I am seeking advice that includes questions about sharpening and whether to purchase a new stone, new chisel(s), neither, or both. It is not my goal to set off another sharpening debate, but I am having some sharpening issues and am asking sharpening questions, and so it seems inevitable that another debate will begin. That's fine; I always learn something new.
As usual, I am quite verbose but wanted to provide enough detail to get informed advice rather than simply raising questions, so please pardon the length of this post.
There are a few things that aren't working as well for me as I'd like with my present setup in regards to sharpening, but I am not convinced that further changes in my sharpening setup are the right answer. Below is a discussion of what I am presently doing and what isn't working for me (hence my seeking advice from the experts); it's my experience alone and is not intended as any kind of support or criticism of what works for someone else. As with all things woodworking, if what you're doing is working well for you, please continue.
First, a bit of background. For about three years now I've been using DMT coarse and extra fine diamond stones followed by a leather or wood strop with Formax green "micro-fine" honing compound. For what it's worth, I am a freehand sharpener mostly because when starting out I didn't want to spend the money to buy a honing guide and after several years of freehand sharpening and after starting to also get into carving (with its wonderful variety of not-so-honing-guide-friendly gouges) I don't presently see a need for a honing guide in my work. I'm not against anyone using them, just don't want one for myself.
My woodworking time is mostly in the evenings once or twice during the week with a good deal more shop time on the weekends when the opportunity arises. I sharpen up whenever the blade I am using is no longer sharp enough to do what I want it to do (so, this differs greatly between, for example, chopping mortises versus paring end grain or smoothing). Whenever I have time, at the end of a woodworking session I sharpen all the blades I have used so that I leave things sharp for next time. The DMT stones I have are pretty well broken in and so I believe I have enough experience with them to pass judgement on the particular examples I have in my shop. With this combination of sharpening media, I have two problems. First, the extra fine diamond stone still has a tendency to "throw a diamond" every couple of weeks (just did so again about two weeks ago); a diamond comes loose from one part of the stone during a stroke with a blade and gets pushed along until it embeds itself farther along in the surface, leaving a rogue diamond sticking up well above its surroundings and leaving a deep scratch in the edge of the blade along with a consistent high spot on the stone until that diamond wears down. This is true of both the 8 inch bench stone in my workshop and the 6 inch "travel size" stone I bring along on business trips to use with my gouges. With all the "rogue diamonds" scattered around (they used to come off at a much higher rate when the stones were new), I tend to get quite a number of deeper scratches from the DMT extra fine stone along with the fine scratches. Is it just a problem with my DMT extra fine stones, or is it a problem with the finer DMT stones in general? Thanks to the deeper-than-grit-size-implies scratches from the "extra fine" stones, especially with the A2 and PM-V11 blades I find myself spending what I consider to be inordinate time on the strop when I want to either smooth or pare, trying to keep from leaving lines in the work. What do I mean by inordinate? I mean that with an A2 #60 1/2 block plane blade or a #5 Stanley replacement PM-V11 blade it takes ~10-15 minutes on the strop working the bevel plus a minute or two of back and forth between bevel and back to chase the burr; my original Stanley #5 O1 plane blade takes noticeably less time, more like 5 minutes or so, but I have to go back to the stone and the strop more often because it doesn't hold the edge I want as long as the PM-V11. So much stropping takes up too much of my valuable shop time, which is often limited to 30 minutes or less while our youngest is napping; I'd rather be working wood than sharpening. My second problem with this setup is that the leather strop rounds off the edge more than I'd like; the edge from whatever angle primary bevel I have comes out somewhere higher than that after 10 minutes (or even a few minutes) on a leather strop. This rounding off is particularly a problem with the gouges. I made a wooden strop, but for the plane blades in particular I didn't like that it was even slower than the leather to give me a smoothing-quality edge and I still had to sharpen on the pull stroke only (I prefer push-pull or side-to-side without losing contact with the sharpening media rather than having to lift and re-set the blade over and over). The wooden strops are not such a speed problem for the gouges--being O1 or similar steel and smaller blades, they don't take so long and I can still avoid rounding the edge and thereby increasing the bevel angle. I still wasn't happy with this system after a few years of working with it, so I decided to get another stone.
Based on what I have read, Arkansas stones are going to be relatively slow thanks to the hard carbides present in the A2 and PM-V11 blades I often use, and aren't likely to get these steels as sharp as a diamond stone or aluminum oxide stone will because they aren't sharpening the carbides themselves so much. My only personal experience with any Arkansas stone is with a multiform slip for my carving gouges, and which I haven't used for A2 or PM-V11. Perhaps I was mistaken in deciding not to get a high-quality Arkansas stone, but I didn't want to spend the money to see for myself only to be disappointed. I also didn't want a finer diamond stone (I don't want to worry about yet more "rogue diamond" issues--I've had more than my fill of those). So, about a month ago I purchased a Pride Abrasives 8000 grit water stone (listed as 2 micron aluminum oxide grit) to try to improve my sharpening setup; when needed, I go from the extra fine diamond stone to the 8000 grit stone and from there to the strop. I find that this stone cuts at least as fast as my extra fine diamond and leaves a sharper edge; based on the cutting speed, I only continue to use the extra fine diamond to reduce the wear on the 8k. The resulting edge has a very consistent scratch pattern instead of having lots of fine scratches with some deep ones, and has a matte finish instead of the polish I've read about for 8k stones. The lack of polish may simply be that the grit is staying sharp as the manufacturer claims it should and is rolling around on the surface during sharpening instead of sticking in place. I don't care about polish, just sharpness; however, this 8k stone doesn't get the blades as sharp as I want. Maybe I'm not using the stone properly: the edge I get directly off the stone is plenty sharp for most applications, but not good enough for paring end grain--I have to go to the strop for that. As hoped, I do indeed spend much less time at the strop; it's now 2-3 minutes for a PM-V11 plane blade instead of 10-15. Much better. The hardwood strop is still slower; more like 5 minutes to paring/smoothing sharpness. So, it seems that I would save time (and get a better edge for paring thanks to the lack of rounding over) if I purchased a finer stone that also cuts faster than the strop. I'm happier now with the amount of time spent sharpening than I was before the 8k stone but not yet happy per se. Maybe I simply don't have enough experience with the 8k yet to know how to use it optimally.
Here's how I am presently using the 8k stone, in case there are suggestions on how I can improve (how could there not be? I'm asking for suggestions on sharpening!): first, if I haven't used the stone in a few days (such that it's dried out a bit--it sits out on my sharpening bench instead of in water) when I expect I'll be sharpening in the next few minutes I squirt water on top of the stone until the soaking in starts to slow down. If I was using it the previous day (or earlier the same day), I start with a quick splash. Then when I am ready to sharpen, immediately before I start on the diamond plate(s) and then again immediately before moving to the 8k I add more water--at this point it stands on the surface. Using fairly light pressure (the weight of the blade plus perhaps the weight of my forearms, but not pressing down per se) I lift the angle slightly from where I had it on the extra fine diamond stone so that I am only working right near the edge, and using a figure-8 pattern (and moving that pattern around over the whole face of the stone) I work the edge until I get a very small burr all the way across. I then chase the burr using just the weight of the blade and a side-to-side sharpening motion until I can't feel it anymore. It takes about 30 seconds or so to raise the burr and another few strokes on the back and bevel to chase it. I have tried push/pull, fully side-to-side, the figure-8, and slightly elliptical motion, and for the initial burr formation they all seem pretty much equivalent but ending with a side-to-side motion for chasing the burr seems to get a sharper edge for me, and the way I am handling the figure 8 gives me a very slight camber that works well for me for smoothing. Am I doing something wrong that is keeping my edge from getting sharp enough to pare end grain pine? I have tried leaving the slurry on the stone between sharpenings, washing it off, keeping standing water in place, letting it "dry" (to the point that the surface is only damp) and I get about the same results. Every time I've tried going from the 8k stone directly to paring end grain hard maple (a "testing" scrap from the current project) compared to a stropped edge I have to apply more force to get a dull-looking surface (think high-grit sandpaper) that doesn't have the silky smooth feel I want. Stropping always fixes this. Results on end grain pine (straight off the 8k) include some crushing of the fibers.
Finally, one of the largest time sinks I presently have in sharpening occurs when I take my bench chisels from the role of chopping mortises (no drilling: I enjoy the process and the skill-building) to being able to pare, such as paring the shoulders of the associated tenons. I have my bench chisels sharpened at what I might call an all-purpose angle. I don't have a number for you, but for these particular chisels it's high enough to chop a couple mortises in hard maple before the edge is visibly damaged (small chips, typically), but low enough that after the strop the same (or approximately the same) angle can pare end grain pine without crushing the fibers. To keep mortising if the edge seems to be perceptibly dulling (taking more effort to chop), I go to the coarse diamond stone to quickly touch up the edge and go right back; if I'm going to chop more than a few mortises I'll temporarily raise the angle of the bevel so that the edge lasts longer. If I am going to pare instead, I use all of my stones (lowering the bevel back down on the coarse stone if i have to) plus the strop. So, I would save time by getting dedicated mortise chisels so I don't damage my bench chisel edges and/or dedicated paring chisels so I don't have to take a mortising-dulled edge back to paring sharpness, or by getting a finer stone that cuts faster than the strop.
So that you can get an idea of what kind of woodworking I do and therefore perhaps provide more-informed advice, some of my near-term and just-completed projects are as follows: a corner bookshelf in hard maple (in progress), a step platform in pine (kind of like a very wide and long footstool, recently completed), a carved picture frame in figured maple (frame completed, relief carving soon to follow); a small sawbench-type "workbench" in pine for my soon-to-be-4-year-old son that he'll be able to use as simply a sawbench later on (just started; borrows heavily from Jim Koepke's sawbench posts: thanks, Jim!); some small dovetailed decorative boxes in oak, maple, and hickory with inlay including a few exotic species; and a bed in cherry.
Any purchases would most likely be of new tools rather than antiques: my shop time is quite limited and I would rather work wood rather than rehab old tools. I am open to antique tools in good condition that would require little to no rehab, however, particularly antique oval bolstered mortise chisels if I could find the size I'd want (5/16 or 3/8 for working with 5/4 stock).
If I were to make a purchase of a sharpening stone, mortise chisel(s), or paring chisel(s), Lee Valley is one of my default options for good tools; every Veritas tool I own is excellent, and I don't see anything from Lie-Nielsen that seems to fit what I'm looking for in any of these categories. I am open to suggestions on alternative vendors. The Ray Iles oval bolstered mortise chisels from Tools for Working Wood, for example, certainly have a good reputation; Derek Cohen's comments, however, regarding a comparison between his Ray Iles and pre-production Veritas mortise chisels have me leaning toward the Veritas if I go the mortise chisel route. For the sharpening stone, it appears that (among Lee Valley's offerings) only the 13k Sigma stone is substantially finer than my Pride Abrasives 8k, and Stuart Tierney is a big proponent of the 13k Sigma. Again, I am open to suggestions. I haven't investigated paring chisels, so I would be happy to hear suggestions there, too, if you believe they're a worthwhile investment for me right now.
So, at long last we come to the meat of my advice-seeking: in your opinion, would I be better off:
1. Improving my technique with the 8k stone (in which case, please provide tips) so that I spend less time on the strop when I want to pare or smooth
2. Adding dedicated paring and mortising chisels to my set so I don't have to worry about the time spent sharpening up to paring level after mortising
3. Purchasing a finer but fast (for its grit level) stone so I can continue using the same chisel set as multi-purpose and avoid rounding the edges on my shoulder plane blade and chisels
4. More than one of the above
5. Something I haven't thought of yet that you would suggest I do instead
Thank you in advance.
Michael Bulatowicz