Veritas Mk II Power Sharpening System

[Pete Brown]

Is anyone else here using this? My wife purchased it for me for Christmas, and so far it has worked quite well. I've only sharpened chisels (no plane blades yet).

Veritas® Mk.II Power Sharpening System (http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=48435&cat=1,43072)

The price is not much less than a Tormek, but no mess, no additional required accessories, and no hollow grind.

http://www.leevalley.com/images/item/woodworking/sharpening/05m3101_s1.jpg

I searched the archives using a few variations on the name, but nothing quickly popped up. If there's another thread on this, just point me to it :)

Pete

[Hoa Dinh]

I just did a search on "veritas sharpening" and too many threads showed up.

Here are some ideas:

1. Get a footswitch. It makes flattening the back of the blade easier. You can hold on to the blade with both hands, and turn on the sharpener. If the back of the blade is already flat, I just remove the burr of the blade on the sanding disk without power applied to the sharpener.

2. IMHO, the finest sanding disc from Lee Valley, 1200x, is not fine enough. Buy an extra 3mm plate. For sanding discs, buy 1 micron and/or 0.3 micron PSA sheets from Tools for Working Wood (http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/indextool.mvc?prodid=ST-MAF.XX) and cut them to shape.

3. This is how to minimize air bubble between the PSA sanding disc and the plate: spray water on the plate, do a "taco shell" fold of the sanding disc and apply it on the plate, with a J-roller, push water from the center out to the edge.

4. When the finest sanding disc has worn out, don't discard it. Leave it on the plate and apply honing compound (http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=32984&cat=1,43072) for final honing. I do the final honing on the left side of the guide.

5. Having an extra tool holder makes life easier.

[Joe Meazle]

I have one and like it. My next LV order will include another tool holder. I have used D. Peacock's Tormek too. The Veritas meets my needs better (mostly plane irons and chisles). Tormek may do a greater varity of of jobs.

[Pete Brown]

Thanks Hoa

The threads I found were all about the non-power sharpening system, except one or two asking if anyone has seen the power version.

The highest grit was rated in microns, I don't know what the equivalent grit is. I see the site says 1200x, so that must be the one.

I'll check out the other grits on TFWW as well as the technique for getting the bubbles out. I did "ok" on the high grit disk, but I still see a couple bubbles, although they never catch the blade.

Pete

[Pete Brown]

Is the extra tool holder just so you can stage a second tool for sharpening?

[Gary Curtis]

Pete, I've got the Veritas power sharpener. though it costs $300, there are no extras needed. To me, the downside of the Tormek is the cost of the necessary accessories.

When all is said and done, sharpening only involves removing metal from a tool edge to get it sharp. No one method is the Swiss Army Knife of sharpening. The Veritas impressed me because of the speed and the fact that if you are reasonably attentive, you won't destroy and edge.

Gary Curtis

[Brent Harral]

Have it, love it, no regrets. I actually sold my Tormek to get the Mk.II. Yep, the Tormek does a better job with turning tools and has more accessories for "stuff", but for chisels and plane irons the Veritas works better for me and I get probably a 20 percent better edge vs. the tormek. Ask me if I miss getting my bench all wet....

[Roger Bell]

I bought the Mark 1 when it first came out in 2000. It is basically the same unit, but with a 1" belt sander attached. LV got rid of the sander/grinder attachment, lowered the price and came out with the Mark 2 subsequently.

Fact is, it won't do anything necessarily "better" than stones, but it is a whole lot faster.

I like mine. I am in agreement with Hoa's comments. It is really great for flattening the pitted backs of those cheap Witherby chisels you can't resist. For those who are extra fastidious about a finely-finely honed edge, you can break out your finest grit waterstone for a final polish or follow Hoa's suggestions. Most of the time, the edge coming off the 1200 paper is good enough for what I usually do with ordinary Stanleys. I save the extra effort for the irons in my infills. Well worth the money. I think, if you do a lot of hand tool work.

[Pete Brown]

Thanks all.

I got decent results on my first tries, although in one instance, I ended up with a micro-bevel that was a bit more macro than micro :)

Pete

[Mark Singer]

It is a very fine machine for chisels planes and knives....somethings I still do with stones

[Doug Shepard]

I dont have one, but they look pretty nice. The only negative I've ever seen is on a couple of threads on the Knots forum. There were a couple that returned them or didn't purchase because they thought the different linear speeds at the various distances from the center were somehow causing them insurmountable inconsistent results on the blades or irons. Sounded a bit piddly to me, but what do I know.

[Tyler Howell]

This worked real well for me.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=33218 (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=33218)