question about veritas mkii honing jig

[fred woltersdorf]

i'm pretty new to sharpening planes.i have the original veritas honing guide which i wasn't really satisfied with so today at my local woodcraft store i bought the veritas mkii honing guide.i really like it, i can finally get the proper angle and the blade is now square to the edge.the problem i'm having is when i went to put a micro bevel on it and the micro was not paralell to the first bevel.is the micro bevel really needed?what's my next step, call lee valley or bring it back to woodcraft?i'm really happy with the guide in general, maybe i got a bad one.thanks fred.http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=51868&cat=1,43072,43078&ap=1

[Brian Hale]

I had the same trouble with mine when i first got it but soon discovered that it wasn't the jig, it was me. The little micro bevel knob is kinda stiff and you need to pull it out a bit to rotate it. I found myself putting pressure on the blade and kicking it out of square. Now i make sure to hold just the jig. You can also put the bevel setting thingy back on to verify the blade is still square. YMMV.

Brian :)

[Gary Herrmann]

I've also noticed that my microbevels aren't perfectly uniform all the way across the iron at times. I haven't worried about it too much and haven't noticed any difference in performance from one iron with a nice even micro bevel to another that wasn't perfect.

[Bob Johnson2]

I hadn't noticed mine being off but I just checked some I did a week or so ago. It is off a bit but not enough for me to worry about. I have noticed the micro bevel is wider then I care for unles I keep the passes down to about a half dozen on 2000 grit wet or dry, I get about a 32nd this way with the deviation a good deal less then a 64th. These measurements (more like guestimates not being a machinist) are on a 1 3/8th's blade.

[jonathan snyder]

I have the same issue! I assumed it was operator error. Makes me wonder if I'm not knocking it out of square like Brian. I will have to be more careful when rotating the micro-bevel knob. I'll give it a go tomorrow and see what happens.

Jonathan

[Mike Holbrook]

I got a Tormek sharpening system for Christmas a couple years ago. I still can not get straight main bevels using it. I discovered the Shapton Sharpening site and talked to Harrelson Stanley who has developed a technique he has labeled "Side Sharpening", now available in DVD.

I don't know if it is my indian blood or some sort of Neanderthaler thing but I do much better sharpening by hand. Most of the responces I got concerning how to get consistent results with the Tormek involved manipulating pressure etc. in my hand technique. It just seems to me that sharpening jigs are made to restrict our ability to alter things and can end up causing problems as well as fixing them. I have the old style Veritas jig, well not the old old one but the 2nd generation and I have trouble getting straight bevels with it too.

Hand sharpening seems to me to create a bevel that is not as dead level in any direction, making a little more curved surface, but sans the major error that I frequently get with jigs. There is even a pretty large school of thought which argues that the hand made surface is better.

Wow! that is real Neanderthal, hand skill vs a jig :)

[Mike Henderson]

I'm the opposite of Mike Holbrook - I can't produce a very good edge by hand and find that the LV MKII jig works very well for me. The only way I can get a good edge "by hand" is if I use a wheel to sharpen the tool which produces a hollow. Then, I can take the iron (plane blade or chisel) and hone it on a stone accurately. But when I try to do the initial sharpening by hand, I always wind up with a round (the opposite of a hollow) which makes honing difficult and leads to a much greater sharpening angle than I wanted in the first place.

The MKII jig allows me to get an accurate sharpening angle and a flat surface on the bevel. If I then want to put a microbevel on the edge, I can easily do so. The only objection I've ever heard to using a jig is that it's slower than hand sharpening because you have to put the blade into the jig. But for accuracy, the jig is far superior.

I do hand hone to touch up the edge during use.

Mike