Sharpening Green Wood hand tools

[Mike Holbrook]

Yes, another sharpening thread! I am about to take a windsor chair class. I have acquired a few specialized tools that present some unique sharpening challenges: drawknife, inshave, spokeshaves (with curved surfaces), travisher, compass plane, adze....I have a few books and have watched many videos. Grinders and a drill with small drum sander seem to be popular fast ways to get into curved surfaces, but I have more of a hand sharpening mind set.

I was watching a Peter Galbert video on sharpening a travisher in which he was charging a wood dowel on a lathe with diamond paste to polish the blade. It reminded me of how my cousin and I sharpened knives back when we had no sharpening stones or files. We took "punk', rotted wood and rubbed grit in to it giving us a rudimentary abrasive surface. A little grit can sure dull a chain saw blade in a hurry. A common hand method mentioned in my books is to wrap sandpaper around a dowel. The problem with buying slips or gouge stones is the large range of curves: small gouges up to 3+ inch curves on adzes or travishers. Trying to keep up with a reasonable range of stone grits in enough sizes starts getting expensive and complicated.

Our hobby after all is working with wood. My thought is why not shape pieces of wood that will fit specific tools more exactly and charge them with diamond paste and or buffing compound. It seems logical that if diamond paste stays put on a dowel spinning on a lathe it should stay in place well enough for hand sharpening. Round sharpening steels and ceramic round stones seem to work well on a multitude of surfaces. Wood may have an advantage in that it will tend to shape itself more and more like the surface it is rubbed across. I am wondering if any fellow posters have tried this method?

[Tony Shea]

[Steve Friedman]

For out-cannel adze and large gouges, I find the easiest (so far) is to clamp the tool in a vise and take the abrasive to the tool. Because I get to see the bevel as I'm doing it, I get a much better result than trying to maintain the proper angle while abrading it on a stone.

For drawknives, the new guide from L-N looks excellent, but I use the Brian Boggs method (L-N You Tube channel) with great results.

I have the DMT wave that might work for curved spokeshave blades, but find that dowels and sandpaper are easier to use.

No idea how to sharpen a travisher or inshave.

Steve

Tony's post has the Brian Boggs video I was referring to. Great minds . . .

[Mike Holbrook]

Nice videos Tony. It just so happens I have a similar Granite block to the one Curtis uses. I did not think of using it that way to get my stones up above the drawknife handles. I am also wondering how I missed that video by Curtis. It is interesting that both Brian and Curtis round the "flat" side of their drawknives. Fortunately my methods for sharpening my drawknives was fairly close to start with, although I start with a Tormeck or DMT Dia-Flat. I also have a few hand sharpening stones I use for scythe blades that work well. I am with you on taking the abrasive to the larger hand tools Steve.

I have not had to sharpen them yet but the Hans Karlsson: inshave, adze and gouges are what I am more worried about sharpening well. The HK gouges are wide and heavy duty with shallow and deep sweeps, wider than most of the gouge stones I have seen. I think a dowel charged with diamond paste, dowel covered with leather & charged and or dowels covered with sandpaper or lapping film may work. I just found a couple items at Lee Valley that I missed on my first search: a selection of leather strops and a set of wooden sharpening slips designed to fit into a dado in a larger chunk of wood. The PSA Diamond Film LV has also looks promising. It even appears to be sized to fit their wooden slips.

[Mike Holbrook]

Curtis Buchanan has a video that shows up on UTube at the end of the Brian Boggs video Tony linked us to, as do several other related videos.

[Tony Shea]

I was going to link the Curtis video as well but figured since it showed up at the end of the Boggs video it was unnecessary. All of Curtis's videos are great, I recommend them all.

The dowels and slips are fine for the inside flats of all the gouges, inshave and adze. It is the bevel that can take some practise to get consistent results on these tools. I personally take my gouges to my stones as I would my chisels and free hand the bevel, you'd be surprised how easy it is to become consistent at hold the right bevel angle while rocking the tool from side to side.

The adze and inshave are very similar in that I take the stone to the tool. I cradle these tools in my left are (sometimes use my chest for support) and go at it with diamond and water stones. To this day I still will feel the need every now and them to mark the bevel with a sharpie before I start until I get used to the angle I need to hold the stone at.

After some practise you will become very proficient at sharpening these tools. The downfall in getting into Greenwood woodworking is that you end up with another set of tools that needs to be constantly maintained on stones, along with all your other woodworking tools.

[Bob Glenn]

Mike, I clamp my draw knives close to a handle in a vise then use silicon carbide sand paper wrapped around a flat board. I run the sand paper back and forth on the length of the blade on both sides. I usually take it down to 1500 grit. This puts a mirror finish on the faces. But, be careful, since you are holding the sand paper very close to the blade, it would be easy to slice your fingers.

On my gutter adze, I chucked up a two inch drum sander in my drill press to dress up the inside bevel. I don't do much after that, since it doesn't have to be really that sharp.

Spoke shaves and travishers, I remove the blade and work the inside bevel with sand paper wrapped dowel or board depending on the shape of the blade. Good luck

BTW, Galbert has a nice draw knife sharpener for about 100 bucks, IIRC.

[Steve Friedman]

Mike,

The inside of the HK gouges and adze don't need much. Drew Langsner was the one who showed me how to clamp those in a vise and use the stones to work on the edges. I have had trouble with the gouges because they are hollow ground, the handles are bent, the backs are curved, but the edges need to be straight. Sharpie helps.

Drew also suggested using a felt wheel with compound and a very light touch as a final buff.

Steve

[Tony Shea]

Mike,

The inside of the HK gouges and adze don't need much. Drew Langsner was the one who showed me how to clamp those in a vise and use the stones to work on the edges. I have had trouble with the gouges because they are hollow ground, the handles are bent, the backs are curved, but the edges need to be straight. Sharpie helps.

Drew also suggested using a felt wheel with compound and a very light touch as a final buff.

Steve

I personally like a hollow grind on my gouges to help out with sharpening, makes finding the bevel angle by feel a whole lot easier. But I don't typically go back to the grinder once the hollow is gone as I don't feel confident enough with a gouge on a grinder, some reason or another I struggle with getting the grind correct with gouges. I grind my chisels all day long but as soon as I switch to gouges I start over heating and if I don't over heat the edge isn't shaped correctly.

So once the gouge edge starts to get too convex I reshape the edge by hand on a xx coarse diamond stone to flatten it back out. It hasn't been that long since I've been proficient at sharpening gouges but now feel very confident in sharpening them.

I personally would never again use a felt wheel to buff out the final edge on any edge tool. Back when I first started woodworking I used to finish off my edges this way but it always seemed as though this blunted the edge slightly. Now I just strop on charged MDF or leather when necessary and have never had such nice edges on all my tools. I have recently acquired a Shapton 15000 and absolutely love this stone. I don't bother finishing my edges off by stropping anymore, I only strop to keep my edge going longer without going back to the stones.

And as Steve pointed out again SHARPIE is a very handy visual indicator.

[Steve Friedman]

I personally would never again use a felt wheel to buff out the final edge on any edge tool. Back when I first started woodworking I used to finish off my edges this way but it always seemed as though this blunted the edge slightly. Now I just strop on charged MDF or leather when necessary and have never had such nice edges on all my tools. I have recently acquired a Shapton 15000 and absolutely love this stone. I don't bother finishing my edges off by stropping anymore, I only strop to keep my edge going longer without going back to the stones.

That's funny because I haven't uses any type of strop on a flat blade since getting the 13000 Sigma stone from Stu. Anything I do to a blade after that stone seems to make it less sharp. BUT - I am afraid to use that stone for my gouges. So, getting my gouges sharp is a work in process. I have used a 1 x 42 belt grinder (blued some edges), a felt wheel on a bench grinder, a leather wheel on a bench grinder, Spyderco ceramic stones, diamond plates, the DMT Wave, and even sandpaper on sticks. Until something better comes along, I am using the Spyderco stones and strop with 3M diamond PSA sheets stuck to sticks. It would be nice to get to the point where I can use my regular waterstones on these gouges without fear of ruining the stones (or at least reducing their useful lives).

Steve

[Mike Holbrook]

Steve are you using the triangular Spyderco stones? I have used a set of those for many years for sharpening knives and was thinking about using them on curved surfaces as well. I just wasn't sure those two (medium & fine I think) would work a larger bevel. Maybe Steve could compare the Spyderco stones to the diamond PSA sheets stuck to sticks. I am also curious what type strop you guys use? Are you talking about an actual strop like a horse hide belt/strop for sharpening razors or just a piece of leather attached to a stick?

[Steve Friedman]

Mike, I have the Spyderco rectangular stones - not the triangles. Have also used DMT (both kinds) and the EZE-lap diamond plates. The Spyderco stones are fine, but a little slow compared to water stones - Sigma stones have spoiled me. The EZE-lap diamond plates are definitely faster. The EZE-laps are much better than the DMT plates for working steel. Even so, they're not any faster than PSA sandpaper stuck onto a wooden paddle. Then, for the higher grits, I have a series of wooden paddles with 3M Diamond PSA sheets stuck on and they work fine.

In my opinion, when taking the abrasive to the tool, it's much easier to use PSA abrasive on paddles than stones. They're much lighter and easier to follow the shape of the bevel. Also, since it's much slower than chisels and plane blades, I find it helpful to be able to use low grit abrasive (80 or 120 grit) for any heavy steel removal. I don't think the diamond plates are as aggressive as low grit sandpaper.

I bought the Spyderco's and EZE Laps with the intent of learning to sharpen gouges on them freehand. I'm still trying.

Steve

[Mike Holbrook]

Appreciate the response Steve. I am a fan of Sigma Stones too. I have 120, 700 Sigma Power Ceramic Stones and 3000, 6000 & 10000 Sigma Power "Select II" stones. I also have a DMT DiaFlat Lapping plate and a couple smaller diamond hones. Like you, as much as I like the Sigma stones I find them a little large to take to a tool. I have not invested further in diamond sharpening devices because I do not have a good feel for reasonable progressions between "stones". I am glad to hear your positive comments on the PSA paper/film. I can certainly see how this very flexible material can be used on wood backs of various shapes to get into hard to reach sharpening challenges.

I see that Lee Valley offers two types of PSA sheets one apparently has either silicon carbide or chromium oxide grit (available in 15, 5 and .5 microns), where the other uses monocrystaline diamond particles with "outstanding fracture resistance" (available in 15, 3 .5 and .1 u) .

Lee Valley says 15 micron silicon carbide is roughly equivalent to 1000x, 5 micron is 2500x, and .5 micron is equivalent to 9000x, pretty close to a standard ceramic stone assortment like mine. Lee Valley also says "The 15 micron diamond film (approximately 1000x) abrades O1, A2, and M2 steels about twice as quickly as a similar-grit silicon carbide film or water stone; successive diamond grits are comparably fast." I like fast so I am thinking about trying LV's assortment of all 4 PSA Diamond Films. Although LV suggests that .5 and .1 micron PSA Diamond film works for polishing I am suspicious that anything that cuts that rapidly may leave scratches so I am thinking about mounting leather strips on wood for polishing with the green and white buffing compounds I have. I am thinking leather on wood charged with buffing compound will work well for touch ups between uses too. I also saw a DMT sharpening rod somewhere with diamond abrasive on the rod which might work for rough shaping curvy surfaces that 15 micron diamond film might be slow to abrade. I think I will try the LV PSA diamond film assortment first though and supplement on the low and high end as needed. Any suggestions concerning places to buy the diamond film in larger qty than LV sells it in, single 3x6" sheets seem small?