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Thread: Sharpness Epiphanies

  1. #16
    Narex 3/4 and 3/8 chisels are always at my bench. One of the blogs I read early on starting woodworking recommended this for chisels: get one kinda big and one kinda small; you don't need sets to start.
    They take a pounding and stay sharp for what I use em for. I couldn't agree more that the first A-HA! moment with a good, sharp tool is a bit of an epiphany, just wait till you use a properly tuned saw (if you haven't...)
    Once you learn sharp the next step is feel and sound. When you know how a plane, chisel, saw etc... feels and sounds as it's working properly you'll know when it needs a touch up or try a different approach. I've found in my limited experience thus far that this also translates to machine work as well -- router and bandsaw specifically. For me, this is where the joy of the hobby lies.
    “Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.”
    ― Henry Ford

  2. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by Robert Engel View Post
    2. Polish has little to do with sharpness. In fact, I recently read an article that basically proved polishing actually dulls the edge.
    .
    Robert,

    Would you mind pointing me to the article, just curious.

    Just as a comment, I shaved hair off my arm yesterday straight off 80 grit sandpaper on a granite plate, so the chisel was sharp in some spots at least, but the difference (and I knew this) is the edge does not meet on a line, but rather a zig-zag of tiny little edges which will break very quickly effectively becoming dull. So very interested on the article's take on polishing.

    Disclaimer, I also normally stop at 8K, and in my experience, if I am not careful on the loaded leather strop I actually dull my edge when polishing there.

    Pedro

  3. #18
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    My personal ones have been japanese natural finishing stones and plain strops, both on David Weaver's rec and both very successful in practice.

    I like to get back to work quickly and I like stuff to be very sharp, so I can go back to the finish stone and then the strop or just the strop for days unless I'm really brutal on an edge. I use a big paring chisel practically all day, relieving corners and trimming joinery, ect and every job it has a purpose for is best completed with a very sharp edge. If it starts to get dull that is when I start chipping edges, ect.
    Bumbling forward into the unknown.

  4. #19
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    I keep seeing mention of stropping but obviously I haven't gotten into that. It sounds extremely simple? Perhaps I should really look into that as an addition to my arsenal. Of course there's the matter of finding a place for it in my junkyard, er workshop.

  5. #20
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    One Epiphany of the sharpening threads is the passion folks have developed over the "rituals" followed in their path to sharpness.

    There are many paths to achieving a keen edge. It is wise to try all that appeal to you in order to find what works best for you.

    Learning to free hand sharpen is an important step. However, not learning free hand sharpening hasn't prevented many from working wood. It just makes sharpening a little inconvenient at times.

    A hollow grind is nice for getting "the feel" of the edge when free hand sharpening. My "grinder" is a flat disk type and doesn't leave a hollow grind.

    From buying used planes and chisels it seems many former owners of tools relied too much on their grinders and not enough on simple honing with a fine stone. Most of my tools once they are set up do not get returned to the powered abrasion station.

    Most of the time my tools do not purposely have a micro bevel. Nothing wrong with them, it is just easier (for me) to not use them.

    Quote Originally Posted by Adam Stevens2 View Post
    I keep seeing mention of stropping but obviously I haven't gotten into that. It sounds extremely simple? Perhaps I should really look into that as an addition to my arsenal. Of course there's the matter of finding a place for it in my junkyard, er workshop.
    It can take up very little room. My strops are old pieces of leather. When needed they can be set on any hard flat surface.

    It is when you start stropping gouges and curved blades that it can start to take up a lot of room.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  6. #21
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    The big breakthrough for me was recently discovering fine waterstones (initially inspired by David Charlesworth, and with help from e.g. David W and others/old posts here), and how they can bring an edge to a very high polish and state of sharpness.

    I'd been hand sharpening since a kid on stock oilstones (in retrospect pretty coarse - there was no tradition of using Arkansas and other very fine stones here) and using standard quality Stanley tools and the like. More recently on diamond plates - and while doing OK there was always an 'is this the best that's possible' itch i somehow never summoned the urge to scratch - to go after a better fix. Possibly because I was inclined to be sceptical of stories about splitting hairs and the like, then because money was tight and waterstones get pricey.

    The other big step was discovering high end tools. (mostly Veritas planes & Japanese chisels in my case)

    In a funny sort of a way the thing is holistic. It's not so much about a single breakthrough, as a collection of improvements that bounces the whole deal to a new level of performance. Rapidly wearing watersones force taking flattening seriously, and flatness/straightness, good surface finishes plus the precision and the steel in good tools all add up to something greater than the parts.

    The other oddity is that having seen what works/what it takes to make it happen i'd probably have no difficulty now upgrading an old plane to get it performing well - wheras back in the day it seemed just to be par for the course that e.g. shavings got stuck under the cap iron and so on. The fixes are not remotely rocket science, but when nobody is doing it it's very tempting to shrug and accept the status quo.

    The key to it all is in a sense belief - it enables us to buy into possibility as fact. The web is a big factor too, in that it's taken the information sharing that underpins this to new levels. Back in the day much of this stuff was almost like secrets and had a mystique - only a select few were initiated. Remember all those old coffee table style woodworking books that described stuff in non specific terms - that never set out the nitty gritty/actually spilled the beans? These days pretty much anybody with the patience to read the topic and some basic hand skills can access all the information they need...
    Last edited by ian maybury; 04-22-2015 at 11:46 AM.

  7. #22
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    Hi Jim. You offer very sound advise. Personally I cant remember the last time I used a bench grinder to hollow grind a chisel or plane iron. Flat bevels and freehand sharpening makes much more sense to me.

    Stewie;

  8. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Koepke View Post

    Most of the time my tools do not purposely have a micro bevel. Nothing wrong with them, it is just easier (for me) to not use them.
    Jim,

    I've been seeing this option crop up a lot in my reading. I'm used to putting a microbevel on my blades, but apparently at some point the microbevel progresses to a point where it's no longer particularly sharp? Apparently my understanding of blade geometry is off because I'm not sure how this happens or at what point. I guess when sharpening a flat bevel you're just giving it a quick polish? I'm also guessing that by doing that you're ever so slowly shortening the chisel by removing metal off the entire face.

  9. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Pedro Reyes View Post
    Robert,

    Would you mind pointing me to the article, just curious.

    Just as a comment, I shaved hair off my arm yesterday straight off 80 grit sandpaper on a granite plate, so the chisel was sharp in some spots at least, but the difference (and I knew this) is the edge does not meet on a line, but rather a zig-zag of tiny little edges which will break very quickly effectively becoming dull. So very interested on the article's take on polishing.

    Disclaimer, I also normally stop at 8K, and in my experience, if I am not careful on the loaded leather strop I actually dull my edge when polishing there.

    Pedro
    Guess I need to rephrase that. What the article said was microscopic examination of the edge showed no benefit in polishing.

    I will scan the memory banks where I read that, but I think it was in a ww'ing journal.

  10. #25
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    I think it needs to be remembered that Paul Sellers did his apprenticeship and earned his living as a tradesman. This would have necessitated trading the time of sharpening against the time needed to get the job done quickly. A person whose hobby is woodworking would not have that issue and could take sharpening as far as he wanted not worrying about the time it took.
    Chris

    Everything I like is either illegal, immoral or fattening

  11. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Adam Stevens2 View Post
    I do have a 'green' 220 grit stone - would that be too coarse?
    Late in response.......

    Oh, yeah - Fer Sure !! That's the problem.

    Use the 220 to get it all squared away quickly, then work you way through your stones. You are getting the form straightened out with the 220, then using subsequent stones merely to remove the heavy scratches left by the previous stone, and replace them with smaller scratches from the finer stone........Even the high-mirror polish has scratches - you just need the right equipment to be able to see them. As if you cared.

    You would not take a rough-cut chunk of tree, and smooth it out starting with 150 grit sandpaper, right? Same principle.
    When I started woodworking, I didn't know squat. I have progressed in 30 years - now I do know squat.

  12. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kent A Bathurst View Post
    Late in response.......

    Oh, yeah - Fer Sure !! That's the problem.

    Use the 220 to get it all squared away quickly, then work you way through your stones. You are getting the form straightened out with the 220, then using subsequent stones merely to remove the heavy scratches left by the previous stone, and replace them with smaller scratches from the finer stone........Even the high-mirror polish has scratches - you just need the right equipment to be able to see them. As if you cared.

    You would not take a rough-cut chunk of tree, and smooth it out starting with 150 grit sandpaper, right? Same principle.
    Don't worry, I wasn't thinking of going to the 220 stone and just leaving it at that, if that's what you were thinking! I've been using up to 6000 grit and that seems to be getting the job done. I did start off with the 1" chisel tonight using the 220 stone and that seemed to flatten out the back pretty quick smart. Still progressing through the finer grits, maybe I can do that before bed...

  13. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Pedro Reyes View Post
    Robert,

    Would you mind pointing me to the article, just curious.

    Just as a comment, I shaved hair off my arm yesterday straight off 80 grit sandpaper on a granite plate, so the chisel was sharp in some spots at least, but the difference (and I knew this) is the edge does not meet on a line, but rather a zig-zag of tiny little edges which will break very quickly effectively becoming dull. So very interested on the article's take on polishing.

    Disclaimer, I also normally stop at 8K, and in my experience, if I am not careful on the loaded leather strop I actually dull my edge when polishing there.

    Pedro
    Pedro,

    As you just demonstrated shaving hair off your arm isn't much of a test of sharpness, nor is the gleam of polish. The best check is to just look at and feel the edge. It also helps to know how much polish or haze you can expect from your stone but whatever if it feels smooth and you get no reflected light lines or bits of reflection off the edge the iron is sharp.

    Several months ago David Savage posted electron microscope images of one of his irons sharpened with a "natural" stone and of a iron sharpened with a synthetic water stone. The iron sharpened on the synthetic stone had a high polish and the natural stone sharpened iron only a dull haze. Under extreme magnification is was very clear the iron with the dull haze was much sharper.

    I go back and forth between a Shapton 15000 and a Hard Black or Translucent Arkansas as my finishing stone....the Shapton polish will blind you, the Arkansas not so much but both are equally sharp. Folks also go over board on the number of grits they use, unless the edge is damaged two stones are enough, a soft stone to set up the edge and a hard one to finish it. Of course as with all things wood YMMV.

    ken

  14. #29
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    The Father of a friend showed me a Stanley 5 1/2 plane. The blade was awful so, silly me, I offered to sharpen it for him. I probably spent four hours flattening the back on my stones. I finally gave up on perfect. It took all of a few minutes to have a nice bevel using my Tormek and finishing it from there was trivial. It was new enough that I was worried about how it would work. Took great shavings in a piece of Oak I had on my bench. It was flat sawn with what I thought would be difficult grain.

  15. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by Adam Stevens2 View Post
    Jim,

    I've been seeing this option crop up a lot in my reading. I'm used to putting a microbevel on my blades, but apparently at some point the microbevel progresses to a point where it's no longer particularly sharp? Apparently my understanding of blade geometry is off because I'm not sure how this happens or at what point. I guess when sharpening a flat bevel you're just giving it a quick polish? I'm also guessing that by doing that you're ever so slowly shortening the chisel by removing metal off the entire face.
    My guess is a lot more metal is removed from the overall length of a chisel or plane iron by taking it to the grinder than removing a few ten thousandths of metal from the bevel on bench stones be they oil or water stones.

    Most of the time my "quick polish" is raising a burr on a 4000 stone, cleaning off the burr and polishing the bevel with an 8000 stone and then a few strokes on a leather strop.

    The slow shortening of the blade will likely take longer than the rest of my lifetime. A former work associate of mine nearly wasted away a blade by removing a lot of metal at the grinder. Surprisingly, he didn't over heat it.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

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