Sharpening / Honing for the NEWBIE

[Joe D'Attilio]

I found this pretty in depth instructional on honing a blade that I thought I would share.

http://www.antiquetools.com/sharp/index.html

Anyone who has found better methods let me know.

Again I had aday of reckoning and decided "before I start chopping down the forest and molding the logs into furniture" I need to pick up a nice set of sharpening stones and some oil

Any tips / insight - good stones - fair pricing? or is this simply another facet that you can not skimp on? Best place to buy?

I def would not have even thought of let alone buying that first plane if it wasn't for the support here

Thanks in advance!

[Sam Yerardi]

Joe,

This is one of those areas where I think the best suggestion might be to learn as much as you can (reading, etc.) about the different methods, pick one, try it, and then try other methods. Part of the fun. Guaranteed you're going to get a lot of repsonses to this question and almost every answer is probably going to be different. The good thing is every one of them will work. It's a very subjective thing. Myself I use oil stones and would like to try waterstones. Oil stones work for what I need but I'm always searching for the sharper edge. I think moreso than the types of stones you use, the major element in this is HOW you sharpen with what you have.

[Robert Rozaieski]

Joe,

Joel's tutorial is one of the best I've seen and is the method I use except I do not use a microbevel. I can show you and you can try it out tonight on my stones. Stone preference is a personal thing but I have used all of the most popular methods (sandpaper, waterstones, oil stones), with and without a honing guide and I have settled on oil stones without a honing guide. My reasons are that the stones were relatively inexpensive, they do not need constant flattening like waterstones do, and it is a one time purchase unlike using sandpaper. I also think they are less messy than waterstones as you just wipe the stone clean when your done and you don't have to soak them in water and get messy waterstone slurry everywhere. I don't use a honing guide any more because they are slow to set up and difficult to repeat the same angle unless you make jigs or buy the expensive LV MKII. Honing freehand without a guide I can simply touch up a plane iron or chisel much more quickly during use and get back to work rather than fiddling with a honing guide. I find because I don't need to set up the guide, I hone my edges more frequently during use and therefore keep my tools sharper. Freehand honing is easy if you hollow grind your blades.

My hard white and black arkansas stones are from Hall's and I use the 1" x 2" x 6" stones. I also use a combination coarse/fine india stone I got from woodcraft in the same size for $11. After hollow grinding on a high speed grinder, I use the fine india, followed by the hard white, followed by the hard black and I finish up with a leather strop with green compound. If you want to use oil stones, I suggest the $11 india stone from Woodcraft, the black arkansas stone from Hall's (about $40), Joel's strop and green compound and a can of Norton oil from home depot. You can really go from the fine india straight to the black arkansas and skip the hard white arkansas. It will cost you about $85 for everything but it's a one time investment and you will need/use the stones the rest of your woodworking life. These stones won't wear out in your lifetime like waterstones will. You will also need something to do the hollow grind but any grinder will work with a soft touch. I use a delta high speed 6" grinder I got from Lowe's years ago for maybe $40. It works fine. I just dip the blade in water often to keep it cool. We'll play tonight. If you got your new plane already, feel free to bring it and we'll get it all tuned up.

Bob

[Robert Rozaieski]

Joe,

This is one of those areas where I think the best suggestion might be to learn as much as you can (reading, etc.) about the different methods, pick one, try it, and then try other methods. Part of the fun. Guaranteed you're going to get a lot of repsonses to this question and almost every answer is probably going to be different. The good thing is every one of them will work. It's a very subjective thing. Myself I use oil stones and would like to try waterstones. Oil stones work for what I need but I'm always searching for the sharper edge. I think moreso than the types of stones you use, the major element in this is HOW you sharpen with what you have.
If you don't already, strop your edges on a leather strop charged with green compound after your final stone. You get a mirror polish and a shaving sharp edge. The stropping compound is finer than an 8000 grit waterstone so it will actually give you a more polished and sharper edge. No need to give up your oil stones. I actually gave up waterstones for oil stones and like the oil stones and strop much better. Give it a try before dropping major coin on expensive water stones. Also make sure the back has a mirror polish or no stone will give you a sharper edge. I use sandpaper for this as it's much faster than stones for polishing backs.

[Sam Yerardi]

Thanks Rob! I do strop on leather w/ compound afterwards but I always wonder if I'm doing it long enough, etc. I've started using a magnifier (I can't see anyway ;)) to see if I can see the difference but I don't have enough experience at it yet. I tried using a polishing wheel but I felt like I was rounding off the edge I had just created. Oil stones are really what I prefer. I haven't used waterstones and would like to try them once but the idea of constantly having to resurface the stones I think would get old real quick. I have no plans on trying them but have you heard of Belgian stones?

[Joe D'Attilio]

I have heard of them briefly. They are somewhat considered a wetstone, in that the surface met be moistened to create a slurry.

Here is a link to Belgian stones for sale at price comparable to Nortion oil stones.

http://www.bestsharpeningstones.com/Belgian_Sharpening_Stones.htm

Here is a strop techinque I found which is pretty in depth considering it is based upon use of honing straight razors for shaving; I'm guessing this is a good intro to stropping as I don't now or the near future; plan to shave with my tools...

Scroll down to the honing section

http://www.phillytown.com/finer.htm

[Sam Yerardi]

Thanks Joe

[Don C Peterson]

Thanks Rob! I do strop on leather w/ compound afterwards but I always wonder if I'm doing it long enough, etc. I've started using a magnifier (I can't see anyway ;)) to see if I can see the difference but I don't have enough experience at it yet. I tried using a polishing wheel but I felt like I was rounding off the edge I had just created. Oil stones are really what I prefer. I haven't used waterstones and would like to try them once but the idea of constantly having to resurface the stones I think would get old real quick. I have no plans on trying them but have you heard of Belgian stones?

I went from using waterstones to Arkansas stones because I hated flattening the water stones. I now use a mix of diamond plates (used for shaping bevels and flattening backs), Spyderco ceramic stone, hard black Arkansas stone, and a horse butt strop with green polishing compound. The waterstones genrally cut faster, but not having to fret over my bencstoned being flat is great. Once a tool is sharpened, it ususally doesn't need anything more than a quick touch up on the strop, maybe hit the Arkansas stone and then the strop if I let it get pretty dull...

[Sam Yerardi]

Don,

Do you use the same approach for carving chisels?

Sam

[Wilbur Pan]

Hi Joe,

I just noticed that you're located in Philly. You really should strongly consider taking one of the hand tool or sharpening classes at the Philadelphia Furniture Workshop (http://philadelphiafurnitureworkshop.com/category/show/1). That will help you out with sharpening skills more than any internet advice or jig will. There's something to be said about seeing this stuff done live.

When I got started, I got lucky in that I took a class before I bought any tools, and one of the first things I learned was how to sharpen a chisel using the Scary Sharp method. Now, I use a completely different system (waterstones), but learning the principles first was a huge help.

[Jesse Cloud]

Taking a class is a great idea. Its just about impossible to know how sharp things should be without seeing someone sharpen.

I would suggest that you start with sandpaper, scary sharp. Its cheap and you build skills that will work for you if you eventually go to stones.

What you don't want to do is what I did, and try every sharpening gadget known to man without developing skills in any of them. After spending way too many $$, I went back to scary sharp and will probably stay there.

[Sam Yerardi]

Jesse,
Good point. Simpler the better. By the way, I've been to Albuquerque and it's lovely country where you live.

[Joe D'Attilio]

I wanted to provide some more elaborate info on the belgian stones, as I'm still between these and the oil stone(Arkansas/India) method.



"Belgian whetstones can sharpen any kind of steel, including stainless steel and high speed steel (HSS), such as knives, chisels, scissors, axes, adzes, draw knives and more.

A legendary, natural sharpening stone known since Roman times, quarried and fabricated in the Ardennes Region of Belgium."

No burr! The remarkable cutting abilities of the stones are due to their embedded hard, rhomboid-shaped garnet crystals, millions of them, which both cut and hone, rolling underneath the steel.

So durable are these stones that you may pass them on to your grandchildren.


rundown of the specs

http://www.timbertools.com/Products/SharpeningStones.html (http://www.timbertools.com/Products/SharpeningStones.html)

More in depth info

http://www.timbertools.com/Products/ArdennesCoticule.pdf (http://www.timbertools.com/Products/ArdennesCoticule.pdf)


cheaper here though (3 stones / blue-yellow and slurry stone $120 + shipping):

http://www.bestsharpeningstones.com/Belgian_Sharpening_Stones.htm (http://www.bestsharpeningstones.com/Belgian_Sharpening_Stones.htm)

Thoughts?