Shaptons: Side Sharpening w/Sharp Skate vs. Veritas Mk II Honing Guide

[Charlie Stanford]

Does anyone here use Garrelson Stanley's Sharp Skate with Shaptons?

I've been following another thread on fighting stiction and one recommendation was to use side sharpening.

I've used my Mk II with my waterstones but recently picked up some Shaptons and had stiction issues. I tried them since reading Derek's post but also wonder what those who have the Sharp Skate think of it.

For background, I sharpen everything from a 1/8" LN chisel to a 2-3/8 LV A-1 (BU) plane blade.

I'd sure like to learn all I can from my fellow Creekers!

Maurice Fraser sharpens chisels from side to side - it's the most natural motion for a hollow ground cutter. It uses the whole stone too. Get his DVD on sharpening with oilstones.

[Steve Elliott]

In a nutshell, side sharpening was found to produce a stronger edge than front-and-back sharpening. This conclusion is also reinforced by research which look at magnified images of blade edges (Steve Elliott?) - results demonstrate the the chipping eminates from the fine scratches that lead to the edge of the bevel. And, of course, there are no such scratches with side sharpening.

Hi Derek,

Just to make sure nobody goes searching through my website looking for something that isn't there, the fact is I haven't done any work comparing side sharpening to "regular" sharpening. I sometimes side sharpen freehand if a blade starts to tip and haven't noticed any effect on edge durability, but that's just ordinary anecdotal user experience, not controlled testing.

I have done some microscope imaging of side sharpened blades and they looked GREAT until I adjusted the lighting 90 degrees so that it brought out all the scratches that didn't show up with my regular lighting, which was optimized to show scratches perpendicular to the cutting edge.

Steve

[Eddie Darby]

I've been following another thread on fighting stiction and one recommendation was to use side sharpening.

I've used my Mk II with my waterstones but recently picked up some Shaptons and had stiction issues.

I'd sure like to learn all I can from my fellow Creekers!

Have you tried a couple of drops of dishwashing soap in your water to reduce stiction?