easy honing guides?

[Nicholas Lawrence]

I have the $9 eclipse. It works fine. A stop should help a lot in getting everything straight, square and consistent. You have not told us what you are doing so I have no idea if that would help you or not.

If you want to spend a bunch of money to find out if your problem is the guide or operator error, nobody here will stop you.

[John Gornall]

Recommend watching the Lie Nielsen sharpening videos by Deneb - helpful watching a skilled guy sharpen a blade

[david charlesworth]

I wish you could come on my sharpening course.

One day to deal with chisel issues and one day to master the slightly cambered plane blade.

My initial advice is to place a finger on either side of the blade, near the edge and virtually zero grip on the guide.

Squareness is achieved by varying the force on the fingers (nothing to do with the roller or the slight crookedness of the side clamping department).

Best wishes,
David

PS I have a dvd on this subject.

[Brandon Hanley]

After checking a couple of the links and a video i see where 99% of the problem lies ... my guide was damaged in the mail for sure but i didnt realize before because it was the first one id ever seen. The piece that holds the roller in the middle of the bolt in mine is missing so the roller ia free to travel completely from one side of the guide to the other. Also as i tighten the guide after using the jig i think nicholas is refering to as a stop the blade cants to the side and one side lifts just the slightest bit between the blade and guide so that you can see light between them.

Now im just wondering if i should buy another one like it or just upgrade as planned since i already sold myself on either the LN or veritas deluxe set. I definitely see a worksharp3k in my future also but want to see if i can do it by hand first

[John C Cox]

If it looks like mine - the "piece" that retains the wheel is a C clip.. You can get them at the hardware store for less than $0.50/each...

[Dave Beauchesne]

Brandon:

Not trying to judge - but trying to learn something new while running on fumes is perhaps the incorrect thing. Been there, done that. Please don't take this personal - many shop mistakes / accidents happen when tired.

You have received excellent advise from the learned group that is SMC.

Best of luck!

Dave B

[George Wall]

Brandon:

I'm a rank beginner; actually I've been a rank beginner for a while, but I have gotten much better at sharpening. And I've screwed up my fair share of blades while learning. So I'll add my own $0.025 if that's OK:

I tried the Veritas honing guide, and to be honest, I'm about to put it up for sale. I bought the $9 guide and like it much better. A lot less fussy to set up. There is a Lie Nielsen video that shows you how to modify the cheapo honing guide, but I was using my guide for a while before I even knew about the modifications, and it worked fine. I did make the angle block for setting repeatable angles with the guide, but that's a trivial amount of work.

I'm slowly starting to transition to freehand; freehand sharpening of chisels is actually quite easy with a bit of practice. But I'll keep the cheap guide around, as I still use it for my plane irons (for now). I'm only mentioning this, as you may decide to move to freehand yourself at some point, in which case the expensive guide will end up sitting idle most of the time.

IMHO, technique is more important than the media used, and there are quite a few videos (paid and free) that show various techniques. I will say that I did find David Charlesworth's videos quite helpful (they have streaming versions and DVD's available at Lie Nielsen). My own view is that picking one technique at the beginning takes out a lot of the uncertainty, and once I got Charlesworth's techniques down, I found myself more able to experiment and adapt those techniques for my own personal needs.

As for media: I switched from waterstones to DMT plates, and will never go back. I use coarse, fine, extra-fine, and then free hand strop with leather, green compound, and a block of wood. I still sometimes use my 8000 grit waterstone for refining the edge between the extra fine and the strop (no soaking required on that one), but I got tired of soaking and flattening the 1K/4K stones. But I will say that waterstones do work well. I do use sandpaper for flattening the backs; 80 grit will flatten just about anything, and the move up some grits up to about 2000, then finish on either the 8000 stone or the strop.

I have learned (and am still learning) to discipline myself to go back and do maintenance sharpening quite frequently. Sometimes that's just a few strokes on the strop. Or going back to the finer stones and doing some gentle passes until a fine wire edge is raised. If you do that, you'll find it takes a lot less time to keep things sharp, and it starts becoming second nature after a while. There is nothing worse than realizing that to do your next project you either have to work with a dull tool (not recommended and potentially hazardous) or spend 20-30 minutes of your precious time reestablishing a bevel on a 80 degree edge!!

The other thing to keep in mind is that there is not the need for a whole lot of precision when it comes to angles and camber when starting out. Whether the bevel angle is 23 degrees or 37 degrees isn't really a big deal. Sure, bevel angles do matter to some degree, and it's good to have a target and work to establish a bevel close to that target. But there's no need to obsess over it. I only mention this so you don't feel the need to reestablish a bevel because you inadvertently went 5 degrees off from your desired bevel angle or if you added an extra degree of camber. A sharp edge at the "wrong" angle will still cut better than a dull edge (within reason, of course). The angles obviously matter more on bevel up planes, but if you take your time and follow a good technique, you'll often get "close enough" when it comes to angles and camber.

[Patrick Chase]

The other thing to keep in mind is that there is not the need for a whole lot of precision when it comes to angles and camber when starting out. Whether the bevel angle is 23 degrees or 37 degrees isn't really a big deal.

This depends on the tool and task. For a common-pitch bevel-down plane differences in the range you cite don't impact the cutting mechanics, but there's certainly going to be a difference in edge life. For a bevel-up plane 23 vs 37 deg is absolutely huge (35 vs 49 deg cutting angle), with serious impacts on cutting forces, tearout, etc.

I think that we should strive to learn early on when angles etc matter and why, and adapt our technique accordingly.

[bridger berdel]

Ive been going the sandpaper on glass route and no matter if i only use pull strokes across the paper or push and pull or even right or left handed the edge skews so one side is longer than the other. I use a jig to set the length/angle that was given to me with the guide by another member when i bought a few planes from him.

The main reason for wantung to switch from sandpaper is the mess and mass quanities needed. Ive spent 2 afternoons and about $20 eorth of sandpaper just regrinding this one iron and its still not done just shaped with 80 grit.

As for freehand, only in my wildest dreams. Ive tried for years with knives and finally gave in and learned to use cheaper pocket knives and replace often. I tried with a cheap chisel recently and that ended as i expected.

For $20 you can pick up a secondhand bench grinder.

[Brandon Hanley]

Bought a similar one from ebay for under $20 and even unmodified it got the job done. I still think I would like to upgrade to a better guide and possibly some Diamond Stones though.

[Don Jarvie]

Here is my suggestion and I couldn’t sharpen squat before. I took a class at No Bennett st and part was sharpening. They teach you to hollow grind and then use a fine India oil stone, that’s it. You need the tools to be sharp to shave the wood cleanly and this is what this method does. It’s very simple and easy to use.

[Tom Stenzel]

John already has mentioned what retains the roller. There should be two C-clips, one on each side of the roller when it is resting in the unthreaded part of the screw. It doesn't sound like it was damaged in shipping. More likely the clips were missing all along. They can be pushed into place without any disassembly.

Yes I'm a happy owner of an Eclipse style guide. In fact when it arrived my plane irons and chisels all breathed an audible sigh of relief after my ham-fisted efforts to freehand sharpen.

Take David Charlesworth's advice to put pressure on the iron and not the guide. The more you push on the guide the more likely it is to slip making you tighten more. More tightening means the iron bows. Sharpening goes downhill from there. Don't ask me how I learned that.

-Tom

[Robert Engel]

Brandon,

"Operator error is always so disheartening, so I'm glad you got if figured out. I've used the Eclipse jig successfully & it will do a good job once you get you technique dialed in. You can make a gauge to set the angle out of a piece of wood with a stop block for varying angles.

The next step is to get settled on your sharpening system. Sounds like your done with sandpaper and moving to stones. So you will need to decide on diamond/water or both.

Here is a system that works great for me maybe this will help you decide:
Diamond plates in Xcoarse, Coarse, Fine, Extra Fine (equal to 300/600/800/1250 grit) + 4000 & 8000 water stones for polishing. For a typical touch up during a project, I hit the 1250 and go straight to 8000. Key is frequent sharpening don't get lazy and wait till its really dull.

Once you get comfortable and have success, I suggest giving freehand sharpening a shot -- but not if you are an infrequent ww'er.