Sharpening technique--removing the wire edge

[Steve Voigt]

Hi all,
This post may portray me as embarrassingly stupid and inefficient, but whatever. Here goes.
For the last 15 years, regardless of the sharpening media, I have used the following method:
1) hone a secondary bevel on a coarse stone until I can feel the wire edge on the back, all the way across.
2) remove wire edge on a medium stone.
3) hone the secondary bevel on the medium stone until I can feel the wire edge again.
4) remove wire edge on a fine stone.
5) hone secondary bevel on the fine stone.
6) remove wire edge on the fine stone one more time. Maybe palm strop.

This weekend, I watched a couple short videos by Paul Sellers and Chris Schwarz. They have very different approaches in some ways, but one important thing in common: They both hone the bevel on coarse, medium, and fine stones without ever stopping to remove the wire edge. They only remove the wire edge at the very end, as the last step. And it seems to only take them a couple strokes, whereas I typically need a dozen strokes or more to remove the wire.

So, have I been wasting a ton of time all these years? Is this how you all do it?
One thing I don't get is, how do they know when they've honed enough on the medium and fine stones? It seems like guesswork to me, but I'll be the first to admit they both know far more than I do. Anyway, would love to hear what people have to say.

-Steve

[David Weaver]

It's a matter of experience to know when to stop. If you have chipping, you still know you're going to raise a fat wire edge, but there's no reason to remove it. The fine stone will hone it off just fine, and it will be thinly attached to the edge. If you alternate front and back briefly and lightly, it'll probably just come off at the end without any interference.

If you're using a grinder and you use more than two stones, you're probably wasting your time a little bit unless the stones themselves are slow (e.g., it might not be as plausible to go from a freshly surfaced medium india to a nicely worn in oilstone), if you're removing your wire edge every step, you're definitely wasting time, but if it pleases you anyway, you can certainly do whatever you want.

It might seem odd to not remove the wire edge and inspect, but it's like anything else where you use experience to take an educated guess at something rather than demand immedate pre-completion feedback.

[Jim Koepke]

There are many ways to get the job done.

In the Schwarz video, he is using a holder. Instead of looking for a fresh wire edge at each step, he is checking the scratch pattern on the bevel. He is also working with stones that are maintained to be flat. Working with perfectly flat stones can make a difference. My stones are occasionally flattened. I know, BLASPHEMY! The sharpening Gods will come after me.

My way of doing this is to free hand. For that it helps to remove the wire edge at each step. When using a holder I do not always remove the wire between grits.

The Sellers method just doesn't impress me. It is likely to work, but for me a flat bevel is my choice. For me, secondary bevels do not make as much sense as just having another chisel sharpened to a different angle.

We often have sharpening questions here. Often my comments on getting to sharp before trying all the fancy tricks like secondary bevels, tertiary bevels, back bevels, ruler tricks and cambering catch a bit of objection. Maybe next time it will be my suggestion to include everyone of those in one's initial attempt at sharpening and then when it doesn't work, regrind and make a flat back meet a flat bevel and find sharp before trying any tricks.

As far as palm stropping goes, it works, but my fear is an accidental cut to the hand or breaking off a wire edge that becomes a sliver in the palm.

One of my stropping leathers is soft and pliable. It is used often in my palm for stropping gouges.

jtk

[lowell holmes]

I've spent hours around Paul Sellers in the class room. His methods work! They are not the only method, but I can assure you that his tools are very very sharp.

He takes the edge off on a leather strop charged with a honing compound.

[dan sherman]

The Sellers method just doesn't impress me. It is likely to work, but for me a flat bevel is my choice. For me, secondary bevels do not make as much sense as just having another chisel sharpened to a different angle.

We often have sharpening questions here. Often my comments on getting to sharp before trying all the fancy tricks like secondary bevels, tertiary bevels, back bevels, ruler tricks and cambering catch a bit of objection. Maybe next time it will be my suggestion to include everyone of those in one's initial attempt at sharpening and then when it doesn't work, regrind and make a flat back meet a flat bevel and find sharp before trying any tricks.

Come on Jim they are not tricks....

They are techniques to accomplish very specific tasks. The problem I see is that a lot of people saying to do this or that don't say why.

secondary bevels - Are pretty much needed if you are using a flat grinding method like worksharp, scary sharp, or diamond stones for rough work. It allows someone to do exactly what you do when you hollow grind. it allows you to hone a very small surface, and that means less time honing, and less wear on the stones. This technique does require a honing guide though.

tertiary bevels - as far as I'm concerned the only reason for this, is if the secondary bevel has grown fairly large and thus taking a while to hone, and you don't want to go back to the grinder or rough stones just yet.

back bevels - only for use on bevel down planes. If you got a hunk of gnarly wood and you blade is sharp and your still getting a bunch of tear out, you have 4 options. 1. sand away the tear out, use a card scraper to clean up the tear out, swap to a higher angle frog, or put a back bevel on your blade.

the ruler trick - it just like a secondary devel in that it allows you to hone a very small area. This should never be used on chisels, but can be a great time saver on old plane blades, or card scrapers. Having flattened the back of an original #5 type 13 blade by hand, I can tell you the ruler trick is a much faster option.

cambering - how can you argue this isn't needed? its the only way to avoid plane tracks.

[Chris Griggs]

Unless i have excessive wear or edge damage on the back of the blade for some reason I do not work the back on anything other than my finest stone. If you find it helpful to remove it each grit level do so only on your finish stone so you don't have to work back up from a lower scratch pattern on the back each time.

I don't touch the back until I get to my finest stone, however when I get there I do actually work the back on the stone for a good few strokes to make sure I hone out any wear on the back (not a lot of strokes but not just one swipe to work the burr of either).

If I think there is still a burr I then do what Dave said and switch between the bevel and back a couple times to chase any remaining burr off. I often do palm strop too, but do be careful if you choose to do that...Jim is correct that it is very easy to cut yourself if you are not paying attention.

It not really something you should need to think about too much once it becomes habit. Once you finish on the bevel its just probably 10-15 seconds working that back of the blade on the finest stone, a few flips back an forth at the end, and/or if you are so inclined a few swipe with your palm.

[David Weaver]

palm strop moving your hand instead of the tool. Just alternate it lightly back and forth pulling away from the edge. if the finished edge is off of a fine stone, that'll easily do the trick. If it's off of a medium stone, palm stropping probably won't get the wire edge off, anyway.

I never did cut my palm palm stropping with a chisel or even with a straight razor, but I did accidentally catch a falling straight razor one time. It was a pretty disgusting feeling, and the razor went "pingggggg" as it filleted my finger and got flung out as I was jerking my hand. Ultimately didn't hurt the razor, though, which was more important (seriously..way more important).

[jamie shard]

They only remove the wire edge at the very end, as the last step. And it seems to only take them a couple strokes, whereas I typically need a dozen strokes or more to remove the wire.

Steve, I think it matters how the chisel is used in between sharpenings.

If you keep the edge sharp with frequent bevel sharpening, then there is no need to spend much time on the back.

Sometimes a chisel is touched up again and again on a leather strop (w/ or w/o honing compound) then there can be a bit of a wear bevel on the back from the softness of the leather. In this case, working the back quickly through medium and fine grits might make sense, just to restore flatness.

Some people care a lot about the flatness of the back, others less, so like everything there's options and there is your choice.

[David Weaver]

If whatever is being sharpened, the back always needs to be worked until the wear is removed. If you don't do a perfect job of it, it's not a huge deal, but there is truth to people not spending enough time on the finish stone removing wear from the backs of their irons and chisels. Unless there is damage on the surface of a back, there should never be a need to use anything except your finest stone on the backs.

On really hard irons, the ruler trick is super handy not necessarily for the initial flattening, but because it makes it easy to use a marginal stone to remove all of the wear on the back of an iron. If you sharpen irons with a secondary bevel and then use the ruler trick, and you find the iron is always sharper that way than it is if you just work a flat back, it's because of lack of proper time being spent on the finish stone on the back of an iron or lack of ability to put finger pressure on the chisel above the edge on the back so that you can work off the wear.

I don't mean several minutes of time working the back on a polish stone, more like 30 or 40 swipes instead of 2 or 3. The ruler trick should never be used with that many, though, only enough to remove the wear.

On a refresh of a plane iron, I'd imagine I spend about 10-15 seconds on a medium stone and then 10-15 seconds on the bevel side with a polish stone and probably more like 20 or more on the back. Maybe a minute of total time on the stones. If there is chipping occurring that causes you to spend a lot more time than that, then that's a different problem to solve. You shouldn't have to work nicks out of edges on a regular basis.

[Steve Friedman]

Steve,

There are several ways to determine if you're ready for the next stone without removing the burr between stones. The easiest is probably a Sharpie. Just draw a line along the edge of the bevel. When the line is gone, you're done with that stone. An alternative is to look at the scratch pattern with a 5X, 10X, or even 20X magnifier under good lighting and see what's happening to the edge. When the scratch pattern is uniform across the blade, you're done with that stone.

Another alternative is not to use three stones for the secondary bevel. Experiment, but two (or one and a strop) should be enough. That way, you should be able to see when the secondary bevel is established across the blade. You should be able to see the change when you take the secondary bevel to the final stone (or strop). Use a Sharpie or magnifier if you can't.

As for the ruler technique on plane blades, Stu Tierney wrote a very detailed post here a while ago explaining why you should always use the ruler technique on a plane blade. It's over my head, but it has to do with getting that tiny area of the back as perfect as you can. The back bevel it creates is minute.

I do remove the burr between grits only if it's really big - like after re-establishing the primary bevel on 80 or 120 grit sandpaper. I will remove the burr before letting the blade touch my waterstones just to avoid contaminating the stone. It may not be necessary, but it can't hurt.

Steve

[Kees Heiden]

back bevels - only for use on bevel down planes. If you got a hunk of gnarly wood and you blade is sharp and your still getting a bunch of tear out, you have 4 options. 1. sand away the tear out, use a card scraper to clean up the tear out, swap to a higher angle frog, or put a back bevel on your blade.

Ho ho Dan, not so fast ! You forgot the first and most important rule to avoid tearout. Learn to use the chipbreaker very close to the edge.

[David Weaver]

I can't believe I missed that.

[Steve Voigt]

Thanks very much for the advice, folks. I'll start weaning myself off of the excessive back-polishing.

-Steve

[Adam Cruea]

I will chase the back-burr off my chisels and plane blades when sharpening, just for piece of mind.

Personally, I don't want to gouge my polishing stone. I also find it easier to see a sharp edge and when the edge is straight without a back burr.

Mind you, I don't take 30 seconds on the back; usually I flip it over in the guide and give it a quick to/fro motion then wipe the blade down and move to the next stone. After my polish stone, I've taken to using a leather strop. For me, this produces the most consistent "paper edge cutting" where you just push the blade into the edge of a piece of paper and it slices.

[dan sherman]

Ho ho Dan, not so fast ! You forgot the first and most important rule to avoid tearout. Learn to use the chipbreaker very close to the edge.

I've yet to meet someone who hasn't learned this, or keeping the mouth as tight as possible for that matter.