Sharpening Stone Grit enough?

[Johan Axelsson]

He does add another bevel on the 16000 stone. You can see him do it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okLIEoz00v0#t=19m50s

You have any idea what the benefit is of doing it this way? Why not just sharpen with the 1k stone and get a 25 degree bevel then do a secondary bevel with the 16K.

Howdy Johan and Welcome to the Creek.

Interesting your first post is a sharpening thread. Sharpening seems to be a subject upon which everyone has an opinion.

One thought for consideration, "the products Rob Cosman recommends" are often products in which he has a financial interest. This is often the case with some 'professionals' in any trade.

For my on purposes water stones used to be my Holy Grail of sharpening. Mostly a 1000 or 2000 grit stone to start. Followed by a 4000 and an 8000. Stropping was optional. If a blade was in really bad shape coarser grit would be supplied by abrasive sheets. For my way of working the 800 and coarser stones wore away too quickly. One point is to not wait to sharpen until an edge gets frustratingly dulled.

Because my shop isn't heated in the winter water would freeze. For this an accumulation of oilstones were used to sharpen. Funny that years ago oilstones just didn't seem to work for me. After learning to sharpen with water stones the oilstones started working a whole lot better.

One test of a chisel's sharpness is paring end grain on a soft wood like fir or pine. Mortising is a lot of end grain cutting. One of my recently acquired chisels was sharpened on oilstones and cut end grain quite well:

USN 3:4%22 Chisel Morising.jpg

The chips laying on the work were pared off with the aid of a mallet. There were actually some pared off by hand at the end of the mortise. This chisel is great, it actually held its edge very well throughout cutting a 2-1/4" X 4" (~55mm X 100mm) mortise.

BTW, this chisel has a single bevel at 25º.

jtk

Yea It's a subject with many ways to do it! That's why I just went with the Rob system. I have plenty to try and understand thus far anyway. If I have bad results I have to try something else.

Carefully consider why you need each stone. Maybe you do not need all of the stones when you begin. Are you starting with sharp blades?

I started with sandpaper on a flat plate (such as glass). Eventually, sandpaper gets expensive, but so are plates. I use a hollow grind, so I spend much more time on finer grits than with lower grits. I cannot comment on what you need if you use a flat bevel and do a full grind each time. Since you are talking about micro-bevels, perhaps you do need the coarser stones, but you could also do that with sand paper; or use sand paper for the higher grits.

Can you use a strop rather than the 16K stone? I like my 16K stone, just so we are clear, but, you might be able to make a strop for less than the 16K stone.

In the long run, the stones will cost you less money I think, but, if you want to try it out to see if it matters, you might find that for much of what you do, a 6K followed by a strop will work just fine.

Saying that, I have 2K, 4K, 5K, 6K, 8K, 16K, a bunch of diamond stones, Arkansas Stones, etc. I just gave away a 500 and a 1K since I pretty much never used them. They were fancy stones that worked well, I just don't like soaking my stones before I use them, which is why I use the Shapton stones. Spray and go! But that is what I like to do, no comment on what you will like and what will work for you.

My local woodcraft has a sharpening area setup where you can try some of their diamonds and sharpen something to try it out. Or they did last I checked, no idea if it is still there, but, nice to be able to give it a go to see what you think.

Sadly I have no shop close by, and It's not really common where I live, that you get the cance to try stuff out. I will start with mostly brand new stuff, and hopefully in time when I learn how to sharpen correctly. Take a go at fixing some of my grandpas old tools. And to be honest, I have no clue what I need I just went with the "Rob system" because, I felt like he explained it well, and I don't want to dig in any further into sharpening than I already done(YET!!). I just wanted to be done with it.

Just my experience with DMT over the last 17 years . . . First, I will say that my DMT stones have outlasted any Trend or EZ Lap stones that I tried, wore out and tossed. Second, coarser grits are difficult in diamond stones. Although I have a DiaSharp Extra Coarse I use it rarely. For coarse work I use a grinder or sand paper on glass/marble depending what I am doing.

For Coarse (~300grit) through Extra Extra Fine (`8000 grit) I use DMT DiaSharp stones in 8". I started with the 11.5" stones and have a few grits of those. They are handy for narrow edges and just a few swipes on each grit does the job. The 8" are wider and allow for things like my 2"+ plane irons and such.

The DuoSharp products seem like a good idea for dual-grit stones but the Fine/Extra Fine combo is the only one that really makes sense to me for sharpening chisels, planes and the like. We have to remember that there are folks out there that sharpen other tools, woodworking and not. The products made for these folks are not as useful for what I do.

In short, DMT is my go-to, Trend and EZ Lap are off my list, I have not tried Atoma and other recent players and the full-surface abrasive DiaSharp format is my preferred. Other opinions will abound. I just wanted to share what I have found to work for me long term.

Thanks, feels good that I went with the DMT after all.
So I ordered a 10" because Amazon could not send the 8" to me for some reason? And the 8" from US would land at a steeper price than the 10" from EU for me. Corase/X-Fine


Thanks again for all the helpfull replies guys! Really appreciate it!