Help needed: Sharpening

[David]

I am a newbie and just getting into woodworking. I've picked up some planes and chisels, but have no experience in sharpening. Can someone advise me on a good system for sharpening the above? I appreciate the help. Thanks, David

[Charles]

should get you into trouble

[David]

Thanks Charles! Would you recommend some stores, sites where one can get the supplies? I'm about 50 miles from the nearest Lowe's, and I'm not sure if they carry the various kinds of sandpaper or if I would need to order them.

Thanks aga>>

[Silvan]

What about Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Advance Auto, Car Quest, Pep Boys, Autozone, etc.? Any better luck there?

I just got into Scary Sharp(tm) a bit back myself, and I learned that all the grits really *do* matter. Skipping grits means a lot more work for you, and it's worth the effort to get all the in-betweens.

You'll need yourself some glass or other flat substrate too. I didn't want to pay for or move around anything large enough to hold all those grits in one place, so I use a single piece of granite counter backstop, clamp my paper to it, and swap paper for every grit change. It works out pretty well, though it's a bit tedious switching paper that many times.

You *really* need some sort of fixture for holding the tool at the correct angle too. If you don't want to build one, you should definitely buy one. (I bought one because I never did come up with a shop version that worked well enough to suit me.) Several exist, but many use the Veritas from Lee Valley (sorry about the line wrap here):

use it myself, and like it, though I've found it's not capable of holding some of my shortest chisels at the correct angle, and it's very tricky to use with narrow chisels without skewing them. I probably need to buy an additional fixture of some sort to address these problems, but I can make do without for now.

If you want to read "the book" on sharpening, this treatise is an excellent volume, and should be in every wood wrecker's workshop library:

you order anything from Lee Valley, be sure to request a catalog. They ought to call it the "Wood Wreckers Wishbook." :)

For that matter, they probably have sandpaper in there somewhere.

Or, if you have gobs of cash laying around, you can pick up something like this:

don't have one. It looks like a nifty gadget, but expensive. Its use would inevitably involve removing the adhesive paper from the discs at some point too, which is a PITA. Adhesive-backed paper, whether peel and stick, or stuck with 3M 77, is more trouble than it's worth to me. I like my clamp and swap system fine, though I do destroy the odd sheet by letting it wrinkle up, or cutting through it.

[John]

If you are willing to do your sharpening by hand (Chisles, Plane blades), then a flat piece of glass and some sharpening grit and water will help. Use this with a honing guide. I also use these with inexpensive water stones of 2000, 4000, 8000 grit and works well. I got all this stuff at Lee Vally earlier this year. I also purchased the DVD video, Sharpening Woodworking Tools. This was an excellent purchase. After watching the video I was able to go sharpen my chisels with excellent results. You dont need all of the equipment you see in the video, but it is well worth the pruchase. Hope this helps.

John

[Lawrence A. Ramsey]

I slimmed my sharpening down to 2 waterstones, 1 blade holder ($10), and a friable white wheel for my 6" grinder. Oh yeah, I also have a

4000 grit waterstone but rarely use it. The 800 & 1200 Deluxe stones from Japan Woodworker do me right.

[Dave Balderstone]

For the really fine grits (1000 and up) go to an auto finishing supply store.

djb

[Mike in Idaho]

I buy my stuff from Harbor Freight (they go up to 1200 grit) and an auto paint store (call the auto body shops in town and see where they buy their sandpaper from). If you don't have one of those, see if you have a machinist shop in town. They also buy ultra fine sandpapers but they're labeled in microns not grit so you'll need to convert.

Good luck, it works great by the way :)

Mike

[David]

Thanks!! I just ordered the Veritas tool holder you suggested along with some sand paper. They did not have all the different grits that Scary Sharp suggested, but it will get me started.

I appreciated the help. David

[David]

Thanks!! I ordered the dvd, a Veritas holder and some sandpaper, so hopefully I will be able to do some sharpener before long. Meryr Christmas to you and to Charles also, I hope he reads this, forgot to say that in response to him.

David

[David]

Thanks. I hope to look into getting some water stones if the sandpaper system does not sharpen as well as I expect it to do.

Merry Christmas, David

[David]

[David]

[David]