Originally Posted by
Jimmy Harris
Ease of use and space is one reason I switched to a sandpaper on glass setup. I just have an 18x24 piece of plate glass on which I spray glue (3M Super 77) some sandpaper strips to. Then squirt them down with a bottle of water and go. I sometimes have a leather strop out as well. I like to have 5 grits on my glass, 240, 400, 800, 1500, 3000. It allows me to quickly and easily progress through each grit, which saves a lot of time. I just lay it on top of the workbench and put a benchdog at the top to keep it from sliding. I'll put the strop in a vise if I have it out.
This way I don't have to have my sharpening setup out, taking up valuable space. But, if I do need to sharpen something, all I have to do is clear out a patch on my workbench, and pull out 2, maybe 3 items (depending on if I want the strop), and immediately get to it. Then, for tear down put the glass and bottle back on a shelf. I don't even worry about cleaning the sandpaper when done because it's replaceable. Even switching out sandpaper is easy with some mineral spirits and spray glue. And really, you don't have to do that as often as you'd think. Sure, the sandpaper becomes less effective pretty quickly, but it keeps working with a few extra passes for quite a while.