood showed zero wear even when I recklessly ground a chip on the same brand chisel that immediately broke down the DMT, and although Atomas are spendy, the iWood cost the same as the DMT even with shipping.

[Jim Koepke]

Howdy Christopher and welcome. I see you have been here a couple of years. If you check these pages regularly you will see sharpening is a well worked subject.

I have a Veritas Mk.II Power sharpening system:

http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?p=48435&cat=1,43072

I have used it for back flattening. I am very happy with this system. Some folks have had problems. (some things just do not work for some people.)

My shop also has two set ups for sharpening. One is oilstones, the other is water stones. It gets below freezing in my shop during the winter so oilstones let me continue working. Also some of my blades are gouges and molding plane blades where oilstones are less prone to being damaged by an errant stroke of a sharp blade.

IMO, trying to compare oilstones to water stones is futile. Some charts try by placing a black or translucent Arkansas stone equal to a 2000 water stone.

Water stones tend to have more free abrasive available. Oil stones have the hardness which will also burnish an edge while it is abrading the surface.

I have a couple more oilstones beyond the Arkansas stone. Jasper is a great hard stone for burnishing the steel after it has been honed on an Arkansas stone. This and a few strokes on a strop and there isn't enough difference between the two methods for most folks to notice.

Most folks do not bother with a jasper stone and just strop and likely get the same result. There isn't a big consensus on the best stropping medium. Many like 'green stick' stropping compound of Chromium Oxide. Others have their own preferences from a gold cream to variations on loose diamonds to diamond compounds.

I find diamond stones are rather unforgiving of heavy hands. My only use for diamond stones is an extra fine DMT in my kitchen for knives. Once or twice a year the knives are carried out to the shop for a total sharpening and mostly removing any nicks. In kitchen use my diamond stones seem to last for many years. They are used lightly but often.

For flattening the back of a blade in my shop, an adhesive backed abrasive sheet is used on a hunk of flat granite. Some folks just use water or a spray adhesive to mount a wet or dry type abrasive sheet. Mine is bought in rolls since my granite slab is 4' long. Most of the time I use a 360 grit paper but also have 80 and 220 rolls. I do not do as much of this as I have in the past.

After all is said and done the "best sharpening method" is the one that works best for you.

If you are not totally confused, you just do not understand the situation. (Edward Murrow)

jtk

[Christopher Kurdziel]

I'd prefer something that sharpens way faster.

[Mike Cherry]

I understand why you are experimenting with different sharpening methods, it seems that's a pretty normal thing for people to do. I can tell you from experience that I had everything I needed when I bought a 1k and an 8k water stone and a course diamond plate for flattening. Now Ive got diamond stones, water stones, oil stones, and grinding wheels! If you want to sharpen faster, get better at sharpening. It's that simple. You have everything you need it sounds like. I can get shaving sharp in 5-10 strokes on a course stone and maybe twice that on a fine stone. Work the burr back and forth a couple times and done.

A damaged edge edge takes more work of course. If you need to reset a bevel or grind a new angle, get a bench grinder with a CBN wheel. It takes mere minutes to grind a hollow bevel.

[Luke Dupont]

It sounds like you're pretty well set up for sharpening already.

8000 is a rather fine grit to end on, so I don't know if this will apply to you, but I've found I can get my tools much sharper by utilizing a strop with compound (chromium oxide / the green stuff). It also works great to remove any burrs left by the stones, polish out any scratches, and refine the edge. The highest I've gone with stones is 2500, though.

I've tried sandpaper, synthetic japanese waterstones, diamond stones, and a few arkansas stones now. I would say that the Arkansas stones produce a very fine edge when compared to stones of equal grit, and I like them a lot. I've been using a set of diamond stones (300, 600, and 1200) followed by a strop -- sometimes, but not usually, with 2500 grit sandpaper as an intermediate step, and I've had great results.

There is only one best method, and that's one that you've found best suits you after trying many different methods. What's best for me, won't be best for you, and I think even the best craftsmen disagree about sharpening methodology. I'm rather partial to Paul Seller's method. A lot of people would be vehemently against it, though. If you can consistently and easily produce sharp edges and get back to work, that's what's important.

[Mike Holbrook]

Hi Christopher,
I have :water stones ( King & Sigma Power), DMT Dia Flat, Two Eze-Lap diamond plates, Tormek.....Even with all that I was still frustrated in my efforts to make things sharp. I finally followed the suggestion of some other posters here and bought an inexpensive Delta grinder. I had been concerned about damaging my blades with too much heat. The beauty of a good grinding set up in my experience is it allows you to sharpen much faster for several reasons.

First grinders are just faster at removing material than most methods. Kinda makes sense when you realize the machine is moving the "stone" over the metal at a consistent and faster rate than you can by hand. The second factor is a grinder makes a slight hollow in the bevel of objects being sharpened. That hollow bevel means you do not have to remove nearly as much metal to "hone". Honing is a term many use to refer to resharpening a blade that has an established bevel, especially a hollow bevel. The other factor is the hollow forms two lines at the top and edge of the blade. Those two lines provide a very easy reference surface to rest the blade on while hand sharpening. Honing by hand is faster than trying to use a jig: less set up, less measuring, less restrictions in terms of moving the object over the sharpening surface....

With my grinding set up I am many orders of magnitude faster at sharpening. I am a huge fan of hollow grinding both BU & BD plane blades. I can hone my blades in a minuet or two vs the hours I use to spend and still not get the results I wanted. Once you have a good grinding set up you can hone with a couple very hard waterless stones, saving even more time. I finish with a simple piece of MDF and an inexpensive green buffing compound. I am a "true Believer" in the idea that sharpening should not become something that gets in the way of woodworking but a pleasant short infrequent rest that does not interrupt the flow of the work.

I would suggest looking up old posts on types of stones and CBN wheels for grinding. I use CBN wheels because they are even faster than regular stones, last basically forever and cause almost no heat. CBN wheels are more expensive but worth it to me for: the greater versatility, ease of use and permanent solution. Many have learned to get good results with better stones too though. You might think about a slower or variable speed grinder but once you learn good techniques you can work with the regular speeds without issues.

You might also check out David Weaver's YouTube woodworking channel. David has tried just about everything there is for sharpening. He has one video comparing several different media for honing, concluding that there is no practical difference between the results produced by the top methods, regardless of the cost.

Good luck and good sharpening.

[Robert Engel]

I have a very similar set up to yours. I have all the grits in DMT Duo sharp (I would NOT get mesh stones again) as well as hard/surgical Arkansas which I use for carving tools. I find the black surgical Arkansas about equal to the 8000 water stone. I have an extra fine Diasharp I bought for carving tools and often use it in place of the 1250 for narrow chisels which tend to catch on the mesh.

I now prefer the Dia Sharps over the mesh, but I think the Trend would be a stone I would buy. You're getting 2 very usable grits in one stone, plus Rob Cosman recommends them, so they must be the best, right? :)

I am of the opinion that using my DMT coarse mesh to flatten water stones is wearing it out. Mine is practically useless now for flattening so I wouldn't do it again.
I also feel the flattening stone from Norton is not really flat. To do over again, I think I would go with granite/sandpaper for flattening, its just not as convenient for me in the meantime I will continue to use the coarse DMT for flattening.

To be clear, "sharpening" is removing material and IME the fastest way is diamond stones. IME honing (polishing) is fastest with water stones. I finish up with brief stropping (5-6 strokes). As mentioned, only use oil stones for carving tools. I take a blade to the grinder only to re-establish a hollow bevel.

As for speed, I can be back to work with a plane in less than 3 minutes, chisels often less than 2. I'm starting with 1250 diamond (800 if overly dull) -->4K water --> 8K water --> 6-8 strokes on strop. About 1/2 the time I go straight from 1250 to 8K. Flattening backs on new blades I'm going to pop the top on a brew I know I'll be in it for at least 30 minutes.

Don't think you can get faster than that.

[Derek Cohen]

I have tried multiple ways of sharpening my plane blades and chisels. Right now I have water stones 8000/4000 1000 and a dmt diamond plate (300 grit) that I use to flatten them and to establish bevels. I just got oil stones as well to try them, but i'm not getting as nice of a finish on the oil stones as I was on my water stones (I don't think the final oil stone is as high of a grit as my 8000 stone). My problem is that my dmt diamond plate takes forever to remove material. I think I may have messed it up by pushing to hard on it. What would everyone else recommend doing? Ditch the water stones and get a finer oil stone? Keep the water stones?

I was considering either,
getting a trend diamond plate
Replacing the DMT plate
Getting an Atoma plate

Hi Christopher

Welcome to the forum.

The best sharpening equipment means little without a suitable sharpening strategy. It will help to advise you if we know what you do with your equipment. For example, do you freehand or use a honing guide? Do you hollow grind or work a flat primary bevel? Do you add a secondary bevel (a bevel at a higher angle to the primary bevel)? Do you know what a microbevel is? Do you prepare your blades with a grinder at all and, if so, what do you use?

Sharpening is hugely provocative topic on forums. Everyone has an opinion. Many will be tempted to say what works for them. It is horses for courses - what strategies have you tried? Anything working for you?

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Rob Luter]

I hollow grind with a low speed grinder, then use 3M abrasive film mounted on glass for flattening backs and honing the cutting edges. All the heavy lifting is done during the hollow grinding. I use a Veritas honing guide to keep the angles consistent. Back flattening is accomplished using a variant of the "ruler trick", so that goes fast too. It's a cheap and reliable method that works for me.

https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5511/12016227873_7c0db0c76f_b.jpg

[Prashun Patel]

Due respect, before you get new equipment, I would find someone to watch you sharpen. Hone your technique with what you have. You can do it.

I am taking classes now with a Creeker (Brian Holcombe) and while his method for flattening, sharpening, and honing is slightly different from mine, he has helped me identify flaws in my own technique and evaluation of my results.

For instance, I flatten my backs on a Worksharp. But going through manual flattening with him and seeing what he defined as flat helped me to realize I wasn't careful enough in flattening. He also showed me that I wasn't appreciating the subtlety of properly flattening the cap iron. I THOUGHT I had these concepts down. But a coach helps me see flaws in my implementation that I am myopic to.

Once your technique and powers of evaluation are good, then you can evaluate which kind of stones/powered items appeal to your sense of aesthetics and efficiency.

Even as I read this thread I'm tempted to buy, buy, buy - especially since LV is having free shipping right now :(. Resist the temptation!

[Normand Leblanc]

Just like others have said, if I go back to the time where it was very difficult to sharpen properly, I know that the media (stones) wasn't the problem, it was me.

I kept changing technique and media without mastering any one.

Pick a media, then a proper technique for that media and then practise. You will be surprise at how easy it is once you master it.

[Jim Koepke]

I kept changing technique and media without mastering any one.

This is a common refrain from the chorus of the sharpening song.

You may often hear sharp is a moving target. I used to think my tools were sharp. Then I learned to get them even sharper. Currently I can get my blades sharp enough to shave. I look forward to learning more about improving my abilities and getting my blades sharper still.

There are a lot of techniques. Many of them are confusing. My suggestion is to start by keeping it simple. You will hear a lot about 'hollow ground' blades. That is what happens when a standard grinder is used. It cuts an arc into the blade. This is the easiest to work with when learning freehand sharpening. The blade can be felt to 'click' as it registers on the honing media. It is helpful, but not necessary to learn good sharpening practices.

Once you can repeatedly make two planes meet, the back of the blade and the bevel, then you can 'experiment' with all of the other blade preparation 'tricks.'

There isn't a need to go buy something new. What is needed is to learn to work with what you have. For the longest time oilstones didn't seem to work for me. It took me learning to sharpen with water stones to learn to appreciate and use my oilstones.

Christopher, what is your location. You may live near another member who would be willing to take some time with you one on one to help you with your sharpening.

jtk

[Mike Holbrook]

More wise words above.

It may help to break the strategizing and practicing Derek and Prashun are counseling into two parts. Breaking sharpening down into grinding and honing may simplify your strategy and make learning a skill set easier. Grinding is what one does to establish a bevel on the blade so that the blade can be quickly honed to a sharp edge. Some use flat bevels, some use hollow bevels, some use micro bevels...Basic bevel making skills may require different sharpening media and skills than honing.

Trying to learn a single strategy that succeeds at both extremes can be a problem.

[Stew Hagerty]

For what it's worth, here is my method. I use oil stones exclusively. I have three stones from Dan's Whetstones. I have a Soft Arkansas, a Hard Arkansas, and a Black Arkansas. I use those for nearly all of my honing. If I am working on a new iron or especially one from a newly acquired vintage plane, I also have three Norton India Stones: Course, Medium, & Fine. I also have a Genuine Horse Butt Stop from Tools 4 Working Wood, charged with green Chromium compound on the rough side and occasionally sprayed with DMT Dia-Spray on the smooth side. I follow the Black Arkansas with several strokes on the smooth side of the strop (green chromium compound is courser than the Black Arkansas so I do not use that side following honing). For a quick touch-up on a chisel (if I take the time to pull out a plane iron, I hone it then strop on the smooth side) or other sharp tool, I use the Green side, then flip it to the smooth Dia-Sprayed side of the strop. This system works very well for me on ALL of my different steels. I have vintage carbon steel, O1, A2, & PM-V11. Yes it does take a little longer to hone A2 on the oil stones than it would on waterstones, but I like the edge I get, I have no mess, and I don't worry about rust.

[Christopher Kurdziel]

I'm in Southeast PA. I plan on finishing off on a strop, but what I need is something that I can quickly establish a bevel with. I think I should spend the money on a worksharp or the Veritas version because of what has happened to my diamond stone. I don't want to buy another diamond stone and have the same thing happen. Unless this lives up to what the description says (http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?p=70346&cat=1,43072). Also, what is an oil stone that is equivalent to an 8000 oil stone?

[Warren Mickley]

A soft Arkansas when freshly milled is kind of rough, but we don't use it that way. Well used it is roughly equivalent to a 8000 stone.

[Eric D. Richardson]

I have tried multiple ways of sharpening my plane blades and chisels. Right now I have water stones 8000/4000 1000 and a dmt diamond plate (300 grit) that I use to flatten them and to establish bevels. I just got oil stones as well to try them, but i'm not getting as nice of a finish on the oil stones as I was on my water stones (I don't think the final oil stone is as high of a grit as my 8000 stone). My problem is that my dmt diamond plate takes forever to remove material. I think I may have messed it up by pushing to hard on it. What would everyone else recommend doing? Ditch the water stones and get a finer oil stone? Keep the water stones?

I was considering either,
getting a trend diamond plate
Replacing the DMT plate
Getting an Atoma plate


Christopher,
I'm new here, and the one area I have always struggled with is sharpening anything. However, I watched the Paul Sellers video on sharpening chisels (the 22 min one) and the results was amazing. I followed his process almost exactly. I used a tile instead of glass (it was cheaper) and my grit was just a little higher for starting. I think he used 240, and I used 320. I ordered the 10 piece Narex chisels, because I didn't have a set and can't afford the high end ones. I started with the 1" chisel and the performance was just as good as Pauls when I was done. (Based on his demo at the end) I have now sharpened my marking knife and it turned out amazingly sharp as well. I have sharpened my pocket knife following his knife sharpening video and the results was just as amazing. So, that is where I started, and I hope it helps you.

ER

[Jim Koepke]

I would caution against the Paul Sellers method for users of water stones. An errant stroke can leave an ugly gash.

There are other reasons I do not use the convex bevel method.

There are a lot of 'methods' that are not used on my tools. I like to keep it simple with a flat bevel and a flat back. This is what works for me.

As per usual:

338737

jtk

[Stew Hagerty]

I'm in Southeast PA. I plan on finishing off on a strop, but what I need is something that I can quickly establish a bevel with. I think I should spend the money on a worksharp or the Veritas version because of what has happened to my diamond stone. I don't want to buy another diamond stone and have the same thing happen. Unless this lives up to what the description says (http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?p=70346&cat=1,43072). Also, what is an oil stone that is equivalent to an 8000 oil stone?

My Soft Arkansas is very similar to what an 8000 would be. It gives a decent edge, but I always continue on to my Hard Arkansas & Black Arkansas. If you have ever used a Black Arkansas you should try it. It puts an extremely sharp and very hard burnished edge on irons and chisels of all steel types.

[Derek Cohen]

I'm in Southeast PA. I plan on finishing off on a strop, but what I need is something that I can quickly establish a bevel with. I think I should spend the money on a worksharp or the Veritas version because of what has happened to my diamond stone. I don't want to buy another diamond stone and have the same thing happen. Unless this lives up to what the description says (http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?p=70346&cat=1,43072). Also, what is an oil stone that is equivalent to an 8000 oil stone?

Christopher ... stop!

You have yet to tell us HOW you go about sharpening. All the media you have could be used very effectively by someone - obviously not by you. The question is why? Tell us how you sharpen and someone can advise you then on what is going on and how to fix it. Throwing more sharpening gear into the mix will not solve a problem if the solution lies elsewhere. The steel you want to hone is very simple stuff. It should get very sharp with little effort, and certainly without more expense.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Patrick Chase]

In addition to all of the other (great) comments, I would make two additional points:

1. You need to be clearer about your requirements. What sorts of tools (and metals) do you sharpen, what do you do by hand (for example do you smooth exclusively by hand), what woods do you work, etc.

2. On a related note there is no "best" sharpening method. There are a whole bunch that are optimal (in the sense of taking the least effort to get end results that are as good as or better than any other method) for specific sets of requirements, but without knowing your requirements it's impossible to know which may make sense.

One key concept here is "sharp enough": For any given tool, task, and workpiece (species and grain matter here) there will be some level of sharpness above which you don't get any practical benefit from further honing/refining. My point in (2) above is that a sharpening method is optimal when it gets you to "sharp enough" with a minimum of whatever you're trying to economize (for most people this is some combination of up-front time learning the method, per-sharpening time/hassle, and cost).

Shaving with your tools is fun and we all do it at some point, but that goes well beyond "sharp enough" for any real woodworking application. IMO there is almost never any practical benefit for woodworking from using abrasives with less than 1 micron grit size (the equivalent of #10000-15000 depending on whose system you use). Note that this assumes a tight particle size distribution: Some media, most notably the "0.5 micron" green stropping compound that a lot of people use, have unusually high particle size variability and therefore leave deeper scratches and rougher edges than their nominal size would imply, and you have to adjust accordingly.

[paul cottingham]

Like Derek said: "Stop!" :-)

you may have what you need to get excellent edges. Please tell us exactly what you have, and what you are hoping to accomplish. Until my hands went south I got edges that could split atoms with just waterstones. Well, maybe a slight exaggeration.

But im sure you can get damn good edges with a minimum of gear.

[Nicholas Lawrence]

Christopher ... stop!


I agree more information is needed to help you. When you reference a better finish on the waterstones, are you talking about the polish on the blade, or are you talking about the quality of the surface you get when you use the tool? Are you sharpening freehand or using a guide?

I would not go out any buy anything new until you figure out how to use what you have. The Norton 1000/4000/8000 (tel:1000/4000/8000) sequence will get you a reasonably sharp edge. That is pretty much my setup, except I don't have the 4000 and (shhh, don't tell the sharpening police) go straight from the 1000 to the 8000.

If you have seriously monkeyed up the bevels the tools came with, and need to correct them, you can use a piece of sandpaper on a flat surface. I have a coarse Norton waterstone I use for that sort of thing, but I honestly could not recommend that stone to anyone (unlike the other Nortons I have, it goes out of flat if you give it a hard look, and I don't think it will last very long at the rate it is wearing).

[Robert Engel]

I have now sharpened my marking knife and it turned out amazingly sharp as well. I have sharpened my pocket knife following his knife sharpening video and the results was just as amazing. So, that is where I started, and I hope it helps you.

ERI don't like the end grain test as much as shaving hair. I know if it shaves, its sharp.

[Robert Engel]

I'm in Southeast PA. I plan on finishing off on a strop, but what I need is something that I can quickly establish a bevel with. I think I should spend the money on a worksharp or the Veritas version because of what has happened to my diamond stone. I don't want to buy another diamond stone and have the same thing happen. Unless this lives up to what the description says (http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?p=70346&cat=1,43072). Also, what is an oil stone that is equivalent to an 8000 oil stone?
Christopher, I understand the process you're going through and I think all of us have stones laying in drawers we never use. This happens as your sharpening technique develops. I think you just have to see what works best for you.

But you already have waterstones in 4k/8k and that is as far as you need to go for 90% of your ww'ing. The 300/1000 Trend diamond plate will do your backs and initial sharpening. Maybe I would keep the 300 DMT for flattening water stones.

I have found a 250 grit water stone also quite handy for those stubborn flattening jobs.

Oilstones are fine, but IME I've not found they work as fast as waterstones. I do, however, use them almost exclusively for sharpening carving gouges. I now prefer an extra fine DiaSharp (non mesh) stone which IMO removes material much faster than the soft Arkansas.

The other issue with Arkansas stones is you can't correct them for flatness, so I would not use them for flattening unless I had nothing else.

FWIW, I would place my black (surgical) Arkansas equivalent to an 8-12K water.

[ken hatch]

Christopher, I understand the process you're going through and I think all of us have stones laying in drawers we never use. This happens as your sharpening technique develops. I think you just have to see what works best for you.

But you already have waterstones in 4k/8k and that is as far as you need to go for 90% of your ww'ing. The 300/1000 Trend diamond plate will do your backs and initial sharpening. Maybe I would keep the 300 DMT for flattening water stones.

I have found a 250 grit water stone also quite handy for those stubborn flattening jobs.

Oilstones are fine, but IME I've not found they work as fast as waterstones. I do, however, use them almost exclusively for sharpening carving gouges. I now prefer an extra fine DiaSharp (non mesh) stone which IMO removes material much faster than the soft Arkansas.

The other issue with Arkansas stones is you can't correct them for flatness, so I would not use them for flattening unless I had nothing else.

FWIW, I would place my black (surgical) Arkansas equivalent to an 8-12K water.

What????

All stones dish, some easier than others. All stones will need flatting at some point, some more often than others. All stones can be flattened, some require more effort than others. BTW all stones make a mess, some more than others. Those are the factors which should help you decide what is the best sharpening system for your work flow.

ken

[bridger berdel]

when I first started working I had a washita stone and a bottle of 3in1 oil. for heavy bevel shaping, sandpaper on glass or a borrowed bench grinder. it wasn't until probably 5 years later that I started accumulating other stones and gear, but I got my tools sharp (had to).

today I have something like 50 or 100 stones, a dozen or so benchtop grinding machines, surface plates, precision angle tooling, the list goes on (and on and on....). I do get some tools sharper today than I got them then, but most tools I get as sharp as necessary and no more (unless I'm being obsessive or something).

overtooling too soon won't help you.

[Patrick Chase]

The other issue with Arkansas stones is you can't correct them for flatness, so I would not use them for flattening unless I had nothing else.

Arks are actually pretty soft (SiO2, aka Novaculite) and can be flattened easily with a diamond plate.

The only problem with doing that is that you also "correct" them to their as-new state of roughness/grit. As Warren pointed out we actually rely on a certain amount of glazing when we use arks as finishing stones. That isn't a problem for the coarse/soft ones, though, and those are the ones that need flattening most anyway.

[Steve Voigt]

Thanks Ken and Patrick for pointing out that Oilstones most certainly can be flattened. I always like to point out that there is a diversity of opinion on this. On the one hand you have folks like Warren who basically never abrade their oilstones; on the other you have Larry Williams who abrades them every single time he sharpens. Probably most users will fall somewhere in between these points.

Recently I was introduced to the idea of aligning fineness of stone to fineness of grading media. In other words, use a very fine diamond stone to grade a hard black or trannie Ark, and use coarser media to grade coarser stones. I have an "extra fine" Eze lap (1200, wtf that means) that was useless to me, since I loathe diamond stones, but I've been using it to grade my hard black, and I'm impressed with the results so far (but that's a provisional conclusion; I've only been doing it a couple months).

[Stewie Simpson]

It should also be pointed out that Novaculite honing stones have a mohs hardness of 6.5; very low compared to that of Al- Oxide at 9.2 ; and Crystolon Silicon Carbide at 9.5.

http://www.clovegarden.com/ke/kn_stone.html

Trying using a coarse diamond plate to flatten a hard Crystolon Silicon Carbide Stone and you will destroy the diamond plates grit in under 20 min. From my understanding, the only way you can flatten a Crystolon Silicon Carbide stone is by using loose grit Silicon Carbide powder over a glass surface. A modern methodology that was beyond the reach of earlier craftsmen.

Stewie;


Silicon Carbide - Crystolon

http://www.clovegarden.com/ke/img/kn_stonesc01h.jpg "Crystolon" is a trademark of Norton Abrasives for man-made stones of Silicon Carbide that are vitreously bonded. In other words, they are heated to such a high temperature that the grains fuse together. Other companies can make similar stones but cannot call them "Crystolon". Silicon Carbide has a mohs hardness of 9.5.

[Gary Cunningham]

Do you have/use a honing guide? I started my descent into the Neander abyss two years ago.
Before that I used a Lansky system for knives, and did not know a good plane from a junk plane.

Now I use waterstones, 800, 1200 and 6000. Using a guide and advice gleaned from the 'net and books I can do a decent job.

I did buy a coarse DMT plate for fixing gnarly edges.

As others have said, do not buy more stuff. Learn to use what you have at hand. Sharpening is a case where (proper) practice can make perfect results.

[Stewie Simpson]

The challenge is to find a break-in procedure that will remove the over-sized particles while minimizing the loss of nominal-sized abrasive.
https://scienceofsharp.wordpress.com/2015/09/28/diamond-plate-break-in-part-2/

[Luke Dupont]

I would caution against the Paul Sellers method for users of water stones. An errant stroke can leave an ugly gash.

There are other reasons I do not use the convex bevel method.



I would be inclined to agree, though I do use Paul Seller's method, and have used it on my waterstone without any fear. I just go more carefully than I would on diamond or oilstones.

If I were ending on very fine finishing stones instead of a strop, I would probably not use a convex bevel, because coarser stones will quickly work the bevel down to the edge regardless of the geometry of the bevel, but very fine stones will not, making it tricky to get all the way down to the edge and potentially encouraging one to adopt too steep an angle to get there. In my personal case, I prefer using coarser stones and finishing on the strop, and I like the resulting geometry; the convex bevel rides concave curves very nicely when paring, I find.

So, you definitely want your sharpening method to fit the sharpening media you're using, or vice-versa.

[Jim Koepke]

Hi Stewie,

Does Crystolon also have a fast cutting action?

I have some stones that I think might be Crystolon. They are gray and they seem to cut quickly.

My knowledge of the different abrasives is dwarfed by what others here post.

jtk

[Stewie Simpson]

If you take the time to read the following article by Brent Beach; it raises questions on the benefits gained by stropping.

Stewie;

http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpen/Stropping.html

[Kees Heiden]

Well, better not to read Brent Beach' website I suppose.

[Stewie Simpson]

Hi Stewie,

Does Crystolon also have a fast cutting action?

I have some stones that I think might be Crystolon. They are gray and they seem to cut quickly.

My knowledge of the different abrasives is dwarfed by what others here post.

jtk

Jim; from my understanding the finer grade Norton Crystolon honing stones may be fast cutting, but generally regarded by others as not having a fine enough grit to finish off a sharp edge on a chisel or plane iron.

I am still awaiting an order of silicon carbide powder to trial its use on flattening 2 Crystolon stones I purchased 2nd hand a few years ago. Will provide more feedback at a later date.

Stewie;

[Phil Mueller]

For me - in terms of what media - it was a matter of deciding space and convenience. Like others have posted, you can get sharp in a lot of different ways...certainly with what you have now. After starting with sandpaper/plate glass, moving to waterstones, and now diamond plates/strop, I found convenience, space, and time to be the critical factor.

In my case, I don't have room for a dedicated sharpening station. I needed some method that could be out during a project for quick touch ups, minimal mess, and usable sharpness.

Sandpaper/plate glass didn't take up too much space, but the hassle of changing grits, and the quick wear out of sandpaper got old. I found myself using dull tools dreading the process (I do still pull this out for rehabing old or damanged tools and initial flattening of backs).

I moved to waterstones. A small tub for soaking and a small holder didn't take up too much space. It was more convenient vs. changing sandpaper, but far more mess (for me anyway). Plus the added need to flatten the stones. I ended up with water and slurry all over the place.

I have since moved to Paul Seller's method. A small holder for the diamond stones and a strop takes up less space and is convenient to leave out all the time. A squirt or two of windex. Very little mess. I did change my method as well. Freehand, convex bevel. Because of the convenience, the little time needed to touch up, no guide set up, and it's out all the time, I no longer dread sharpening, and do it more often vs. struggling with dull tools.

Point being, consider also the space and convenience for your work area and your tolerance for time in sharpening. The more convenient, the more you'll touch up a dull edge.

Pretty darn sharp beats dull anytime.

[Warren Mickley]

If you take the time to read the following article by Brent Beach; it raises questions on the benefits gained by stropping.

Stewie;

http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpen/Stropping.html



I was taught to use a strop around 1965 and I use strops on tools and razors. I don't think Brent Beach has any idea how to use a strop.

Silicon carbide stones were first manufactured in the late 19th century. The man who first synthesized SiC called it Carborundum and the stones he manufatured Carborundum stones. The Carborundum corporation is still going but I don't know if they still make stones. Crystolon stones are a much more recent product.

[george wilson]

The method I taught other craftsmen to use in Williamsburg to flatten their stones was this: Lay a sandstone wheel(which we all had in our shops) down flat. Splash some water on it while rubbing your stone(black Arkansas or other) on it. In just a few minutes your stone will be flat.

I asm sure most of you don't have a large,old fashioned sandstone wheel laying around! But,if you have a stone seller in your area(architectural,monument,or other ),go buy a block of it,or a flat plate,which would be better.

Years ago,a friend wanted to get some SOAP STONE to sculpt. The art supply catalog in hand wanted something like $40.00 for a 6" cube(or 4" cube,I can't recall). I called an architectural stone supplier and they wanted a small fraction of that price for the same stone. So,go that route.

Nothing wrong with using loose grains on a glass,too. I just never have used that method,since the sandstone was so quick and effective. I learned this trick from old Mr. Simms,whose old tool box Roy had on his show.I was dismayed to see that his antique English chisels,which had 8" long blades,were now about 2" long,from being excessively ground to death by Mr. Simms' HIPPIE son,who was a total idiot. I knew him TOO WELL,as he was put into the cabinet shop for several months at the time I supervised both the Musical Instrument Maker and Cabinet Shops(between master cabinet makers). But,that is another long,and frustrating story. One detail,he made a stand up desk that was so bad the wheelwright refused to accept it!!:) All the time complaining about how incompetent others were!!!

Re: sharpening,please go read my post in the "Skew plane" thread.

[Prashun Patel]

Christopher-

Reading back through your responses, I believe your goal is improving speed. You're not complaining about your edge, just how long it takes to get a good, repeatable bevel.

So I suspect you will end up with a power solution to grinding (either a slow speed grinder, a sanding belt system, a Tormek, or a Worksharp).

I still would not go out and buy any of them without finding someone to practice with.

To that end, I am in Central NJ and would be happy to let you play with my Worksharp and ss grinder to see if that suits you. If you bring all your stones, I can show you how I do things. I am not much of a coach (yet!) and am still learning, but I can certainly give you my 2 cents. PM me.

[george wilson]

It would be nice if you could understand what Brent Beach is saying!!!!! I can't make out if he likes the white compound best,but I think so.

He is a real knife freak!!

I wish ROB LEE would enter this thread and talk about his green compound(which is what I use).

I get a razor sharp edge with LV green compound. What I do is just WEAR OUT the compound on a piece of MDF. I think,and always have,that just USING the same compound well worn out will reduce the large size particles,if there are any,break them down as the strop is used,and produce a finer edge. I have not verified this with a microscope. My edges were plenty sharp enough to carve anything with,even tiny carvings.

I have used white compound,Simichrome,Autosol polish,and as a teenager regular old silver polish,because we had it in the house. All gave a very sharp edge,and I used it well worn down.

When you are making carvings with very thin elements,like some of the lute roses I have posted,an extremely sharp edge is very necessary. If not,you will break the 1/32" wide tendrils and creepers that you are carving. If my knife carves those,I am happy.

[Chris Fournier]

For me successful sharpening of my tools has three elements: a sharp usable cutting edge, the process is as quick and painless as possible, and it is economical.

Getting a sharp edge is not difficult with a little practice but you do have to climb up the learning curve and climbing involves effort. If you keep changing your process by introducing new wonder tools then realise that you are starting your climb all over again.

Sharp tools make for better work so I need them to be sharp all the time and moving from my woodworking bench to the sharpening bench for and then back to the wood needs to be a quick and thoughtless process. Again practice and a well thought out process.

Economical. Companies are designing must have sharpening tools that get more elaborate, use more exotic materials, and cost more every year it seems. Do these tools actually help you get a better edge? If so I guess that it is money well spent for you.

My process: Dry grinder with 46 and 60 grit wheels (3450 RPM). 800/4000/6000/8000 grit water stones. Stones maintained on a granite inspection plat and siclube paper. Done. Bonus, the inspection plate is used for truing plane soles and other tasks.

I have worn out stones and grinding wheels but I have not chased miracle cures for poor technique and results by buying more sharpening stuff.

My advice is to research what you are doing, practice what you know in a disciplined manner, and then critique your results and change your method accordingly. Move slowly, deliberately, and develop your touch. Touch turns out to be almost all of the battle in my opinion.

Drill bits are entirely another matter with another process.

[Patrick Chase]

If you take the time to read the following article by Brent Beach; it raises questions on the benefits gained by stropping.

Stewie;

http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpen/Stropping.html



IMO Brent is pretty hit-or-miss. He obviously deserves some credit for [re-]popularizing sandpaper and giving it a catchy name, and he also rightly drew attention to the particle size issues with the ubiquitous green honing compound (to the point where he got LV to modify their marketing claims for the stuff).

Beyond that I think his record is rather mixed, though. IMO he over-interprets the results he gets from that cr*ppy little USB microscope. When I look at his shots it's sort of like reading tea leaves, and when I've repeated some of his experiments with my own (much better) scope I don't get results like his.

One example is his famous disdain for Shapton. Shapton are VERY aggressive about how they rate grit, for example Shapton rates a 1.5 micron stone as "#10000", whereas almost everybody else is down around 1-1.2 um at that rating. Brent goes beyond that and claims that their polishers contain *much* larger "rogue particles", though, and I simply can't reproduce his results in that regard.

[Mel Fulks]

Jim, the Norton ones cut the fastest according to David W , some of the cheap stones of that type stuff are quite coarse but don't really do much and can be found on the import junk tool tables for a few dollars.

[Jim Koepke]

If you take the time to read the following article by Brent Beach; it raises questions on the benefits gained by stropping.

Stewie;

http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpen/Stropping.html



It seems it all depends on what your finishing stone happens to be:


This page shows that if you want the smoothest possible edge and if you hone on sheet abrasives down to 0.5 microns, then stropping with any of the stropping compounds listed here is a mistake. If you stop honing at a larger grit, then stropping may help. This result applies even if you strop using the Lee Valley Chrome Oxide honing compound advertised as half micron.

Over stropping can dub an edge. A little stropping may remove any roughness at the edge.

I have taken a blade off my 8000 stone that could smoothly shave hair. After a bit of over stropping it no longer cut. Likewise I have taken a blade from my 8000 stone that would do more hair pulling than cutting and a few strokes on the strop and it cut smooth.

At least for me the effect of stropping is dependent on what one starts with and how one does the stropping. In a book by Chris Pye he states no more than 10 strokes on each side with a strop to avoid dubbing. My recollection is Paul Sellers suggests 30 or more strokes on each side.

Different folks - different strokes.

jtk

[Patrick Chase]

It should also be pointed out that Novaculite honing stones have a mohs hardness of 6.5; very low compared to that of Al- Oxide at 9.2 ; and Crystolon Silicon Carbide at 9.5.

http://www.clovegarden.com/ke/kn_stone.html

Trying using a coarse diamond plate to flatten a hard Crystolon Silicon Carbide Stone and you will destroy the diamond plates grit in under 20 min. From my understanding, the only way you can flatten a Crystolon Silicon Carbide stone is by using loose grit Silicon Carbide powder over a glass surface. A modern methodology that was beyond the reach of earlier craftsmen.

Stewie

The problem with those SiC stones (a.k.a. Crystolon, Carborundum) and diamond plates is more about the grit and the bond than the abrasive. SiC is still quite a bit softer than diamond, so there's no issue there, and people (including me) routinely flatten SiC waterstones like the Sigma Select II 1000 and the Sigma Power 3F Carbon 700 on diamond plates.

The problem with the Crystolon stones is that they're pretty coarse and have very strong bonds compared to the aforementioned waterstones. Coarse stones (even AlOx ones) are always a problem for diamond plates, and strong bonds just make it worse.

[Patrick Chase]

It would be nice if you could understand what Brent Beach is saying!!!!! I can't make out if he likes the white compound best,but I think so.

He is a real knife freak!!

I wish ROB LEE would enter this thread and talk about his green compound(which is what I use).

I get a razor sharp edge with LV green compound. What I do is just WEAR OUT the compound on a piece of MDF. I think,and always have,that just USING the same compound well worn out will reduce the large size particles,if there are any,break them down as the strop is used,and produce a finer edge. I have not verified this with a microscope. My edges were plenty sharp enough to carve anything with,even tiny carvings.

I have used white compound,Simichrome,Autosol polish,and as a teenager regular old silver polish,because we had it in the house. All gave a very sharp edge,and I used it well worn down.

Leonard Lee's book is quite clear that the green compound has a significant percentage of larger (>0.5 um) particles of calcinated alumina in it, so there's no debate on that point.

I think that Brent got carried away as is his tendency and was overly negative about that compound though. It isn't really 0.5 um, but 0.5 is the equivalent of #20000-#30000 so nobody really needs that anyway. In my experience it leaves a finish at least as good as a #6000-#8000 waterstone, and that's realistically good enough.

Also, abrasive particles do break down and become embedded in soft strop material, so even if there are some large particles they won't necessarily cause huge scratches when used on a strop. I suspect the green compound may have been designed with that in mind, such that it initially cuts fast and then "mellows" as the larger particles embed themselves. Leonard Lee's book uses some wording that implies that, but I don't have it in front of me and can't remember exactly what he said.

[george wilson]

I think way too much attention has been paid to certain aspects of sharpening. I agree with Chris Fournier about the place that sharpening has in the wood working process: Learn how to do it without a lot of hooplah and gadgets. Sharpening shouldn't be an end in itself. It is done efficiently when needed and get back to actual work. Patrick agrees with me that larger particles are either crushed down smaller,or get embedded in the strop. If the strop is MDF,they are likely crushed as the surface is hard enough to do that.

I have a microscope,but I've NEVER BOTHERED to examine an edge with it. Perhaps I SHOULD look at edges through it? But,I know how to efficiently produce a razor sharp edge and quickly get back to what is REALLY important: THE WORK. I have carved quite tiny work with my German bench knife,and later with bench knives that I made my own blade for. So,that is enough for me.

I think that any larger particles in the green compound get crushed or embedded in the strop,as I said several posts above. Go ahead and KEEP using that strop without re charging it. It will only cut more finely as particles are further crushed down.

The question as I see it is: What can you DO with that tool you just sharpened? Can you do decent work with it? Can you DESIGN good work upon which to use your sharp tools?

I don't know what Mr. Beach does with all those hunting knives. I have made a few sheath knives,but mostly folders. I can't go around with a hunting knife on my belt!:) The Bowie knife I have posted here serves no more purpose than to look at,in reality. I enjoy the challenge of freehand grinding blades like that accurately and cleanly. The Bowie knife(In reality the ENGLISH Bowie knife shapes that were imported here in the 19th. C.. The REAL Bowie knife was lost at the Alamo battle.) are beautiful shapes,I think.These are really FIGHTING knives. A 4" blade is about the longest USEFUL hunting knife blade. We only have deer around here,not buffalo! Once Mr. Beach has gotten his largest hunting knife sharp enough to slash a Grizzly BAR clean in half in one stroke,WHAT does he do with them? It almost looks like sharpening to him is an end in itself. It should not be. But,to a REAL knife freak,it MIGHT BE!:) alright! I ALSO get a bit over the top on keeping my pocket knife sharp as a razor. But,I have a REASON to do that. I do things that NEED that level of sharpness. I grew up very poor,with a pocket knife and a block plane to make guitars with. I had to go to a friend's house to use his electric drill to drill holes for the tuners. I still use a pocket knife for some operations because I know where it is!

So,I advise woodworkers to learn how to sharpen your tools as simply as possible,and just not worry about microscopic examination of your cutting edges. If you can cut wood cleanly,leaving a polished surface,go for it!

[bridger berdel]

I think way too much attention has been paid to certain aspects of sharpening. I agree with Chris Fournier about the place that sharpening has in the wood working process: Learn how to do it without a lot of hooplah and gadgets. Sharpening shouldn't be an end in itself. It is done efficiently when needed and get back to actual work.



very good down to earth advice. I teach sharpening, mostly to beginners, and I give them all basically that same advice. not that I follow it myself, mind you....


Patrick agrees with me that larger particles are either crushed down smaller,or get embedded in the strop. If the strop is MDF,they are likely crushed as the surface is hard enough to do that.

I have a microscope,but I've NEVER BOTHERED to examine an edge with it. Perhaps I SHOULD look at edges through it? But,I know how to efficiently produce a razor sharp edge and quickly get back to what is REALLY important: THE WORK.


I have a few loupes and microscopes. I have used them to good effect when sharpening. they were especially helpful getting me up the slope on straight razors. I bought a $20 digital one- basically a webcam with a magnification lens- which gave me pictures like:
https://67.media.tumblr.com/15a70dcec799dcd9149b0d196de73aaf/tumblr_mhzn06JqnB1qhrm32o3_1280.jpg
and
https://67.media.tumblr.com/95d38c59f92907c72e3eb77d5a3cd328/tumblr_mhzn06JqnB1qhrm32o7_1280.jpg

I don't continue to use it on everything I sharpen, but it served me well at that time.


I have carved quite tiny work with my German bench knife,and later with bench knives that I made my own blade for. So,that is enough for me.

I think that any larger particles in the green compound get crushed or embedded in the strop,as I said several posts above. Go ahead and KEEP using that strop without re charging it. It will only cut more finely as particles are further crushed down.

The question as I see it is: What can you DO with that tool you just sharpened? Can you do decent work with it? Can you DESIGN good work upon which to use your sharp tools?

I don't know what Mr. Beach does with all those hunting knives. I have made a few sheath knives,but mostly folders. I can't go around with a hunting knife on my belt!:) The Bowie knife I have posted here serves no more purpose than to look at,in reality. I enjoy the challenge of freehand grinding blades like that accurately and cleanly. The Bowie knife(In reality the ENGLISH Bowie knife shapes that were imported here in the 19th. C.. The REAL Bowie knife was lost at the Alamo battle.) are beautiful shapes,I think.These are really FIGHTING knives. A 4" blade is about the longest USEFUL hunting knife blade. We only have deer around here,not buffalo! Once Mr. Beach has gotten his largest hunting knife sharp enough to slash a Grizzly BAR clean in half in one stroke,WHAT does he do with them? It almost looks like sharpening to him is an end in itself. It should not be. But,to a REAL knife freak,it MIGHT BE!:) alright! I ALSO get a bit over the top on keeping my pocket knife sharp as a razor. But,I have a REASON to do that. I do things that NEED that level of sharpness. I grew up very poor,with a pocket knife and a block plane to make guitars with. I had to go to a friend's house to use his electric drill to drill holes for the tuners. I still use a pocket knife for some operations because I know where it is!

So,I advise woodworkers to learn how to sharpen your tools as simply as possible,and just not worry about microscopic examination of your cutting edges. If you can cut wood cleanly,leaving a polished surface,go for it!

[Prashun Patel]

I use a loupe on occasion - but only to help diagnose a problem. For instance: It was recently hit home to me the importance of a chip breaker set close to the blade edge. Believing I had prepped the tip of the cap properly, I was puzzled why my shavings were dusty and jamming the mouth. It was only looking through a loupe that I realized the tip was not making perfect contact with the blade. I think a loupe is a good coach when starting out. Another non intuitive concept a loupe helps me with is knowing about how long to stay on a stone before moving up. Puzzling haze to the naked eye looks like fine scratches under a loupe. After a couple times back and forth, it's easier to recognize 'good' and 'needs more work' by naked eye, naked finger, or pressure and number of strokes.

[george wilson]

I do keep a few loupes around. A watchmaker's at the bench,and a 10X fold out Triplex lens at the metal working lathe I use the most.

[Mike Holbrook]

The task light on the left is all the magnification I need. If my arms were longer I might not need it ;-)

338839

I agree that sharpening should be a means to an end not some mystical destination that is approached but never arrived at. Sharp is good, scary sharp may be time wasted.

[george wilson]

Where does this Beach person live? I can't find out anything about him on Google.

[Patrick Chase]

Where does this Beach person live? I can't find out anything about him on Google.

Canada. (http://www.finewoodworking.com/authors/brent-beach.aspx) I can't post a Google search link due to commercial post restriction, but you can find him as "Brent Beach".

[Stewie Simpson]

It seems it all depends on what your finishing stone happens to be:

I am in agreement with Jim's statement; over recent months I have moved away from final stropping, it could be suggested there may be a fault with my stropping technique; that's quite possible; but as it stands, the level of sharpness I am gaining directly from the stone is more than adequate to meet the demands I place upon my chisels and plane irons.

Stewie;

[paul cottingham]

He lives in the same city as I do. I have never met him of course, nor met anyone who has. Perhaps he is a reclusive genius.

[Christopher Kurdziel]

I was just trying to experiment with different sharpening methods. My issue was with speed and quickly establishing a new bevel. I tried a worksharp and I loved it. I just ordered one.

Anyways, I use my planes for smoothing and trimming joinery. Chisels for normal chisel work.

My question now is to anyone who uses power sharpeners. I was considering keeping my 4000/8000 stone and strop, but then I saw this (https://www.dmtonlinestore.com/Dia-Sharp-Magna-Disc-Honing-Kit-P27C9.aspx) and Work Sharp's leather wheel. Would it be worth the money to get those Magna-Discs so i'm not constantly buying sandpaper? Also, should I ditch the 4000/8000 stone and strop and use one on the Work Sharp? I'm assuming my tools would be just as sharp as they were on my previous method of sharpening.

Thanks for all the responses. A lot of useful information here!

[george wilson]

Canada is good enough. I just wondered what he was using all those hunting knives for if he was in JAPAN!:)

[ken hatch]

Thanks Ken and Patrick for pointing out that Oilstones most certainly can be flattened. I always like to point out that there is a diversity of opinion on this. On the one hand you have folks like Warren who basically never abrade their oilstones; on the other you have Larry Williams who abrades them every single time he sharpens. Probably most users will fall somewhere in between these points.

Recently I was introduced to the idea of aligning fineness of stone to fineness of grading media. In other words, use a very fine diamond stone to grade a hard black or trannie Ark, and use coarser media to grade coarser stones. I have an "extra fine" Eze lap (1200, wtf that means) that was useless to me, since I loathe diamond stones, but I've been using it to grade my hard black, and I'm impressed with the results so far (but that's a provisional conclusion; I've only been doing it a couple months).

Steve,

I've never understood why Ark stones get so little love. Little mess, little upkeep, they work well with most steel, and cheap compared to most stones. That last may be part of the answer, being cheap there isn't much money to be made off 'em. Just to add a couple more things I like about Ark stones: They have a wonderful feel in hand and leave an edge with a very nice scratch pattern especially when compared to the edge left by diamond plates. In a rational world most of us would be driving up the price of the oil stones. Maybe it's a good thing they get so little love.

ken

[Curt Putnam]

I have a Worksharp 3000 and Stu's famous set of 3 Sigma Power stones, Now I mostly use the WS as a grinder and the stones for actual honing. So, depending on much you need to grind new bevels, acquiring diamond discs may make financial sense. Understand that using the WS chisel "hole" (I forget what it's called) will rapidly wear out you paper in a narrow band creating huge paper consumption. The solution is to get their wide blade adapter or to build your table. Search YouTube for some nice builds. For normal honing I stick with the Sigma stones (1000, 6000, 13000) because they produce an edge that keeps me happy. I figure the 13K stone is close enough to a leather strop so I quit there. The leather stropping wheel is what mostly lives on my WS. I have some nice chisels and I want to keep them that way - which is why I use the stones. Bad stuff happens quickly on power tools.

I have some left over diamond stones that I think I ruined with excessive pressure but they still cut albeit slowly. I've got some coarser stones, both water and diamond that I will experiment with on a load of vintage beater chisels that I've acquired. Whether diamond discs for the WS make financial sense depends on how much gear you have that needs extensive grinding.

All IMO & YMWV

Curt

[Patrick Chase]

Steve,

I've never understood why Ark stones get so little love. Little mess, little upkeep, they work well with most steel, and cheap compared to most stones. That last may be part of the answer, being cheap there isn't much money to be made off 'em. Just to add a couple more things I like about Ark stones: They have a wonderful feel in hand and leave an edge with a very nice scratch pattern especially when compared to the edge left by diamond plates. In a rational world most of us would be driving up the price of the oil stones. Maybe it's a good thing they get so little love.

ken

Quality polishing Arks aren't cheap at all. See for example the Norton translucent stone (https://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/store/item/NO-ARK-HB8) at TFWW (I think this is the one Larry Williams famously uses and flattens) and the corresponding Dan's translucent and black/x-fine (http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=72834&cat=1,43072) stones.

I think that oilstones get a bad rap for a few reasons:

1. I think Joel Moskowitz is right when he points out that there are a lot of cheap, crappy Arks on the market, and those have tarnished the entire category. Waterstones still have a certain amount of "high end cachet", arks don't.

2. The synthetic oilstones currently on the market (Indias etc) are not in the same league as quality synthetic waterstones in terms of speed/scratch-pattern tradeoff, and people don't realize that good natural arks are in the same price class as the aforementioned waterstones and are therefore a more appropriate basis for comparison.

3. IMO the best waterstones really do deliver a better speed/scratch-pattern than the best Arks, particularly on "exotic" steels, though the Arks are more convenient for a lot of uses. I say that as somebody who owns a Norton hard/translucent Ark and has used the equivalent Dan's stone. The waterstones aren't anywhere near as far ahead as most people seem to think, though.

[Patrick Chase]

I was just trying to experiment with different sharpening methods. My issue was with speed and quickly establishing a new bevel. I tried a worksharp and I loved it. I just ordered one.

Anyways, I use my planes for smoothing and trimming joinery. Chisels for normal chisel work.

My question now is to anyone who uses power sharpeners. I was considering keeping my 4000/8000 stone and strop, but then I saw this (https://www.dmtonlinestore.com/Dia-Sharp-Magna-Disc-Honing-Kit-P27C9.aspx) and Work Sharp's leather wheel. Would it be worth the money to get those Magna-Discs so i'm not constantly buying sandpaper? Also, should I ditch the 4000/8000 stone and strop and use one on the Work Sharp? I'm assuming my tools would be just as sharp as they were on my previous method of sharpening.

Thanks for all the responses. A lot of useful information here!

A lot of people buy 8" diamond discs from Amazon or E-Bay and use them on Work Sharp or Veritas rotary sharpeners. I use them for stuff that can't be hollow-ground, like the faces of mortise chisels. They cost about half what the DMT ones do, and double-sticky tape works fine to stick them down (I'm sure there are other ways too).

The DMT 3 um paste is OK. I used that on mild steel honing plates before I switched over to PSI paste. Note that 3 um corresponds to #3000-#5000 depending on whose rating system you use, and monocrystalline diamond pastes like DMT/Norton/PSI don't break down much with use. IMO that's a little more coarse than ideal for polishing.

[Brian Holcombe]

Quality polishing Arks aren't cheap at all. See for example the Norton translucent stone (https://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/store/item/NO-ARK-HB8) at TFWW (I think this is the one Larry Williams famously uses and flattens) and the corresponding Dan's translucent and black/x-fine (http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=72834&cat=1,43072) stones.

I think that oilstones get a bad rap for a few reasons:

1. I think Joel Moskowitz is right when he points out that there are a lot of cheap, crappy Arks on the market, and those have tarnished the entire category. Waterstones still have a certain amount of "high end cachet", arks don't.

2. The synthetic oilstones currently on the market (Indias etc) are not in the same league as quality synthetic waterstones in terms of speed/scratch-pattern tradeoff, and people don't realize that good natural arks are in the same price class as the aforementioned waterstones and are therefore a more appropriate basis for comparison.

3. IMO the best waterstones really do deliver a better speed/scratch-pattern than the best Arks, particularly on "exotic" steels, though the Arks are more convenient for a lot of uses. I say that as somebody who owns a Norton hard/translucent Ark and has used the equivalent Dan's stone. The waterstones aren't anywhere near as far ahead as most people seem to think, though.

I suspect Ken's frame of reference is Japanese Natural Stones, where one can spend up to five figures on a finisher if one is so inclined. Even the 'everyday' stuff in full sized form are typically $175-500~

[Warren Mickley]

I was just trying to experiment with different sharpening methods. My issue was with speed and quickly establishing a new bevel. I tried a worksharp and I loved it. I just ordered one.

Anyways, I use my planes for smoothing and trimming joinery. Chisels for normal chisel work.

My question now is to anyone who uses power sharpeners. I was considering keeping my 4000/8000 stone and strop, but then I saw this (https://www.dmtonlinestore.com/Dia-Sharp-Magna-Disc-Honing-Kit-P27C9.aspx) and Work Sharp's leather wheel. Would it be worth the money to get those Magna-Discs so i'm not constantly buying sandpaper? Also, should I ditch the 4000/8000 stone and strop and use one on the Work Sharp? I'm assuming my tools would be just as sharp as they were on my previous method of sharpening.

Thanks for all the responses. A lot of useful information here!

Chris, I asked you on Sunday (post #2) what kinds of stones you have. You answered about the water stones, but not the oil stones. Assuming that your oil stone collection has an Arkansas stone and a medium grit synthetic stone like Silicon carbide or India, then you already have enough stones for two craftsmen, sufficient for high quality work. You already have redundancy.

I have never in my life "established a new bevel" even though I have tools I have used for forty and fifty years and sharpened away two inches on some of them. I recommend you scrap the Worksharp, the Diasharp discs, and the sandpaper, and learn to sharpen instead.

[lowell holmes]

See my post about sharpening a skewed block plane.:)

[george wilson]

I used Arkansas stones years ago. I can tell you that they will work fine on MOST steels. But,Arkansas stones are VERY SOFT compared to ceramic stones. I simply could not get my Arkansas stone to fully sharpen a D2 steel knife I had made.

The ceramic stones WILL sharpen any D2 or other steel I have tried on them. And,they never seem to wear hollow. So,as I've said many times,I am staying with my diamond,and black and white ceramic stones,and my set of ceramic slip stones.

I have "established a bevel",I would have to say it's a "new bevel",because it IS, many many times,because when I MAKE a new knife,chisel,carving tool or plane iron,I HAVE TO.:) The largest bevels I have established were on the 6" wide crown and bed molding planes I made for the House Wrights. They said they planed planed 130' of hard yellow pine without resharpening. And,DIRT and DUST is a fact of daily life at the House Wright's site. I made their blades from scratch myself because I was afraid of durability on the part of blacksmith blades. They like to use lower carbon steel in the bits of their blades because it doesn't burn up and decarb at welding heat. I made these large blades from solid tool steel. Not quite fully authentic,but I sometimes felt sorry for some of these guys who had to plane large pieces of wood out in the heat and cold. Coopers are definitely included in this blade making. They plane white oak all the time. And had only those miserably soft sandstone wheels to grind with. Unless they came to visit me.

[Derek Cohen]

I was just trying to experiment with different sharpening methods. My issue was with speed and quickly establishing a new bevel. I tried a worksharp and I loved it. I just ordered one.

Anyways, I use my planes for smoothing and trimming joinery. Chisels for normal chisel work.

My question now is to anyone who uses power sharpeners. I was considering keeping my 4000/8000 stone and strop, but then I saw this (https://www.dmtonlinestore.com/Dia-Sharp-Magna-Disc-Honing-Kit-P27C9.aspx) and Work Sharp's leather wheel. Would it be worth the money to get those Magna-Discs so i'm not constantly buying sandpaper? Also, should I ditch the 4000/8000 stone and strop and use one on the Work Sharp? I'm assuming my tools would be just as sharp as they were on my previous method of sharpening.

Thanks for all the responses. A lot of useful information here!

Why are we bothering to answer this guy? He is not listening to any advice that has been offered or any questions that have been asked. I still do not know whether he freehands, uses a guide, or expects a machine to do all the work for him! Christopher, unless you actually respond to questions, you will just get more and more useless answers - useless only because you are not interested in what is offered. Many of these suggestions come from experienced users, however whether they are helpful is anyone's guess.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Rob Lee]

(snip)

I wish ROB LEE would enter this thread and talk about his green compound(which is what I use).

I get a razor sharp edge with LV green compound. What I do is just WEAR OUT the compound on a piece of MDF. I think,and always have,that just USING the same compound well worn out will reduce the large size particles,if there are any,break them down as the strop is used,and produce a finer edge. I have not verified this with a microscope. My edges were plenty sharp enough to carve anything with,even tiny carvings.

(snip)



Hi George!

I have been following the thread....!

What I always tell people is the best sharpening method is the one you understand, use and have confidence in. That includes experimenting, if that's what engages you (and you can afford it!).

I have access to (and own) all sorts of sharpening equipment and media.

My go-to kit for personal sharpening is a 1000X waterstone, a 4000-6000x waterstone, and the green compound on pine (a chromium oxide and aluminum oxide mix) most of the time, and once in a while, the Veritas platter based system. If I am sharpening a lot of blades - I will likely skew to the power tools side of sharpening, using belts and the power sharpener. Sometimes, how I sharpen is a matter of workflow, and not preference.

Prashun made an excellent point earlier in the thread - watch others, and have others watch you. One can always learn more, or improve. Knowledge is what will have the greatest impact on sharpening ability.

Sharpening is an activity that covers a lot of territory, from reconditioning and re-establishing geometry, to just touching up an edge. The destination is the same - but the path may be different, depending on the tool, it's condition, and it's use.

I've had excellent results from a wide variety of methods and media, but keep going back to what I've used most of my life.

Were I to start over, I think I would add a lot more diamond pastes and films as part of my regular routine.

Cheers -

Rob

[george wilson]

Rob,I established my final sharpening system many years ago,and am perfectly happy with it.

My question was about the green compound. Don't you feel that any larger particles will crush into smaller particles or imbed into the strop?

I use the LV green compound and am quite happy with it. Last night I noticed that I had missed a few hairs above my lip when I shaved this morning,after not shaving for a few days. So,I took out my pocket knife with the ball bearing steel blade that I made for it. I shaved off the errant hairs. And this after I had used the blade to whittle a piece of yellow pine.

[Rob Lee]

Rob,I established my final sharpening system many years ago,and am perfectly happy with it.

My question was about the green compound. Don't you feel that any larger particles will crush into smaller particles or imbed into the strop?

I use the LV green compound and am quite happy with it. Last night I noticed that I had missed a few hairs above my lip when I shaved this morning,after not shaving for a few days. So,I took out my pocket knife with the ball bearing steel blade that I made for it. I shaved off the errant hairs. And this after I had used the blade to whittle a piece of yellow pine.

Hi George -

You're absolutely correct - the larger particle are friable, and will either dull or break down into smaller sharper particles. On a soft substrate, the larger particle will bed deeper, lessening the their apparent size difference.

What I like about the green compound is the combination of speed and polish - which comes from the abrasive mixture. For carving tools in particular, it is an excellent choice, as you can make a cut in pine (or basswood) and then load the cut with compound to make a perfectly shaped hone.

Cheers -

Rob

[Derek Cohen]

the larger particle are friable, and will either dull or break down into smaller sharper particles. On a soft substrate, the larger particle will bed deeper, lessening the their apparent size difference.

Ahha! Rob, that's why green compound on a solid substratum (I use hardwood, George uses MDF, and you use pine/basswood) gets better the more it is used.

I wonder how this compares with compound on leather?

Regards from Perth

Derek

[george wilson]

That's what I thought,Rob. In any case,I have gotten plenty sharp blades using it in my system.

Derek: Note that Rob said the particles will embed on a softer substrate,making them effectively smaller.

Exactly as I mentioned before,the compound gets finer as it is used. I refrain from adding more compound .

[Rob Lee]

Hi Derek -

I don't use leather personally (Dad did though) ....

Speed and pressure of stroke also has an effect here... too much pressure and the substrate will fold around the bevel, rounding it. Higher speed also makes a given grit apparently finer. So - I look at stropping a razor on leather as a highspeed/low pressure stroke - likely not much rounding at all. Hand sharpening a chisel or plane blade is slower, and can be more pressure, so I don't personally use leather. I know there are all kinds of suitable leathers - I just prefer to use wood, and toss it if worried about possible contamination...

Power stropping - again, different. I do use leather belts, and leather wheels (and hard felt wheels). Whatever substrate holds the compound. (I've seen French razor grinders use paper wheels with SiC grit applied with hide glues....!).

Again - I think the real key is understanding what is happening, so one can chose the method one likes best!

Cheers -

Rob

[george wilson]

Those razor grinders were not so far off of what was done in the 18th. C.. Cutlers used wooden wheels covered with leather embedded with grinding compounds that were naturally available.

[Rob Lee]

Those razor grinders were not so far off of what was done in the 18th. C.. Cutlers used wooden wheels covered with leather embedded with grinding compounds that were naturally available.

Exactly.... an understanding of what was occurring, and technique..... not as specific material focused as we consumers are today!

[george wilson]

They had a pretty large assortment of natural abrasives in the 18th. C.,and some far earlier. Corundum was an excellent abrasive. My FAINT memory says it was mined on Crete,or somewhere in that area. It was superior to the later invented carborundum because it was tougher as well as sharp. Possibly improvements were made in the manufacture of carborundum,as it is the survivor today.

They had "Burr stones",found in America as well as France. The American ones were considered as good as the French. These could be fashioned into grind stones that were pretty effective. I don't know a lot about them.

For VERY fine abrasives,they had diatomaceous earths which had MANY billions of microscopic shells per cubic inch. Still used in some silver polishes today. They had pumice and rottenstone(Tripoli) too.

There are a bunch of other natural abrasives that I won't go into a treatise on. Mostly because I can't recall many of them!

In museums you can run across very old steel instruments and others that were polished to magnificent brightness by those old natural abrasives. And by the skills of those craftsmen who had no modern choices,but got the job done to degrees SELDOM EVER found today. The sharpness of facets,of meeting surfaces was so wonderfully done,it gives me great pleasure and inspiration to see them. I have seen AMAZING drafting sets from hundreds of years ago. They must have cost a small fortune back then.

[Patrick Chase]

They had a pretty large assortment of natural abrasives in the 18th. C.,and some far earlier. Corundum was an excellent abrasive. My FAINT memory says it was mined on Crete,or somewhere in that area. It was superior to the later invented carborundum because it was tougher as well as sharp. Possibly improvements were made in the manufacture of carborundum,as it is the survivor today.

The both survived. "Corundum" is Aluminum-Oxide, "Carborundum" is Silicon Carbide. As you say Al-Oxide (still) resists sharding better than SiC, particularly when it's toughened with Zirconia (ZTA) as in those belts you use :-).

[george wilson]

Silicon carbide was thought to be impossible to produce. That is,to get the silicon atom to fuse with a carbon atom. When the electric arc furnace came along,such high temperatures could be produced that the fusion into SiC was accomplished.

[Patrick Chase]

I used Arkansas stones years ago. I can tell you that they will work fine on MOST steels. But,Arkansas stones are VERY SOFT compared to ceramic stones. I simply could not get my Arkansas stone to fully sharpen a D2 steel knife I had made.

I agree with this. I tried one of my D2 pigstickers on the Norton Ark for kicks and it was slow going with marginal results.

In addition to being hard/slow to sharpen, D2 also has very high carbide content. You ideally want sharpening media that can hone the carbides in-place rather than just erode the metal around them untl they fall out. IIRC ceramic abrasives are softer than chromium carbide, so even they wlll be challenged in that regard. IMO you really want diamond, CBN, or at the very least SiC (in decreasing order of hardness/preference).

[george wilson]

Nope,as I just said,I get D2 razor sharp with my Spyderco ceramic stones. I think the very high chromium content of D2 also makes sharpening and MACHINING (when it is annealed!) pretty difficult.

In addition to a bowie knife I made from D2,I used to use a D2 pocket knife,and sharpened it many times. Now I have FOUND my antique pocket knife(which I lost for a year or 2),with the ball bearing steel blade I made,as the original was too worn down,and find it holds a very sharp edge EL MUCHO longer. That might seem strange,but D2 will get razor sharp,then get just below that sharpness and stay there. D2 was made for shearing other steel,but not made for holding a real fine edge,apparently. Ball bearing steel is a simpler steel with 3% chrome and makes an excellent knife.

[Patrick Chase]

Nope,as I just said,I get D2 razor sharp with my Spyderco ceramic stones. I think the very high chromium content of D2 also makes sharpening and MACHINING (when it is annealed!) pretty difficult.

In addition to a bowie knife I made from D2,I used to use a D2 pocket knife,and sharpened it many times. Now I have FOUND my antique pocket knife(which I lost for a year or 2),with the ball bearing steel blade I made,as the original was too worn down,and find it holds a very sharp edge EL MUCHO longer. That might seem strange,but D2 will get razor sharp,then get just below that sharpness and stay there. D2 was made for shearing other steel,but not made for holding a real fine edge,apparently. Ball bearing steel is a simpler steel with 3% chrome and makes an excellent knife.

What's the old saying? D2 "takes a crappy edge and holds it forever"?

Of course the newer PM variants with fine structure and small carbides change that. I now agree with Kees and others that PM-V11 is likely fairly close to D2 in composition (likely with even higher Cr based on stain resistance).

[Brian Holcombe]

Here's a fun one, I sharpened up a knife I made as a kid to use again as a hatchet, being a supersized Bowie knife it works well. I was obsessed with steel alloys as a kid so I made it in BG-42 and had it heat treated to 62 Rockwell. Chosera stones worked. I might post up a pic if anyone is interested.

[Jim Koepke]

I might post up a pic if anyone is interested.

I always like to look at pictures.

jtk

[dan sherman]

When the electric arc furnace came along,such high temperatures could be produced that the fusion into SiC was accomplished.

When firing a heat they make one hell of a sound. I've witnessed it several times in person, and nothing I've ever heard comes close.

[george wilson]

Probably best NOT to touch one of the electrodes with your TONGUE!!:)

[Brian Holcombe]

I was 14/15 yes old when I made this;

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c181/SpeedyGoomba/D73F6CDB-FA66-45A7-A5F9-1D09A9AC5658_zpssi1c885q.jpg

[dan sherman]

Probably best NOT to touch one of the electrodes with your TONGUE!!:)

You will cook it, before you get close enough actually touch the electrode. :eek:

[george wilson]

Brian,did you grind that blade yourself? VERY IMPRESSIVE if you did. Very neat handle,too!!

Dan,NO DOUBT!!:)

[Patrick Chase]

I was 14/15 yes old when I made this;

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c181/SpeedyGoomba/D73F6CDB-FA66-45A7-A5F9-1D09A9AC5658_zpssi1c885q.jpg

Wow, nice knife for any age!

Back to today's topic, how does a JNat work on that? :-)

[Brian Holcombe]

Brian,did you grind that blade yourself? VERY IMPRESSIVE if you did. Very neat handle,too!!

Dan,NO DOUBT!!:)

Thanks George! Worked it from bar stock, grinding the profile and bevels, even built the grinder I used to work on it as I couldn't afford to buy one as a teenager. My father thought I had lost my mind when I asked him to order me a bar of BG-42 for knife making. I made a few of them out of various alloys, used ATS-34, D2 and I actually bought a bar of M2 but never used it.


Wow, nice knife for any age!

Back to today's topic, how does a JNat work on that? :-)

Thank you! Haven't tried it, but my guess it....not likely :D This stuff was absolutely brutal to finish, I remember how bad it was to work before heat treatment, then you have to re-polish from about 400 grit on after they return and that was hellish.

[Patrick Chase]

Thank you! Haven't tried it, but my guess it....not likely :D This stuff was absolutely brutal to finish, I remember how bad it was to work before heat treatment, then you have to re-polish from about 400 grit on after they return and that was hellish.

Yeah, a quick peek at the datasheet makes me think that no SiOX-based abrasive would stand a chance against that stuff. That's a pretty ballsy choice for a teenager with a home-made grinder :-).

[Brian Holcombe]

Haha :D Indeed, I had to buy those blue ceramic belts to cut the stuff. I would grind to about 220 grit, then work the remainder by hand to work out the dips and so forth. My father gave me a pretty good stack of SiC sandpaper of various grades and I remember wearing out a good portion of it on that blade. I had made a wooden backer and used it to put apply pressure on the blade as I sanded.

It should come as no surprise that at this point I generally avoid alloy steels....and sandpaper, haha.

If I were so inclined to do it again (I have no interest really) I would probably do as the professional knife makers do and use a sen to scrape the blade, then finish with natural stones....sticking with high carbon steel rather than alloys.

The good thing is that as a pseudo-hatchet BG-42 seems to work fairly well.

[george wilson]

did you heat treat the ATS 34? That has a complicated steel to heat treat.
it requires a series of different heat temps and timing.

I had a bar of it that vanished when I had to move my stuff home from work. I have had great performance from the 52100 ball bearing steel blade I made,and will probably forge some more 1 3/8" balls out into usable strips. If anyone ever tries this,ball bearings MUST be annealed before you weld a bar of steel on for a handle,or the ball will BLOW UP violently from internal stress. The shards are QUITE SHARP!!

WHAT IS A SEN?

[Brian Holcombe]

I didn't do any of the heat treatment, I had participated in a forum (much like this one) and one of the guys was (possibly still is) a knife maker in North Dakota who was setup to heat treat all sorts of exotic alloy steels. He did all the heat treatment for me and I remember him offering some words of caution about various things but forget the specifics.

[Mike Jaureguy]

Just caught up on the thread.. A great, but never-ending(happily) discussion, with much wisdom put forth. Chris, I have and have used the WS3000. I used it to bring back to life a whole bunch of old, junk as well as nice, chisels and planing irons. I find it works well for what it is. Except for the junk chisels/plane irons, I usually finish off with flat granite/glass plate/3M abrasive film of xxx grit(depends....), and a Veritas jig. I use the jig for the same reason I use the WS in the early stages; it keeps a constant bevel angle while I hone. Also, It allows me to reliably hold and fix the much narrower chisels, that the WS can't handle (now that I finally got the Veritas narrow blade attachment!!). Yes I tried those DMT diamond discs on the WS. I was VERY disappointed!! The discs immediately got scratches and grooves in themselves and the tools I was sharpening. Didn't last ONE sharpening, let alone 50. I believe the achilles heel is in the magnetic plate that attracts all those [earlier] bigger steel particles and inadvertently uses them to degrade what the embedded diamond particles are supposed to be doing. Which of course is a great reminder that, no matter WHAT method of sharpening is used, ALWAYS wipe down/clean off the previous grit slurry, before going on to the next finer grits. If I get the chance to drive up to their DMT shop, I'll take these useless discs with me and hope for an explanation.Having said all that, to increase the usefulness of the WS, check out the Stumpy Nubs website. He has some interesting and simple mods for the WS, that really (and inexpensively) increase its usefulness.
A wonderful book on the whole business of sharpening; simple, yet detailed enough for all, is Ron Hock's book, THE PERFECT EDGE. Gets rid of lots of old wive's tales, logical and well illustrated. Two FLAT!!!! surfaces meet at an angle. the flatter and smoother(finer grits) the surfaces, the sharper the edge; up to the point where the steel in question loses its structural strength (the "burr"). Then a few strokes of some type of strop with some polishing stuff (all noted in earlier posts), gets rid of the burr (leaving a jagged edge!!) and smooths (dare I say "dulls" ???) the jaggies, and all is well. Make your method, simple, effective, and quick and easy.

[Christopher Kurdziel]

Why are we bothering to answer this guy? He is not listening to any advice that has been offered or any questions that have been asked. I still do not know whether he freehands, uses a guide, or expects a machine to do all the work for him! Christopher, unless you actually respond to questions, you will just get more and more useless answers - useless only because you are not interested in what is offered. Many of these suggestions come from experienced users, however whether they are helpful is anyone's guess.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Sorry, I do not check this forum every day. I have read all of the replies and I have been taking advice from the forum anyways. Jim Koepke said he used the Veritas MKII system which lead me to the Work Sharp. I researched the Work Sharp and actually tried one and ordered one with the wide blade attachment because I was impressed.

I threw out the idea of the oil stones because I did not know much about them and it was a mistake to order them in the first place. I determined I would be spending more money on the oil stones when my water stones work perfectly fine for getting an edge. My problem is removing material quickly.

The way I currently sharpen is I start with the backs on the coarse diamond plate and proceed all they way through 1000 4000 and 8000 waterstones. Then I use a Veritas mkii honing guide and do the bevel starting on the coarse diamond plate all the way up to the 8000 stone. After that I just do the back again on the 8000 stone. To resharpen I just use the guide and do the bevels on the 4000 and 8000 stone and remove the burr on the back with the 8000 stone. I am getting a great edge my problem is just removing material quickly. I had a faulty honing guide that was sharpening blades out of square and it was taking way to long on the diamond plate.

Currently I am just trying to figure out how I want to sharpen now with the Work Sharp. I was considering keeping my 4000 and 8000 stone to finish the edge after using the Work Sharp, but it would be nice to be able to do everything on the Work Sharp and get an edge just as sharp as it would be off my 8000 stone.

I use my planes for smoothing, joinery, and flattening boards. Chisels are used for joinery.

[Patrick Chase]

Why are we bothering to answer this guy? He is not listening to any advice that has been offered or any questions that have been asked. I still do not know whether he freehands, uses a guide, or expects a machine to do all the work for him! Christopher, unless you actually respond to questions, you will just get more and more useless answers - useless only because you are not interested in what is offered. Many of these suggestions come from experienced users, however whether they are helpful is anyone's guess.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Derek, I think this post is pretty inappropriate.

He asked for advice, you and many other people volunteered it, and he said "thank you" (more than once). That's the end of the transaction, full stop. The fact that we offered advice doesn't oblige him to answer our questions or to do what you, I, or anybody else told him to, and to assume otherwise frankly seems a bit disturbing.

That's particularly true with something as subjectively-driven as sharpening.

For the record, I actually like your approach a lot even if I don't use it due to my own peculiar obsessions. I also think that your articles on the topic are great, and encourage the OP to read them (http://inthewoodshop.com/WoodworkTechniques/index.html) if he hasn't already.

[Derek Cohen]

Thank you Christopher. That helps to provide you with some advice.

Since you are using a honing guide, I would only use a coarse grit on the WorkSharp. Treat the WorkSharp as a grinder and not as a sharpener. The reason is that I very much doubt that it can do better than the waterstones you have.

The fastest edge (which you requested) will come from a micro secondary bevel (the tiniest bevel created at a higher angle), and the smaller the bevel, the quicker you will hone. There is no point in taking the WS past a coarse setting if you use a guide to create a secondary bevel as the only surface that matters is on the secondary bevel. It is wasted effort on the primary bevel. Consequently, there is no point in using different grits on the WS to hone the full bevel face. If you did try to do so, you will find that this takes longer (having to switch plates and work a larger area) than a micro secondary bevel on a honing guide (where you move the guide to another stone).

Many years ago I developed a tool rest for a belt sander to sharpen plane and chisel blades. I had belts up to 6000 grit and followed with a motorised strop using green compound. This could create a frightening edge. It was really impressive. I built a second, even better machine after the first one developed an electrical fault. The original version actually appeared in FWW magazine. I gave up on it as a sharoener after a year because it was too inefficient in use. Changing belts became a chore. Eventually I used it only as a grinder, using a 120 grit belt for the primary bevel, and then to a guide on a waterstone for a secondary bevel. (I stopped using the belt sander about a decade ago, when I moved to a hollow grind and freehanding).

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Patrick Chase]

Sorry, I do not check this forum every day. I have read all of the replies and I have been taking advice from the forum anyways. Jim Koepke said he used the Veritas MKII system which lead me to the Work Sharp. I researched the Work Sharp and actually tried one and ordered one with the wide blade attachment because I was impressed.

I threw out the idea of the oil stones because I did not know much about them and it was a mistake to order them in the first place. I determined I would be spending more money on the oil stones when my water stones work perfectly fine for getting an edge. My problem is removing material quickly.

The way I currently sharpen is I start with the backs on the coarse diamond plate and proceed all they way through 1000 4000 and 8000 waterstones. Then I use a Veritas mkii honing guide and do the bevel starting on the coarse diamond plate all the way up to the 8000 stone. After that I just do the back again on the 8000 stone. To resharpen I just use the guide and do the bevels on the 4000 and 8000 stone and remove the burr on the back with the 8000 stone. I am getting a great edge my problem is just removing material quickly. I had a faulty honing guide that was sharpening blades out of square and it was taking way to long on the diamond plate.

Currently I am just trying to figure out how I want to sharpen now with the Work Sharp. I was considering keeping my 4000 and 8000 stone to finish the edge after using the Work Sharp, but it would be nice to be able to do everything on the Work Sharp and get an edge just as sharp as it would be off my 8000 stone.

I use my planes for smoothing, joinery, and flattening boards. Chisels are used for joinery.

Depending on the maker a #8000 waterstone corresponds to a mean particle size between ~1.2 um (Sigma, Imanishi) and ~1.8 um (Shapton, though Norton may be higher). You can get 8" PSA disc media in that grit range, for example 3M makes diamond (668X (https://www.amazon.com/3M-668X-Diamond-Lapping-Film/dp/B00D5TRHAY/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1465516430&sr=8-12&keywords=3m+668x+disc), you can find suppliers that sell individual discs instead of 25-disc inners if you look hard enough) and aluminum-oxide (265X (https://www.amazon.com/3M-265X-Lapping-Film-Disc/dp/B00745X4T8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1465516664&sr=8-2&keywords=3m+265x+disc+1+micron), same remark) lapping films that should work on your WorkSharp. I have the Veritas disc sharpener and have experimented with fine lapping films on that.

With that said, waterstones (and lapping compounds for that matter) have *much* better economics in the super-fine grits. One way to look at it is that a 1" thick waterstone with 1.2 um particles has ~20000 "layers" of abrasive, so in terms of abrasive life it's equivalent to an insanely large surface area of lapping film. The papers/films do better at coarse grits, so I think Derek is spot on in his advice to treat the WorkSharp as a grinder.

[Stewie Simpson]

Talk about a time wasting process.

https://vimeo.com/132747403

[Patrick Chase]

Talk about a time wasting process.

https://vimeo.com/132747403

Try it with diamond lapping plates. It's not as fast as a grinder with CBN or diamond wheels (not even close), but it's a reasonably fast and idiot-proof way to grind flat surfaces. George was/is right about that.

The setup jig is calibrated for the 4 mm platter with PSA film on both sides, which works out to a ~5.2 mm thickness. The thinner 3 mm platter that Veritas sells with diamond lapping plates on both sides is ~5.3 mm thick, while the 4 mm platter with a diamond lapping plate on one side is 5.1-5.2 mm, so the setup jig yields the same angles (to within a tenth of a deg or so) for all of those configurations.

Also the jig is a lot faster to use than Schwartz makes it look. I can set that for a given angle as fast as or faster than I can dial in the tool rests on my grinders.

[Stewie Simpson]

Not quite idiot proof Patrick, as highlighted by Schwartz from the 3min 50 sec. mark.

https://vimeo.com/132747403

[Mel Fulks]

Creative solution: buy some clay and make some coffee mugs on that wheel, sell them and use the money to buy a grinder.

[Patrick Chase]

Not quite idiot proof Patrick, as highlighted by Schwartz from the 3min 50 sec. mark.

https://vimeo.com/132747403

I said it was "reasonably... idiot-proof" with diamond lapping plates, which run much cooler than the Zirconia-Alumina film he's using there. It's similar to the difference between AlOx and CBN wheels

I also think he's overdoing it. That wheel is the same diameter as a standard bench grinder and runs at 650 rpm, so even the outside edge is only "one-sixth speed". You'd have to work at it to burn a tool that way. The blade he's sharpening there was tempered at ~450F, so "warm to the touch" is an *extremely* conservative measure.

I also think he's overdoing it a bit w.r.t. the center->edge thing. It's an issue, but there are easier ways of dealing with it, assuming you really care. Of course I don't do plane blades on my rotary sharpener anyway :-).

[george wilson]

What a huge crutch!

[Pat Barry]

I don't have a tool such as demo'd in the video and I don't anticipate ever buying one since I feel ok just using my bench grinder, but I fail to see why there is anything wrong with the approach offered. Certainly some of the experts here can do it by hand and possibly even in the dark, but for the bulk of us regular woodworkers out here I can see a benefit to the approach offered - ie: nothing wrong with a crutch no matter the size!

[Prashun Patel]

I'm all for the whatever-floats-your-boat method, but if someone as hamhanded as myself can learn to sharpen pretty well freehand (and off a flat grind at that) then I think it says it's a skill ANYONE can develop. So, while I wouldn't poo-poo this method, I cannot help but feel a little sadness at the implication by its existence that sharpening is a skill that requires such a device. I mean, I realize more and more that while my sharpening continues to improve, it has done so because of practice and analysis - not by jigs.

Honestly, that goes for cutting dovetails and tenons and hand planing as well. It's so NOT the tool, but the user. Anyway, sorry to opine superior here!

[Jim Koepke]

Most of my use of the Veritas Mk-II power sharpening system these days it to establish a bevel on used tools that I have bought.

I have even used it like a disk sander to round the ends on dowels. :eek:

If one has a bench grinder the Mk-II PSS would likely be unneeded. If one has a blade production shop, then it can save a lot of time. If my memory is serving well I believe Blue Spruce uses an Mk-II PSS on their blades. If one has a lot of blades to do, it helps to have five or more tool holders. This gives a tool time to cool while others are being processed. When I was buying a lot of used tools this was my strategy.

I often use it without a guide to do a quick touch up on my lathe tools.

Due to heat build up and cooling cycles I find it is faster to flatten backs on my 4' granite slab with abrasive paper.

BTW, I know from experience it is possible to over heat an edge on the Mk-II PSS if one isn't careful.

jtk

[george wilson]

I don't like the idea of having to rely on sandpaper discs that may or may not be available in the future. Plus,I think they might be much more expensive than just using a regular bench grinder's grinding wheels. Mostly the latter. You buy a grinding wheel. You get INCHES of pure abrasive material. How much abrasive do you get with those little discs? Maybe HALF a MILLIMETER of thickness? LESS?

By running the plane iron way off the disc,so he was presenting MUCH LESS surface area of steel to the disc(Note how sparks started flying?) he certainly was causing the left side of the iron to get much more rapidly heated up.

[Pat Barry]

I'm all for the whatever-floats-your-boat method, but if someone as hamhanded as myself can learn to sharpen pretty well freehand (and off a flat grind at that) then I think it says it's a skill ANYONE can develop. So, while I wouldn't poo-poo this method, I cannot help but feel a little sadness at the implication by its existence that sharpening is a skill that requires such a device. I mean, I realize more and more that while my sharpening continues to improve, it has done so because of practice and analysis - not by jigs.

Honestly, that goes for cutting dovetails and tenons and hand planing as well. It's so NOT the tool, but the user. Anyway, sorry to opine superior here!
Maybe you have picked up the skill, however, judging by the hosts of solutions offered by virtually all the various wood working outlets, jigs, fixtures, gauges, equipment, and associated paraphernalia are a huge market. I'd also question whether even you could make a significant improvement in your admittedly ham handed approach by trying out one of the commercial sharpening systems. It might just be a case of "try it you'll like it". I do agree with your comment about opining superior by the way

[george wilson]

Yes,there is a HUGE market. Because so many are afraid of sharpening. Maybe do not want to spend the effort to develop the skills. Perhaps simply cannot develop the skills,etc..

Not trying to be insulting here. just analyzing WHY the market is huge.

I always advocate just learning the skills,no matter what they are. You will end up doing better work the more you can develop your eye-hand skills in any operation. It all contributes to advancing your skill and confidence. Confidence is important.

[Prashun Patel]

I happen to have the MKII and love it. All I am saying is that I was shocked how easily this straightforward task becomes over time with practice. It's hard to express enthusiasm for a method without implying that others *should* try it.

[Jim Koepke]

I don't like the idea of having to rely on sandpaper discs that may or may not be available in the future. Plus,I think they might be much more expensive than just using a regular bench grinder's grinding wheels. Mostly the latter. You buy a grinding wheel. You get INCHES of pure abrasive material. How much abrasive do you get with those little discs? Maybe HALF a MILLIMETER of thickness? LESS?

By running the plane iron way off the disc,so he was presenting MUCH LESS surface area of steel to the disc(Note how sparks started flying?) he certainly was causing the left side of the iron to get much more rapidly heated up.

The economy of materials may not be the best.

I do not go along with what CS does. It could put a valley or two in the blade as it contends with the edge of the disk. My method is to simply work the blade on both sides of the disk. The right side is pushing the grit into the blade and the left side pulls from the blade.

I also do not regularly use a micro or secondary bevel. The time wasted preserving the micro bevel or secondary bevel is saved by just sharpening the blade at the angle I want. It takes me less time to hone a flat bevel a dozen times than it took him to set up and check his work. Then he still has to set it in a guide to work his secondary bevel.

jtk

[george wilson]

Actually,I put 12 micro bevels on my blade!:) But,I put them in an arc ACROSS the blade. When one gets dull,I just TILT the blade a bit and move on to the next one. Granted,I can only plane a VERY narrow path,but the plane pushes SO much easier(and,I AM 75),and,I can keep planing for a MUCH longer time without resharpening!!

Why is it that this and the Hayward thread seem to be the only LIVE threads in Neander?

[Tom Vanzant]

Uh, George, isn't that a faceted Sellers convex bevel?

[george wilson]

Be quiet,Tom! I wanted everyone to think it was MY idea!

By the way,what is this about an inept French policeman being such a good woodworker?

[lowell holmes]

[QUOTE=george wilson;2574035]Actually,I. . . . . . . . .(and,I AM 75), [quote]

George, you may be the most knowledgeable but you're not the oldest dog in the house :)

[george wilson]

Probably not. But,the longer I live,it seems like I am the oldest person where ever I go!

[Patrick Chase]

I don't like the idea of having to rely on sandpaper discs that may or may not be available in the future.

It accepts standard 8" PSA discs as made and sold by everybody under the Sun. I've run standard AlOx and diamond discs straight out of the 3M catalog on mine when I was in an experimental phase. You have to cut/punch a hole in the center if there isn't one already, but that's the extent of the customization. It also accepts the very same 8" diamond lapping plates that you have advocated in the past, which are mostly what I use now.


Plus,I think they might be much more expensive than just using a regular bench grinder's grinding wheels. Mostly the latter. You buy a grinding wheel. You get INCHES of pure abrasive material. How much abrasive do you get with those little discs? Maybe HALF a MILLIMETER of thickness? LESS?

This is a problem with all sand paper/belts/discs. As you say, the economics of solid media are very hard to beat, particularly in the finer grits. The economics change with long-wearing abrasives like diamond and CBN though.

[Patrick Chase]

I do not go along with what CS does. It could put a valley or two in the blade as it contends with the edge of the disk. My method is to simply work the blade on both sides of the disk. The right side is pushing the grit into the blade and the left side pulls from the blade.

When I worry about that at all (seldom) I just tilt the blade a teeny bit away from the edge of the wheel when I set it up in the holder. It doesn't take many tries to get a feel for how much is required, and after that it's a 2-second process. I don't like grinding with the abrasive moving "away" from the tool holder, which is why I don't use both sides. I also agree that grinding off the edge isn't a desirable solution.

[george wilson]

The diamond discs I have mentioned,and gotten some of from China are 6". They are lapidary discs.

There is nothing wrong with using a disc in the "going away" direction. Once in a while I reverse direction on my carbide grinder on HSS lathe tools,to wipe off any burrs.

[Patrick Chase]

The diamond discs I have mentioned,and gotten some of from China are 6". They are lapidary discs.

You can use 6" discs on the Veritas, too (I've done it). The 8" diamond lapidary discs end up being more cost effective though, at last for the ones I've looked at.


There is nothing wrong with using a disc in the "going away" direction. Once in a while I reverse direction on my carbide grinder on HSS lathe tools,to wipe off any burrs.

Yeah, that's why I said "don't like" grinding in the going away direction. I know it's fine, I just prefer not to do it.

[paul cottingham]

I happen to have the MKII and love it. All I am saying is that I was shocked how easily this straightforward task becomes over time with practice. It's hard to express enthusiasm for a method without implying that others *should* try it.

I had a MKII for a couple years and hated it. Probably the only veritas tool I have ever owned that I had a visceral dislike of no matter how much I tried, and believe me, I tried very, very hard to get along with the damn thing. No matter what I tried, it either ground unevenly, or burned part of the blade, or the paper peeled....I can go on.

i now use a Viel belt grinder as a grinder, with a 10,000 grit Japanese stone and a leather strop. If I move the blade through the air too quickly after sharpening, I can hear the pop of atoms splitting as the edge of my blade shears them in 'twain.

That's sharp, baby.

[Steve Voigt]

By the way,what is this about an inept French policeman being such a good woodworker?

:D :D :D Best line in the whole thread, George!

"That's a priceless Steinway!"

"Not any more."

[Patrick Chase]

:D :D :D Best line in the whole thread, George!

"That's a priceless Steinway!"

"Not any more."

Yeah, that was good. I tried to come up with some retort about "robbing Peter to pay Paul" (Sellers/Sellars) but just couldn't make it work.

How about "Chance the Woodworker (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bow1ZJTV4L4)"?

EDIT: Added (improved, HD) link for kicks.

[ken hatch]

Quality polishing Arks aren't cheap at all. See for example the Norton translucent stone (https://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/store/item/NO-ARK-HB8) at TFWW (I think this is the one Larry Williams famously uses and flattens) and the corresponding Dan's translucent and black/x-fine (http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=72834&cat=1,43072) stones.

I think that oilstones get a bad rap for a few reasons:

1. I think Joel Moskowitz is right when he points out that there are a lot of cheap, crappy Arks on the market, and those have tarnished the entire category. Waterstones still have a certain amount of "high end cachet", arks don't.

2. The synthetic oilstones currently on the market (Indias etc) are not in the same league as quality synthetic waterstones in terms of speed/scratch-pattern tradeoff, and people don't realize that good natural arks are in the same price class as the aforementioned waterstones and are therefore a more appropriate basis for comparison.

3. IMO the best waterstones really do deliver a better speed/scratch-pattern than the best Arks, particularly on "exotic" steels, though the Arks are more convenient for a lot of uses. I say that as somebody who owns a Norton hard/translucent Ark and has used the equivalent Dan's stone. The waterstones aren't anywhere near as far ahead as most people seem to think, though.

Patrick,

If you apple to apple....natural stone to natural stone the best Ark stone is amazingly cheap. Not that any of the following drivel is new.....

Man made stones are a commodity, there is not a finite supply so the price tends to be lower but that said, I'm amazed at some of the prices of synthetic water stones.

On the other hand it is the reverse with natural stones, supply is limited and price can greatly reflect that fact. That is one of the reasons I say paying $170 USD for the finest grade natural oil stone is a bargain. You should take a look at Jnats to see what the price of the finest Hard Ark should be in a rational world.

If I were not older than dirt, I'd be buying all the good Ark stones I could get my hands on and once I had a ton (sorry I can't help myself) I'd slip a note to CS hopping he would write something good about Ark stones.

ken

[Patrick Chase]

If you apple to apple....natural stone to natural stone the best Ark stone is amazingly cheap. Not that any of the following drivel is new.....

Yeah, everything is cheap compared to high-quality JNats. That's a big reason why I've resisted that particular slippery slope. As I've said elsewhere, I suspect that a raging crack habit would be more affordable and easier to kick.



Man made stones are a commodity, there is not a finite supply so the price tends to be lower but that said, I'm amazed at some of the prices of synthetic water stones.

I can understand prices up to $100 or so for fine-grit synthetic waterstones, based on the quantity/quality/grading of abrasives and the manufacturing process. I think that Shapton and Naniwa are making an awful lot of money on their respective $300 stones, though. Whether they're worth it is in the eye of the beholder. I personally don't shoot for that level of refinement, and if I did I would probably use a super-fine diamond lapping film or paste instead.

[ken hatch]

Yeah, everything is cheap compared to high-quality JNats. That's a big reason why I've resisted that particular slippery slope. As I've said elsewhere, I suspect that a raging crack habit would be more affordable and easier to kick.



Smart Move, your kids and grandkids approve:)

ken

[jim mills]

The big mystery for many (including me) is finding a simple & predictable way to re-grind the primary bevel, once the secondary bevel gets too big. Taking an expensive plane iron to a bench grinder scares the h*ll out of me..

[Brian Holcombe]

Jim, for western irons you can grind them on a rough stone and work the bevel with your finish stone. Often I grind off the microbevel with this approach, then reapply freehand.

Alternatively you can work full bevels and simply work them freehand.

Microbevel are of course very easy if they remain micro.

Here is a video I made doing so;

https://youtu.be/DZ8n6Xfdj1o

[Steve Voigt]

Alternatively you can work full bevels and simply work them freehand.

Microbevel are of course very easy if they remain micro.

Here is a video I made doing so;

https://youtu.be/DZ8n6Xfdj1o


20 minutes to sharpen a plane iron? You suck! Paul Sellers could sharpen 10 plane irons in that time, without all those fancy stones! And put on some shoes, you dirty hippy!

(#sarcasm people…calm down)

Seriously, though, I'm glad to see you've gone the freehand route. Looks good to me. Just before the 4 minute mark, I thought someone might have slipped some acid into my coffee, but then I realized it was just the camera. :p

[Brian Holcombe]

Lol thanks for the humor Steve!

My Jikatabi had the night off (socks being washed :) )

[Patrick Chase]

The big mystery for many (including me) is finding a simple & predictable way to re-grind the primary bevel, once the secondary bevel gets too big. Taking an expensive plane iron to a bench grinder scares the h*ll out of me..

As discussed earlier in this thread the "safe but still powered option" is some sort of disc grinder. The usual suspects run about 1/6 as fast as a "full speed" 8" bench grinder, but at ~1200 sfpm they're still a heck of a lot faster than doing it by hand.

[Warren Mickley]

As discussed earlier in this thread the "safe but still powered option" is some sort of disc grinder. The usual suspects run about 1/6 as fast as a "full speed" 8" bench grinder, but at ~1200 sfpm they're still a heck of a lot faster than doing it by hand.

How long does it take to grind with a disc grinder, then sharpen a plane iron?

[jim mills]

Any thought on using a 6 x 48 belt sander?

[Patrick Chase]

How long does it take to grind with a disc grinder, then sharpen a plane iron?

Depends. Are you asking about changing the primary bevel, repairing major damage, or just "refreshing" the bevel to make the secondary smaller and therefore easier to hone?

If you're asking about overhead it takes about 30 sec to set the blade in the jig and set the post height on the Veritas grinder. From there it's just a question of how long it takes to remove the material.

Full disclosure: I mostly use bench grinders these days. The disc grinder is mostly used for stuff where I really don't want a concave bevel, as with pigstickers.

[Patrick Chase]

Any thought on using a 6 x 48 belt sander?

The ones I've used run at around 3000 sfpm, or about the speed of a half-speed grinder.

[jim mills]

So when using a bench grinder, are you simply freehand grinding, or do you use jigs?

[Patrick Chase]

So when using a bench grinder, are you simply freehand grinding, or do you use jigs?

These days mostly just a tool rest. That controls angle, and everything else can be done acceptably by hand (I don't rely on the grinder to establish final blade straightness - that's done in a separate step, with stones)

[Derek Cohen]

Any thought on using a 6 x 48 belt sander?

Jim, in 2005 I moved to using a bench grinder and began freehand honing on a hollow grind. Before then I was sharpening a secondary bevel on a flat grind with a honing guide. The flat grind was created with a belt sander.

I created two jigs for a belt sander, the link below was the second version. The first version was published in Fine Woodworking magazine a few years before this.

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/WoodworkTechniques/BeltSanderBladeGrinderMK%20II.html

This remains a viable, and excellent method for one using a honing guide. Utilised as a grinder only (not a sharpener), with a 100-120 grit belt, it will produce a cool and accurate primary bevel.

Regards from Perth

Derek