Further to my query about the scary sharp method of honing using wet-or-dry, I have to admit that my old Eclipse 36 honing guide is pretty crap, really. It's a real pain to get the chisel at the right projection AND square in the guide.
Now, I've heard a lot about the Veritas Mark II honing guide and looked it up on Amazon. Talk about falling off one's chair! A few pence shy of £54! Man, that's expensive. But is it worth it?
Looks like a decent, precision made tool, however.
I did get a good result in the end from my Eclipse, but it takes a fair bit of trial and error to get that chisel sitting just right. Probably easier for plane blades.
Also check out the Richard Kell honing guide. It may answers your problem. = Lee Valley tools are generally quite good, You can buy direct, though anyth= ing other than standard surface shipping, which can take a few weeks, costs= so much its not worth it.
You are on the slippery slope here. Searching for the mystical sharpest edg= e. Shaving your arms. Slicing through loose sheets of paper. In the middle = of this you might lose sight of the actual use of the tool.
I've seen serious discussions of the surface to be used for the scary sharp= method where the flatness of plate glass was brought into question as the = process of making float glass depends on gravity so in reality any sheet of= plate glass is going to follow the curvature of the earth.
Valley tools are generally quite good, You can buy direct, though anything other than standard surface shipping, which can take a few weeks, costs so much its not worth it.
Shaving your arms. Slicing through loose sheets of paper. In the middle of this you might lose sight of the actual use of the tool.
method where the flatness of plate glass was brought into question as the process of making float glass depends on gravity so in reality any sheet of plate glass is going to follow the curvature of the earth.
Are the days gone when a carpenter just had a grinder and a stone? I suspect the professional carpenter still does, and the home workshop and diy carpenter faffles about with expensive sharpening toys.
Don't get me wrong: getting things right when sharpening stuff makes all the difference in use but...
Have you tried sharpening your chisels freehand? After all these years you must instinctively know what angles you want and it's just down to the accuracy with which you can hold those angles on the abrasive.
I keep all my sharpening stones in a home-made box which is heavy enough to stay in place when I'm using it on the bench so both hands are free to control the chisel. Rather than using my shoulders and elbows as if I were spokeshaving, I mentally 'lock' my arms in position and rock gently back and forth on my feet so the blade slides across the stone without wobbling. It probably looks ridiculous - but hey - nobody's watching me - and I end up with really true and keen blades. Other people may have even simpler techniques or tips to offer.
Give it a try - you'll probably be delighted with the results. And if you are not delighted then you can grind the mistakes out using the expensive super-duper honing guide you go out to buy!
Nick Who still uses his old Eclipse saw set so is not totally against using guides when sharpening stuff
I dont use chisels much, so much so that over the years I didnt realise how bad they had become, also the stone was hollowed out. What I did for a quick improvement was use a piece of flat pack wood and glued a few grades of wet & dry to it. Not perfect but a vast improvement on my chisels, now looking for a piece of plate glass. I use the eclipse guide, its ok for me as I am not sharpening chisels every day.
Plate glass is not float glass and may vary in flatness. You can always grind it flat if you want. Its easy to do but you need three pieces and you grind each one against the others in a sequence that makes all three flat. Its how you make optical flats for telescopes.
It used to be how you made engineers flats except you used a dye marker to indicate high areas and scrapers to actually remove the material.
Lee Valley tools are generally quite good, You can buy direct, though anything other than standard surface shipping, which can take a few weeks, costs so much its not worth it.
Shaving your arms. Slicing through loose sheets of paper. In the middle of this you might lose sight of the actual use of the tool.
method where the flatness of plate glass was brought into question as the process of making float glass depends on gravity so in reality any sheet of plate glass is going to follow the curvature of the earth.
Crikey, a grinder and a stone?!! We're not sharpening garden shears here!
I've bought all the hand tools I ever will, with the possible exception of the Veritas guide maybe, one day.. My planes are 40 years old.
I have to get a really sharp blade in this case because I am using the chisel for trimming book blocks at the fore-edge. With patience the method gives excellent results, but you have to keep the chisel as sharp as possible. I trimmed a 20mm thick book block yesterday, 130 sheets of 80gsm paper, and had to re-hone the chisel three times. Doesn't take that long, though. 20 minutes for trimming and honing. The result is fantastic.
No, I wouldn't try. I have complete faith in jigs, guides, rails etc. Always have. I believe in reproducible results every time and I'm sure I can achieve a better result with my honing guide than if I attempted to sharpen freehand.
I'm a sucker for jigs and guides! I bought a Wolfcraft dowelling jig years ago and it's been fantastic.
It took a little getting used to (and reading the instructions - bah!) but I managed to get all my chisels very nicely sharpened, even the ones which were very abused removing floorboards where they hit nails, bits or plaster etc and were in a shocking state.
Aside - the bedroom wall was built over the ends of the floorboards which were then hacked to death by generations of plumbers and electricians until short lengths (the bits they could not get out) were left under the wall. I had to split the floorboards to get them off the nails through the wall/floorboard/joist and then notch the ends of the new boards around the nails.
Hmm ... I do a bit of home binding, and one day will have to get around to doing something like this. Do you have a 'proper' press for this? I'm keen to find out how others trim 'on the cheap'...
I cut two pieces from 38mm x 38 mm timber, about 30cm long, sandwiched them lengthwise and drilled two 10mm holes through both, one near each end. The book block is clamped between them (2x 10mm bolts with wingnuts), then one of the long pieces is clamped to a table or Workmate with the book block vertical in the clamp. You leave about 3
- 4mm of the fore-edge of the book block sticking up proud of the clamp.
Now you take a really sharp chisel, hold it flat on the top of the long piece facing you, gently apply the blade to the book block. The chisel is held at a slight angle (2 or 3 degrees) so that only the corner of the chisel contacts the paper. Then you slide the chisel, pulling it towards you, across the block, cutting one or two pages at a time. YOU MUST KEEP IT FLAT!
Some instructions I've seen say to *push* the chisel away from you, but I found pulling it easier.
When the first few snippets of paper come away from the book block, you know you're on the right track! Hint: Get some old books from the local library to practise on. Usually only 10p to 20p each.
After about a third of the way through I re-honed the chisel. Alternatively, start the job with three chisels honed and ready. BTW I tried a 25mm chisel and it didn't work as well as the 32mm.
Refinement: First apply a thin aluminium strip, about 30mm wide, to the long piece you'll be sliding the chisel across on. This prevents the chisel from cutting slivers off the wood. I've yet to apply my alu strip - only bought it yesterday - and I plan to glue it on, maybe with 2-component adhesive like Araldite. Alternatively, drill and countersink and attach with screws, though then you're going to be left with possible snag points. I reckon it'll stick okay with some decent glue.
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