Sharpening in a waterless shop

[Pat Barry]

a piece of glass with 0.1 micron diamond paste,

This to me is surprising. Putting the diamonds directly on glass doesn't sound like a good combo. The idea of using cast iron to embed the diamonds is a typical approach. WHere I work we use a soft ceramic wheel for this purpose to avoid iron contamination. Never have I seen glass suggested for this.

[Jeff Posten]

+1 for 5 gallon bucket of water next to sharpening area. I use the same bucket to soak and rinse after flattening.

Jeff

[Doug Trembath]

I couldn't find any reasonable cast iron here, and didn't want to sacrifice any working tools for sharpening alone. I do feel cast iron, when Blanchard ground, or equivalent, would be the best media for diamond paste.

That being said, however, I have found, in my never-ending search for the best sharpening solution for my shop, quite a few folks who have used glass in this application. I had tried it years back, but gave up too early. It works quite well for me, and that's the only claim I am making here. The smaller diamond particles attach quite readily to the glass surface. 45 and 30 micron pastes have a bit more difficulty adhering, so I went to Lexan acrylic, which works very well. Probably not quite as optically flat as float glass, but more than sufficient to the task. Both the glass and the acrylic are placed in a holder fashioned from a scrap of particle board with Formica on it and edging to hold the glass in place, that has 150 grit sandpaper on the bottom, so nothing moves much in use. I built a small cabinet with shelves, and six different grits on 4" X 12" glass sheets. 60 , 30, 9, 3, 1, and 0.1 micron. I used a vibrating engraver to mark the grits to avoid my inevitable confusion, a lesson well learned. When I received the Trend plate recently, I found that I could use it to quickly refresh an edge from the grinder, and to my surprise, the 0.1 diamond took it to satisfactory sharpness, and the strop simply made it that little bit better, by polishing the surfaces a bit more than the diamond will. Many folks have reported that using diamond, loose or in paste form, will result in a less polished edge than many other regimens, but just as sharp. Steve Elliott did a wonderful job of explaining this, as I believe Dave Weaver did, as well, IIRC.

Different steels react differently, of course. I find A2 to have a much more difficult wire edge than stock Stanley irons, or some of the older irons I have. No PMV-11 yet in my arsenal, I'm afraid. Using mostly stock irons, I can get a high quality edge quickly and efficiently with my setup, and am very content with it, now, even though I don't use as many intermediate steps, or maybe because of that.

YMMV

Doug Trembath

[Rob Luter]

I'm waterless too. I started with blocks of thick MDF core board that has oak veneer on either side. I mounted a 1/4" thick glass plate to each block with contact cement.

Each of these MDF/Glass sandwiches serves as a mounting surface for 3M abrasive film I get from Tools for Working Wood. I mount each of the 5 available grits on the glass and wind up with progressively finer honing surfaces. A squirt of water on each block and you're good to go. Just wipe them off to clean them up. They work great for both flattening backs and honing beveled cutting edges. I can achieve near optically perfect flatness and put a cutting edge on a chisel or plane iron that is truly "Scary Sharp". I use a Lee Valley honing jig for both plane irons and chisels. I use the Borg grinder for putting a hollow grind on the blades when necessary.

While I have everything all set up on its own table, the honing blocks are easily portable so I can bring one to the bench for periodic touch ups to chisels. The whole setup was pretty cheap to make and the 3M film lasts a surprisingly long time. You get three usable pieces from each sheet so one of their multi-packs lasts about a year in my shop. Unlike water stones, I never have to flatten anything and there's little to no mess.

[lowell holmes]

I'm with Jim. I keep a fine diamond plate on the bench with a spray bottle of water and a rag. I have mdf with compound on it and do 30 strokes honing the tool.

[Tim Put]

A machinist's v-block (something like this: http://www.grizzly.com/products/Cast...Pairs-6-/G9899) is an inexpensive source of cast iron as a substrate for diamonds. One needs to flatten and smooth the largest face, but that's easily done with some coarse sandpaper or some loose grit and the second v-block.

[Winton Applegate]

I had a friend who built a small house out of big rocks and boulders he moved himself with a big tripod. Hey, I don't know, I wasn't there. I did see the house though.

It din't have running water, well not pipes going to the house anyway. He hauled water. He is also the only guy I ever heard of who rolled a Jeep while sitting still in a traffic jam on the interstate. The Jeep started to slide sideways on black ice. In neutral with the brake on. Picked up enough momentum to roll when he hit the edge of the road. Hey again, I wasn't there. I think he just calmly winched it upright again and got back in the fight.

Anyway . . .
he was a bit "different" lets say.

Before I gave up my water stones I would get a burro, and some barrels . . .