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Thread: What constitutes as a mirror finish and other sharpening ?'s

  1. #16
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    Mirror finishes are sparkly, but what do they mean?

    Think about this. . .a ball bearing can have a mirror finish. But it doesn't cut hair, or wood.

    Bottom line. . .if it's good enough to cut wood to your satisfaction, then go make some saw dust, shavings, and chips. I've seen too many arguments all over the place about sharpening and razor sharpness and mirror finishes. It's exhausting to read. Old timers back in day didn't sharpen that well because time was money to them, yet they still produced awesome pieces.

    At the end of the day, if your chisel/plane/steel cuts wood and does it satisfactorily. . .go with it.

    Just my 2 shiny copper coins.
    The Barefoot Woodworker.

    Fueled by leather, chrome, and thunder.

  2. #17
    Thank you all for the responses. This has been a lot of great advice. As many of you have stated the level of sharpness needs are dependent on the plane and application. I have found in most cases my tuning job works well when working the walnut stock but is lacking when working red oak. Takes a lot of force and I get some tearout which I expect the red oak to be tougher, but can tell my blades needs some refinement to improve the plane performance.

    Evaluating the back at the edge, it has been rolled over a little. I've worked it to where working the back will most likely not make an improvement , going to have to just wait the edge out with future working of the bevel.

    Jim - your description of what shave sharp is what I can get out of some of my chisels, but is not what I get out of my planes.

    Thanks again for everyone sharing.

    Bob

  3. #18
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    Evaluating the back at the edge, it has been rolled over a little. I've worked it to where working the back will most likely not make an improvement , going to have to just wait the edge out with future working of the bevel.

    Jim - your description of what shave sharp is what I can get out of some of my chisels, but is not what I get out of my planes.
    On plane blades one is more likely to get a small wear bevel forming on the back of the blade. When I notice my blade performance is dropping I try to remember to sharpen right away to avoid increasing the wear bevel. If the wear bevel is gets ahead of me there is a lot of time either grinding with power or by hand on a coarse stone to get back to good metal. Some folks like to use a method called the "ruler trick." It works for many folks but it is not in my repertoire.

    A sharp blade and a close setting of the chip breaker should help to alleviate tear out problems.

    Google > setting a cap iron < and the first hit should be an article on WoodCentral by David Weaver with more information if you haven't already seen it.

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

  4. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Koepke View Post
    On plane blades one is more likely to get a small wear bevel forming on the back of the blade. When I notice my blade performance is dropping I try to remember to sharpen right away to avoid increasing the wear bevel. If the wear bevel is gets ahead of me there is a lot of time either grinding with power or by hand on a coarse stone to get back to good metal. Some folks like to use a method called the "ruler trick." It works for many folks but it is not in my repertoire.

    A sharp blade and a close setting of the chip breaker should help to alleviate tear out problems.

    Google > setting a cap iron < and the first hit should be an article on WoodCentral by David Weaver with more information if you haven't already seen it.

    jtk
    Is Mr. Weaver still around?
    The Barefoot Woodworker.

    Fueled by leather, chrome, and thunder.

  5. #20
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    +1 that using a coarse diamond (especially a fresh one that hasn't been run in) has the potential to leave very deep scratches. Finer diamonds (as on say a well run in 180 or finer lapidary disc) don't in my experience scratch so deeply that the marks don't quickly polish out on a 1,000 grit waterstone.

    The other issue that can lead to scratching is not being scrupulously careful about washing the iron on moving from stone grit to stone grit - it's very easy to carry occasional coarse grits over on to the finer stones where they will cause scratching. It eventually becomes a 'hygiene' or contamination everywhere problem if the sharpening area isn't kept scrupulously clean.

    It's hard to overemphasise how critical stone flatness and careful blade handling are so far as avoiding dubbing is concerned. It's not for example a given that a new diamond plate is flat enough to avoid issues (especially while flattening the back), it's critical to follow a regime like the Charlesworth one to spread wear evenly over the stone and to flatten it as frequently as he says, and even a very tiny error in terms of tipping up or misplacing an iron can do enough harm (especially immediately behind the edge to need a huge amount of work to flatten the back again. Even a too heavy build up of slurry (a little may be is helpful) may lift a blade unevenly enough to cause problems.

    Flatness is a kind of a catch 22 problem. If you have truly flat stone (the result of flattening carefully with a truly flat diamond plate or similar) the give away is that it should almost instantly cut all over (create a scratch pattern over pretty much the entire surface being worked) or the iron is likely not flat - or vice versa. If nothing is flat (the diamond plate used for flattening, the stone or the back of the iron) then it's back to basics. Maybe start by checking the diamond plate used for flattening - at minimum with an accurate straight edge and a light. (which may still miss a twist) Best of all a small (now very cheap) granite surface plate with a very light film of blue will show up high points. Once you have a flat plate then it becomes possible to make the waterstones flat and keep them that way while you work.

    As Jim a heavily used blade let go too far before re-sharpening may have enough of a wear bevel (to varying degrees on both sides of the edge) to need plenty of cutting back on the bevel side to remove (there's a few pieces on the web about how wear bevels and their less than complete removal can mess up sharpening, prevent removal of wire edges and result in failure to achieve the required two polished facets meeting at the required angle) - it's to my way of thinking probably easier to do it on that side as it can be very labour intensive via back flattening.

    As the others the Charlesworth ruler trick tends to be effective for many. It'll remove any slight dubbing or wear bevel on the flat back very quickly, and is just that bit less sensitive in terms of needing a precisely flat stone.

    The alternative is to head for methods that use heavy stropping and the like to bring up the edge - they likewise are much less dependent on the blade and the edge and the stone being perfectly straight and flat...
    Last edited by ian maybury; 09-02-2015 at 7:47 PM.

  6. #21
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    it's critical to follow a regime like the Charlesworth one to spread wear evenly over the stone and to flatten it as frequently as he says, and even a very tiny error in terms of tipping up or misplacing an iron can do enough harm (especially immediately behind the edge to need a huge amount of work to flatten the back again. Even a too heavy build up of slurry (a little may be is helpful) may lift a blade unevenly enough to cause problems.
    If one is aiming for a perfect blade with flawless mirrors on both sides, then yes there is a similar level of perfection that must also exist in the sharpening system.

    If one is merely attempting to get great results smoothing, chopping, shaping and pairing wood, then a few miniscule scratches in the polished bevel of a chisel or plane blade are not going to be a big problem.

    At the edge there doesn't even have to be a long bevel. This is one of the advantages of a secondary or micro bevel.

    The real problem with stone wear is when you hone a wide blade and it polishes at the edges but not the center or similar anomalies. Then there is no more putting off the work needed to flatten the stone(s).

    The lesser wear of oilstones is something to be appreciated.

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

  7. #22
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    Pardon my perhaps coming across like a zealot, as my serious learning on topic only came last year after a lifetime of 'getting by' sharpening with a switch to using watersones - to work up a set of Japanese chisels and some planes. But exactly.

    There's none so zealous as the newly converted as they used to say, but sorting a technique that works and being religious about sticking to it really matters. The wonder perhaps fades for the older hands, because they have long sorted a routine that works without having to think too much about it, but it's scary how little of an out of flatness problem it takes to mess up.

    Sharpening single bevel as before is even more picky about flatness - but the ruler trick and micro bevels in effect take advantage of the fact that an effective cutting edge typically only needs short bevels. Hard stropping is likely even less sensitive i suspect given the spring in the leather (i've only used a fibre polishing wheel for finishing), requiring only that the edge be got pretty close on the stone.

    One conclusion is that it's best to always be ahead of the posse with stone flattening. To use a pre-emptive routine. The risk being that by the time it gets bad enough to produce obvious symptoms the harm is likely done.
    Last edited by ian maybury; 09-03-2015 at 7:23 AM.

  8. #23
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    I use natural stones for that reason, constant re-flattening of finish stones was driving me mad. They require touch up but not nearly as often, so I generally flatten before I start using them and then after each part of the blade. Touch up involves only a 1200 diamond plate, so there is not alot of stone being wasted during each use.

    I have, so far (hehe) a Shinden suita (10-15,000 grit) and a Nakayama Asagi (20-30,000 grit). So I take a normal routine of diamonds, 1000, 3000, 8000 water stones, then natural stones. Even with very common flattening of the waterstones some out of flatness will show in the final polishing on the natural stones.

    For maintenance sharpening I can simply return to the finish stones unless I get chips in an edge during use.
    Bumbling forward into the unknown.

  9. #24
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    The essential issue i guess if dealing with especially large flat areas (backs of blades, single bevels) being that even a few microns of out of flatness will likely result in a surface not immediately texturing/cutting/showing all over - whether it's the stone or the iron that is the problem.

    It seems to me Brian that in a sense there's two steps to the sharpening game. First we have to figure out how to get a sharp edge, then it becomes a matter of experimenting to make the process a bit more time/mess/whatever effective. I'm at the point where i'm getting good edges, but haven't really started to tune the process yet. The stages may overlap/mix together a bit...

  10. #25
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    The extreme flatness is troubling for something where you reeeeeeaally want to be precise, such as prepping for kezurou-kai planing competition, but for everyday woodworking I will do two things to get quick and dirty.....tiny microbevel on both sides (tiny, like 3 swipes) and refine with the bare strop. I will cheat more and more as I rehone until it becomes tedious, then I will drop back down to 1000 and refresh everything. Very tiny mircrobevels will disappear at this point, so dont go nuts.
    Bumbling forward into the unknown.

  11. #26
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    Where do you live Robert? If you live near the middle of Ohio, I am happy to show you what I call sharp... and then either you can laugh at my hack job or I can laugh at yours.... and then we can make it so that we both have equally sharp tools.

    I am in the process of setting up one of the three planes mentioned here (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...ndia&p=2461215)

    The back is resistant to being flat, one corner is very low

    I have put about 2.5 hours into it so far, but I think that I have poor technique that is improving for doing this part. Would have been faster if I had started with say 120 grit sandpaper rather than 400.

  12. #27
    I made some progress over the last couple weeks. I spent some time working my No. 7 hock iron and my No.6 vintage iron with some real success. I spent some time on the backs and got a image that matches pretty well what Brian was kind enough to share in his cabinet thread. Reworked the bevels, found the vintage iron really pleasant to work. First few passes with the planes when I did this last week were not very good. Pushed hard, left a pretty clean surface but not as nice as I would hope from a fresh iron, given this is red oak, but expect better. So I went back to the shop tonight and spent some time fettling the plane and rediscovered some things that I knew but have forgotten, suppose that's what a year of down time will do.

    - Set the blade and centered it up as best as possible
    - Advance the iron making strokes until a shaving is made
    - when a shaving is made, tap the iron on the side to center the shaving (I use whatever is handy, screwdriver handle tonight)
    - continue to advance the iron until a well centered, close to full width shaving is produced

    What a world of difference and the vintage iron was cutting the best of the two. Produced a surface reminding why I like handplaning.

    Some other improvements: I have a heavy MDF bench with no vices and no plane stops. Last Saturday I drilled some 3/4" holes and shoved a 1 1/2" dowel rod in my metal lath and turned out a couple plane stops. I had been using a 3/8" board clamped across the end of my bench, adding a couple good hard stops really make a difference when pushing a plane.


    Andrew - I am located in central Iowa, I am originally from north central Ohio and make it there about 3 times a year.

    I know some of these items are straying from the title so I apologize, but these things don't merit a new thread. Thanks for reading.

  13. #28
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    Gad to hear it's working out! Nothing more enjoyable than nice smooth shavings

    You can do a lot with some planing stops and battens.
    Bumbling forward into the unknown.

  14. #29
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    I think I am getting the hang of rehabbing these things....
    Rusty plane.jpgmessy sole.jpg
    This came in the mail today...Hour and a half or so later...
    test drive.jpgflat sole.jpg
    Edge is honed to 2.5K grit. Angle is about 25 degrees or so. Back is flat, sole is flat enough. replaced those cheap plastic handles with real wood ones. Seems to be a Stanley #4 T-20. Made a lot of this stuff..
    shavings.jpg
    Might just do...

  15. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by Robert McNaull View Post
    So I went back to the shop tonight and spent some time fettling the plane and rediscovered some things that I knew but have forgotten, suppose that's what a year of down time will do.
    Andrew - I am located in central Iowa, I am originally from north central Ohio and make it there about 3 times a year.

    I know some of these items are straying from the title so I apologize, but these things don't merit a new thread. Thanks for reading.
    Sounds like you are getting the hang of it.... If you are near Columbus on a visit and want to do some sharpening, let me know. I don't make it to Iowa often; only been there once. Glad to hear it seems to be working out.

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