MK.II honing guide question

[Tom DiBiasio]

So for Christmas I received a long wanted Veritas shoulder plane - Amazing quality tool btw. I have been working on a roubo bench build and will very soon get to a step in the project were I need to trim and fit the leg tenons so I thought to get my new shoulder plane tuned up and ready for its maiden voyage. So I started by honing the back on my diamond plates and that went very smoothly as the bade out of the package was extremely flat. Then I CAREFULLY mounted the blade into my Veritas MK.II honing guide set to the "yellow" 25 degree mark and made sure the blade was perfectly square to the guide and tightened each side of the clamp a small amount at a time until it was secure. I then started to hone the blade on the course diamond plate and after maybe 10-15 strokes I am seeing the uneven sharpening as shown attached picture. So I thought maybe the clamp knobs were at uneven tightness and this was causing the blade to be skewed a little. So I tried adjusting the knobs to try and counteract the skew but could not get it to change and to be honest I could not envision if I needed to loosen or tighten a knob and even which knob needed adjusting. As this is a brand new blade I did not want to get things way off track before asking for advise. Any help or suggestions you can give would be greatly appreciated.

TomD

[Phil Mueller]

My experience, Tom, is that narrow blades rarely stay put in the clamp. I’ve had better luck using the accessory, which is their narrow blade head. I know it’s frustrating to think you need the accessory (and wait for it), but it really will be useful for the shoulder plane blade as well as narrower chisels.

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In addition, rather than regrinding the entire bevel, you may just want to put a small micro bevel on the existing edge free hand.

[roger wiegand]

Do you have the chisel sharpening part of the jig with the fingers that close on the sides of the chisel to align it? I think it's very hard to keep everything straight in the plane blade jig when it only has a narrow tang to clamp onto. The good news is that with a chisel it makes no difference in use if you're off by a couple tenths of a degree from dead square.

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[Derek Cohen]

Tom, there are four issues here that need discussion.

The first two involve the honing guide and your bevel angle. From the photo it is not possible to say whether the factory primary bevel is out/skew (I think that it should be 25 degrees). Let us for the moment assume that the honing guide is at fault. There have been reports of a few where the roller is not straight (it does not take much to hone at an angle - but your image is waaay off). If there is a fault, then contact Lee Valley. They have the best reputation because they are good at replacing items.

The second part of the sharpening is to question why you are using a honing guide to create a full bevel. They are designed to create secondary bevels, and the Mk II is especially designed to do just this. Your secondary bevel angle should be 30 degrees. That would create a small strip along the edge of the primary bevel. Regardless of the accuracy of the primary bevel, as long as the secondary is square to the side of the blade, then it is good.

I wonder if your result is square to the side of the blade. This is vital when using a shoulder plane.

The third item is that you spend time flattening the back of the blade, then did so on a diamond plate. Both are no-nos. Big time no-nos! The Veritas blades come flatter than you could ever make them by hand. Any work on the back of one of their blades will be a deterioration of what you purchased. Further, coarse media will remove more steel. The finest diamond plate is commonly 1200 grit ... and Veritas blades are lapped at the factory to 4000 grit. OK, you can rectify this, but must do so on wet-and-dry on glass up to 2500 grit, before moving to waterstones or something similar that eventually takes the surface to a high grit. Note that the back should be honed to the same grit as the bevel (I go to 13K).

The fourth issue is that - after all the above! - I do not use a shoulder plane for tenons! I tune shoulders with a chisel, and I tune cheeks with a router plane (sometimes a chisel). A shoulder plane is actually poorly suited for these tasks, unless it is a wide shoulder plane (1 1/4" wide), and even this is poorly balanced for the task. I use shoulder planes to fine tune rebates (and sometimes tenon shoulders, but one must really know what you are doing here).

Regards from Berlin

Derek

[Dan Hulbert]

I've had my jig for a while and have found that the knobs need to be tightened quite a bit. Probably my ham-handed approach to using it, but if ?I don't, I end up with the same problem you have.

[Derek Cohen]

Dan, I have had one of the MK II guides longer than anyone outside the factory (as I did pre-production testing of them). In all the years I have used the MKII, I have not found it necessary to crank down on the knobs. However, the top tightening design is unkind to narrow blades, and tightening one side more than the other will likely be the reason for a skewed hone. The blade needs to be centred as well. Even tightening is one solution. The other, for narrow blades, is the Small Blade accessory, as mentioned by Roger.

Technique is also a part here. One must not assume that a straight roller (as opposed to the cambered roller) will create a straight hone. Finger and hand pressure need to be centralised for this (finger pressure is used to create a camber, which is possible even on the straight rollers - the cambered rollers just make this easier).

Regards from Berlin

Derek

[Tom DiBiasio]

Hi Derek

Thanks for the detailed answer - many things to consider with what you wrote. As I am by no means an expert on this, evidence by my basic question, so please dont take my remarks as a challenge to one of your points. In your response you question the reason for honing the primary bevel angle with the jig - I am simply following the instructions provided by the manufacture. See attached jpg from the manual - and yes I am one of those guys who actually read and appreciate manufactures providing written instructions with their products. So my question now is - should I follow the manufactures instructions on this point? Obviously it would be much faster to only worry about the secondary bevel but i was originally just trying to follow the progression of steps in the manual???

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[Derek Cohen]

Hi Tom

You may think that you are following the recommended steps in the manual for the honing guide, but you do not appear to be honing a 1 degree micro bevel, which is what the manual recommends. Instead, you appear to be honing at 25 degrees, that is, full on the bevel. That is what you wrote ...


I CAREFULLY mounted the blade into my Veritas MK.II honing guide set to the "yellow" 25 degree mark and made sure the blade was perfectly square to the guide and tightened each side of the clamp a small amount at a time until it was secure. I then started to hone the blade on the course diamond plate and after maybe 10-15 strokes I am seeing the uneven sharpening as shown attached picture.

At this stage you need to regrind the 25 degree primary bevel to get it straight. You can do this on the coarse diamond stone. In my case, I would do this on a bench grinder.

Once the primary bevel has been restored, set the MkII for a secondary bevel of 1 degree. For now ignore that you have a second secondary bevel setting - just do all on the first setting. Hone a secondary bevel with your 1200 stone - just 3 strokes should be sufficient to create a line across the blade. Then move to a higher grit (I would be using a 6000 water stone), and finally the final polishing stone (I would be using a 13000 water stone). Then finish the back of the stone on the polishing stone (5 or 6 strokes to remove the wire). And call it good.

Regards from Berlin

Derek

[Jim Koepke]

However, the top tightening design is unkind to narrow blades, and tightening one side more than the other will likely be the reason for a skewed hone.

Wow, this thread was almost skipped since the MkII in my shop is the Veritas MkII Power Sharpening System. But being interested in subjects outside of my area has had its rewards.

This one statement quoted above set off big bonging bells. Some of my blades have developed a slight skew. It may be due to my heavy handed tightening of the blade holders.

Thanks Derek.

jtk

[Prashun Patel]

Getting a flat grind on narrow chisels with the MKII does take some tweaking. My instinct is that you have not tightened evenly on both sides. Try slightly loosening the side where the the grind has met the edge, and tightening the side where the grind is further back. See if that starts to improve things.

That narrow blade body can be easily racked.

[Marinus Loewensteijn]

I have had the Mk II and now have the Mk I. Also have older non-Veritas holders that come into their own at times.

I have never been able to grind a narrow blade and keep it flat using a guide. I don't know if it is my technique or if it is that the rollers have just that slight amount of play in it that makes it wobble from side to side.

In the end I found success (for narrow blades) using the flat blade guide on a Tormek clone at 32 ~ 33 degrees and then use freehand (no guide) a Shapton whetstone to give it a minimal hone without introducing a secondary bevel. (Because of the slightly hollow grind of the 10" Tormek stone it will be easy to keep the blade's bevel flat on the stone while honing.)

[Stephen Rosenthal]

Recently there was a thread about tools you regretted buying. The Veritas Mk. II honing guide would be mine. I bought it long before the LN and Woodpeckers guides were available. I’ve got all the accessories but have always been less than pleased with the results and the amount of fiddling required to get all the adjustments right. Sharpening isn’t my favorite activity and the Mk. II makes is less so.

[Curt Putnam]

IMO, the Veritas MK II works well on plane blades, especially those with tapered sides - such as the Veritas bevel up blades. As the subject to be honed gets thinner and more narrow, it is increasingly at risk from the competition. It is stilll the most versatile system on the market, IMO. Once one has the narrow blade and mortise chisel options, one can handle almost any situation. Invest in the little Woodpecker's 1" square and use it frequently. Lately, I have found myself using an el cheapo Eclipse style jig for Stanley plane irons - just because it is faster with that little wood setting gauge described by CS as well as others.

[Rob Luter]

I used to own the full MKII kit. I found it to be a fine honing guide with a few shortcomings that others have already mentioned. My remedy for the clamp was to affix a thin strip of leather to the clamp jaw. It held much more securely after that. Squareness was checked by marking the bevel with Sharpie and drawing the blade backwards on notebook paper while in the jig. The ink wears off where contact is made. Narrow blades were better served by the narrow blade accessory. The cambered roller worked well.

All that said, it made for a lot of fumbling around. I passed it all along to someone who would be better served by it. I use a Lie Nielsen guide now and a simple wood spacer set (below) to establish the angle. secondary angles are easy to achieve by backing the blade up a touch or more commonly freehanding on a strop. It's quick, easy, and best of all repeatable. No more issues with blades getting skewed in the guide jaws.

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[Josko Catipovic]

I also have that problem with my MkII honing guide, and not just with narrow blades. I grind on a Tormek, and am having difficulty transferring the angle to the MKII. I've learned to just touch-hone the blade, look for the uneven (left-to-right_ angle, and adjust. I generally get it good enough after 2-3 tries. It's frustrating, but not enough to ditch the MKII. I've checked the angles carefully, and the blade is clamping at 90 deg to the guide, certainly to an error much better than a degree, but I still get that uneveness
The other problem I have is transferring the grinding angle from the Tormek to the MK2. If I get the angle right, I can see both ends (top and bottom) of the hollow grind shine up with the MKII, but it generally takes me a couple tries to get that angle right, too. (Once I get the angle right, I increase it by a degree to get the microbevel.) In this case I suspect the issue is with the Tormek, as that small angle guide is, I expect, really not good enough to get the angle down to better than a degree. Is there a more accurate way of measuring grinding angle?

I'm about to try the 'magic marker' trick mentione above and expect it'll help with getting the side-to side angle hassle reduced. What about accurate registration of grinding angle between the Tormek and MKII. Any hints would be welcome.

[lowell holmes]

When I use a honing guide I really tighten the screw on the guide to keep everything square. I have Veritas guides.

[Jim Koepke]

Squareness was checked by marking the bevel with Sharpie and drawing the blade backwards on notebook paper while in the jig. The ink wears off where contact is made.

This is a great tip Rob. It will also indicate if the blade is not being clamped equally from side to side. The blade can be "held square" while it is not being held flat. This is how a clamping screw on both sides of the blade can tilt the blade with uneven pressure.

jtk