Hi everybody,
I had posted a few days ago about sharpening chisels with sandpaper and having trouble with the sandpaper loosing it's grit too quickly. Yesterday, I recieved my order from Lee Valley for their sharpening combo ($35) that has a white grinding wheel, a felt wheel and a stick of green compound.
After using the white wheel to establish an angle, I was able to move from 220 to 2000 grit paper with only 8 - 10 stokes per paper. I think that my problem before was that I was using the sandpaper to try to establish the angle.
After running through the sandpaper grits, I moved back to the grinder and used the felt wheel/green compound. I was very impressed with the results - I've never used a chisel that was so sharp.
I was able to take a really beat up 1" chisel, put a razor sharp edge on it in under 10 minutes. I can now get shavings that you can almost see through from cross grain cuts in ash.
Anyway, for anyone that wants to get started in sharpening, I've spent about $45 on the LV kit, a can of spray adhesive and a few packs of sandpaper - WELL worth the money to get such great results.
Mike