nitty gritty

[Adam Cherubini]

David, I think you are correct in assuming that it matters. Technically, it absolutely does. Stepping through the grits gradually allows you to decrease the size of the scratches, which absolutely leads to a higher performing and long lasting blade. Skipping grits results in the polishing of a serrated edge.

I'm not sure if you are shopping for stones or not, in which case, I might want to change my answer. But my advice is to polish the backs of your tools using as many steps as you can/or as practical at the initial honing. Thereafter, for follow on honing, I only ever touch my backs to my finest stones- no reason to reflatten. Raise a burr on the bevel side and polish it off on the back with the least work as possible (to maintain the polish and flatness).

Now for bevel honing, my advice is to hone OFTEN and using the finest stones practical. If you can get away with honing on your finest stone for every hour of of work, I would do that, rather than hone less often and have to use coarser grits. Ask someone like Warren Mickley how frequently he grinds his tools and he may say "every 25 years or so". He's clearly doing something right since his Stanley #4 beats all comers at the hand plane events. I've adopted his suggestions and I find I am constantly using razor sharp tools and honing takes 2 minutes. But I do it every hour or so, sometimes more, sometimes less. Unless my edge fails, or I nick it, I use only washita and fine translucent arkansas. I do still grind more often than Warren does tho. Maybe every few months. Oh and I strop frequently too. Craft store suede, charged with the green chromium oxide crayon. The suede is glued to a piece of mdf.

[David Weaver]

Oilstones get a bad rap when people try to sharpen with them the same way they would with waterstones. Or when someone tries to lap the back of a non-flat tool on a worn-in stone.

Big jumps can easily be made with oilstones if you care more about the edge than the parts that don't cut the wood, though.

[Gary Hodgin]

I hope a Norton combination med. india/soft arkansas and a Norton hard translucent arkansas (followed by strop) is a decent progression. Just placed my order a couple of hours ago. The progression made sense based on the abrasion chart I was using. I have a few A2 blades but don't expect problems with anything else. I hone pretty often in hopes of avoiding long sharpening sessions.

I've got quite a bit of other sharpening equipment but I've had enough of Norton water stones in my unheated garage this winter. Last year was okay but this winter is a different story. I move them inside if there's a chance of freezing but the garage has been in high 30's low 40's a few times at night.

I almost went with the Spyerco bench stones. A set of med, fine, and xfine was just a few more dollars than the Norton's. I like the low maintenance and fast cutting but liked the 8"x3" size of the Norton's better.

[Chris Griggs]

I hope a Norton combination med. india/soft arkansas and a Norton hard translucent arkansas (followed by strop) is a decent progression. Just placed my order a couple of hours ago. The progression made sense based on the abrasion chart I was using. I have a few A2 blades but don't expect problems with anything else. I hone pretty often in hopes of avoiding long sharpening sessions.

I've got quite a bit of other sharpening equipment but I've had enough of Norton water stones in my unheated garage this winter. Last year was okay but this winter is a different story. I move them inside if there's a chance of freezing but the garage has been in high 30's low 40's a few times at night.

I almost went with the Spyerco bench stones. A set of med, fine, and xfine was just a few more dollars than the Norton's. I like the low maintenance and fast cutting but liked the 8"x3" size of the Norton's better.

Despite the fact that I have several very good water stones, lately, I've been using that pretty much that same combo (except my arks are halls, my translucent is a surgical black and, being an off the deep end vegetarian/vegan, my strop is my palm). Its a very nice lineup as long as you have a wheel grinder of some kind or are working micro bevels. In my opinion the jump from the medium india to the HTA is too big so its good that you got the soft too. The jump won't be too big at first, as the really hard arks like your HTA start out somewhat aggressive, but they become very fine as the they wear in and the particles round over. You can speed of the process of wearing it in if you get a big chisel or something and work the stone over with it few 5-10 minutes here and their when you have extra time on your hands.

I think, for me anyway, it is a little harder to learn to use oil stones effectively, but once I did I grew to really enjoy having them as an alternative to my waterstones. Also, do yourself a favor and get one of those super cheap (like $10-$20) coarse diamond hones from Ebay or Harbor freight. The purpose of this is not so much to keep your stones flat but to refresh the surface on your india and soft ark to keep them cutting fast. Don't use it on you HTA unless you want it to be more of a fine cutting stone as opposed to a polishing stone.

[Gary Hodgin]

Thanks for the advice. I have a slow speed grinder and a Tormek. I grind on my Tormek and hone with stones. I only use the slow speed when I want to change a bevel. It gets very little use, but I had it before the Tormek. I'd sell it if I wasn't such a hoarder.

[Casey Gooding]

The general rule I follow is the finer the grit, the more you can jump.

[David Romano]

Thanks for the advice. I am planning to use the .5 micron 3M lapping film, or diamond paste to supplement my waterstones. I'll jump right from my 4000 grit stone.