Aaargh.. Chisel Back Flattening - Stiction

[Eli Gunnell]

Hi all,
Newby here. I am having some frustration and looking for suggestions. Using Shapton glass stones, attempting to flatten the back of a not-too-old chisel. Marples blue handle. 1-inch chisel. Problem is I get a lot of buildup and stiction happening, especially on the 1000-grit stone, bad stiction in under 10 seconds after starting. Plus chisel has a pretty low profile, and my fingers keep slipping off when it gets stuck. So I'm back-and forth with the water, the swarf, the lapping plate, clean it off, set it up, repeat. I keep getting "almost there" as the slightly rounded edges up near the corner are slowly disappearing. But I'm hours at this and wondering, should I be struggling this much with the process?
Much thanks for any advice.

[jerry nazard]

Eli,

Back flattening is just too much like work! I've given up on stones except for the final lapping/polishing. Using wet/dry (or other) paper on a granite plate has sped up the process while providing great results. I bought a bunch of A2 plane irons a few months ago and would have probably given up had it not been for the scary sharp setup.

-Jerry

[David Gendron]

I have to agree with Jerry, sand paper is way faster... or you can use a realy coars stone like a 220 or 400 and move on from there! An other thing that work great is lapping powder on a plate glass, it's quick and easy and cheep. you can find that at LV!
Good luck and don't give up!
David

[Pam Niedermayer]

This was my number one complaint about Shaptons, that with western tools you get incredible stiction; but I thought the glass stones had remedied that behavior.

Anyhow, there are a couple of solutions: 1) use the Shaptons with Japanese edges only since the hollows avoid the stiction problem; or 2) you can carve some thin grooves in the stones.

Pam

[Eli Gunnell]

Thank you all for your advice!

[Doug Shepard]

This is where something like the WorkSharp really pays off. Really speeds up a lot of the initial grunt work. Doing it by hand on sandpaper can still take an awful long time if the chisel needs more than just a touchup.

[Tom Godley]

It was my understanding that with the Shapton -- 500 grit was the one to use to flatten and with a lot of water.

You need to use a lot of water - they cut quickly and the buildup sticks

[Erwin Graween]

Hi.

It took me about almost 15 to 20 hours to flatten 7 chisels (ulmia) and only for the first 3 inches.
After that I still had to hone them

I was using coarse diamond stones and sand paper backed on glass, using moslty a plunge motion. Hard time. Hard for the fingers, wrests and for my back. Anyway I got there. And I'm now pleased.

But since that I swear I'll never by again a tool which blade is not flat from factory. I can only spend about 1h or 2 per week at woodworking, and rather like to build things then to flatten.
So even if good chisels/planes, etc are expensive, it's always a good deal, when your time is limited.

Somtimes you have to go through experience to find out things.

Hang on you'll be ther.

[Derek Cohen]

Just add a little liquid soap to the water you are using on the Shaptons. This should make a difference.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Jim Koepke]

As was mentioned by Doug, having a powered sharpening system like a work sharp or the Veritas MK II is very helpful. My system is the MK II. The draw back is the chisels heat up fairly quickly and need to be set aside to cool. This is fine if one is doing a batch of tools at one time.

Recently, while rehabbing a joiner plane, a piece of flat material and rolls of PSA sandpaper were acquired. Having a piece of flat sandpaper 3 or 4 feet long can really be a boost to flattening the back of a chisel that needs work. To me it was amazing that the chisel got warm while doing this. It didn't get hot enough to affect the hardness, but it let me know metal removal was taking place.

Almost all of my chisels are old and used. They are seldom close to having a flat back.

jim