> I just ordered my first hand plane after contemplating it for a long
> while. Because of this, I started doing some research on sharpening and
> have settled on Norton Waterstones.
>
> Anyway, I was just wondering why I don't hear much about using leather
> for the final step instead of 8000 grit waterstone? It seems like quite
> a few people are happy with it?
>
> Any advice? Should I sharpen to 8k and forget about it? Sharpen to 4k
> and then go to leather? or sharpen to 8k and then go to leather? or
> forget about leather, it is not worth it? I was thinking about getting
> some leather and chromium Oxide, sharpen to 4k and the go to the leather... >
I have always wondered about this too. Additionally, say with regard to timber framing what would one use to strop in the field for tune-ups. We are timber framing a house and have a couple large chisels in dupliacte so we can have a backup but occasionally on our 3 1/2" slick we could use a tune-up in the field as we cant afford a backup. As a tag along to jhermit's post if anyone has any good ideas for sharpening in the field I would be interested.
We are currently toting around a 12x24 piece of saftey glass with our WOD paper on it up to 2000 but thats about it. Not much of a tune-up only going to 2000.
Mark