Couple of Sharpening Questions

[Jason Lester]

I finally got my bench (mostly) finished and have a couple of decent "vintage" Stanley Bailey planes both with Veritas blades/breakers. To start out cheap, I ordered the sampler pack of 3M abrasive film from Tools for Working Wood. I successfully got my #5 razor sharp this afternoon, but it took way too long (in my opinion at least) and my arms are completely worn out. I have a couple of questions.

1 - The 40 micron paper isn't really aggressive enough to create the primary bevel, at least on the Veritas A2 steel. I ended up using some 150 grit sandpaper, but it wore out really quick and I had to keep changing it. Should I get something like the Shapton 120 for creating the main bevel, assuming I'm not comfortable doing it on a bench grinder? Any other suggestions? The 40-15-5-1 micron sequence went really quickly on the secondary bevel.

2 - When sharpening, should I be going back and forth or just away from the edge? It seemed to create the burr just fine going back and forth, but I wasn't sure.

[Reinis Kanders]

Atoma 400 is probably good for the main bevel. Coarse india or carborundum are also good and cheap. India coarse/fine combo stone + strop could be a cheap way to start sharpening.

[Jim Davis]

2 - When sharpening, should I be going back and forth or just away from the edge? It seemed to create the burr just fine going back and forth, but I wasn't sure.

Just toward the edge.

[Allan Speers]

2 - When sharpening, should I be going back and forth or just away from the edge? It seemed to create the burr just fine going back and forth, but I wasn't sure.

Are you using a jig?

Most folks that freehand go side-to-side, or in a circular or figure-8 motion. I find this much better than forward & back, and one of several good reasons to freehand.

- Of course, creating a new bevel is something I'd use a jig for, and with the Veritas I've always gone in both directions. Seems to work OK.

[Jim Koepke]

Should I get something like the Shapton 120 for creating the main bevel, assuming I'm not comfortable doing it on a bench grinder?

This is all relative to your needs. My coarse stones are not as good as Shapton stones, but they wear and dish too fast for my liking. For any of my blades that need "grinding by hand" pressure adhesive backed sand paper rolls do the work. A local monument maker (tombstone carver) sold me a flat, smooth 4' hunk of granite that makes a good surface to recondition a blade without a bench grinder. Now that my tool accumulating days are mostly behind me this doesn't get used as much. Of course there is always a possibility of those deals that just can't be passed up bring it back into service.

After the job of restoring the bevel on a blade is done, my coarsest stone is a 1000 grit.

So if you are going to be purchasing a lot of old planes and chisels, you may need a coarse stone or abrasive paper set up. It all depends on the condition of your blades when you start working on them.

The 40 micron paper isn't really aggressive enough to create the primary bevel, at least on the Veritas A2 steel.

My Veritas Mk.II Power Sharpening system came with 40 micron abrasive as the third step in sharpening. The last step was 6 micron. There has been a lot of development of finer abrasive sheets available to the market since it was purchased.

jtk

[ian maybury]

Best grinding method depends enormously on the volume of metal that needs removing Jason - that is the area x the thickness. Area is a big factor because it reduces the pressure and hence slows the cut.

Most when grinding is mentioned mean just refreshing a bevel to remove a honing micro-bevel that has become overly wide/is causing slow honing. Chisels tend to grind much faster because typically they are quite a lot narrower than plane irons. Re-angling a bevel, especially on a thick say bevel up plane iron is a whole different ball game to just refreshing one - so much more metal to remove in comparison. Which is why that sort of work in a manufacturing context is probably done on a heavy wet grinder of some sort.

It's hard to make really specific comparisons, because very few have tried all the methods. Back flattening in many cases requires different techniques, and a delicate touch - it tends mostly to be done on stones and plates. (Veritas plane irons tend to be very flat, and to require minimal back flattening) There's been several detailed discussions recently.

Derek Cohen has a very useful set of photo pages on sharpening techniques, including several on different grinding and flattening techniques: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Woodwor...ues/index.html

Dry grinding on a bench grinder with a cool cutting soft Norton stone while not your preference seems widely regarded as the best bang for the buck method of fairly rapid hollow ground metal removal with manageable risk of heating. Lots of discusssions here on the topic.

Derek has a write up on using an adapted belt sander for this which delivers a flat grind, and seemingly not too much heating. CBN (cubic boron nitride) wheels peel off metal really fast for minimal heating, and can with creativity and choice of the right wheels be set up to grind both hollow and flat - but are new, expensive and have their own operating kinks. (see Derek's pages again for a hollow grinding set up and technique) Jim has described using a long strip of coarse silicon carbide paper stuck down on granite or whatever to grind flat bevels, Derek also but for back flattening. Disc sanders will grind at a push with great care, but tend to heat the iron and wear the abrasive more than is ideal due to too high surface speed - the belt sander's large belt area and potentially lower speed seem to make it run cooler. The Sorby Pro-Edge is a commercially available belt based grinding system that seems well regarded and might suit you.

The Veritas and WorkSharp disc sharpening systems use self adhesive silicon carbide paper (cheap metal backed diamond lapidary discs work well on the WorkSharp too - this is what i use for light grinding) do a decent but slower job of refreshing bevels in the flat (but are impracticably slow for more than slightly re-angling more than a very thin iron), but permit use of a honing guide for control of angles. (the WS anyway - when fitted with the accessory platform) The Tormek wet grinder is in similar territory, but for hollow grinding - but with the advanatge of minimal risk of heating and a system of jigs for differing blade types. The recently introduced coarse and fine wheels have broadened its range.

Makita do a power horizontal wet waterstone based system, it's expensive and not very widely available but gets good reviews. Probably similar in pace to the above, or a bit slower with coarse stones fitted.

I have the 120 grit Shapton, and find it rather slow compared to the WorkSharp - but i sharpen single bevel which means the area being worked is quite large. It's main use for me is for (with a honing guide) flattening a bevel that's been ground on the Worksharp but is just a tiny shade off dead flat all over before moving on to honing - it'd be pretty slow even for refreshing bevels i think. The traditional Japanese technique is to lap with carborundum grit on an iron plate, not sure how fast it cuts - but possibly similarly to a coarse diamond plate which may also be an option at this (slower) level?

We all seem to end up reading a lot or (if lucky) hooking up with somebody who 'knows', then experimenting with techniques and systems to find a set of solutions that work for our own needs. Hands on experience is the best teacher, it's hard to communicate the nuances of the various methods as small differences in situation and needs can make such a difference. There's outbreaks of discussions on sharpening topics here too at intervals which over time tend to be very educational....

[John Schtrumpf]

2 - When sharpening, should I be going back and forth or just away from the edge? It seemed to create the burr just fine going back and forth, but I wasn't sure.

When using paper or film abrasives, I would recommend away from the edge. So that you don't accidentally dig the edge in and cut the paper or film.

[Graham Haydon]

Hi Jason,

I'm not 100% sure what 40 micron is but it sounds very fine for making a primary bevel and the 150 would be much to fine as well. A2 is darn hard! I would be using P60 or P80 grit paper if I were doing it by hand using a jig. In the long term a water cooled grinder could be worth considering if you don't feel confident using a regular bench grinder.

For thin Stanley easy working plane irons you could just hone one bevel and make do with an india stone and a strop. The fine side would work pretty well and you could drop to the coarse side when needed. A quick finish on a strop and the edge should be good.

[Curt Putnam]

I started out with a $2 granite tile from Lowes - equipped with whatever sandpaper grit I needed and a Veritas MK II honing jig. Adding a WS3000 only makes it faster.

For coarse grinding (as Ian has said)(for sure, read Derek's site) I have settled on either the Worksharp 3000 or a 100 grit diamond stone (leaves large gouges.) Coarse grinding is Sharpening (creating two intersecting planes at a specific angle) as opposed to Honing which the successive polishing of the intersecting planes created during the sharpening process. Honing is generally done much more often than sharpening.

I prefer to do the sharpening process using power (Worksharp 3000) which yields a flat grind. Derek, and other folks, prefer to use a circular grinder to produce a hollow grind. Those same folks tend to be the same who do their honing freehand. I use my trusty MK II jig to hone on Stu's famous 3 Sigma Power Ceramic stone set. Works for me. I've also gotten good results using the Worksharp all the way to the end. Derek has shown that it is faster using a hollow grind+freehand than my method. 'Tis true, but using my jig means that I'm far less likely to screw up. Screwing up using power means more damage faster. There are about as many roads to a usable edge as there are woodworkers, and about as many definitions of usable edge as there are woodworkers.

If I understood you correctly, you wanted to have started with 80 or 100 grit abrasive for flattening and beveling. Waterstones don't seem to do all that well at those low grits and diamonds create relative large gouges. So I'd vote for with sandpaper or a grinder for the initial bevel and sandpaper for the initial flattening. After that you are just polishing on up through the grits. I draw the line between sharpening and honing at about 1000 grit (waterstone measurement.)

FWIW and YMWV,
Curt

[Jason Lester]

Thanks for all the advice. I am using the older-style Veritas honing jig. I have been seriously considering the WS3000, so good to know they actually do work pretty well. The Torkmek is out of my price range for now. It's down to the WS3000 versus a new router for my birthday this month .. old way versus new, which will win? If I don't get the WS3000, looks like I need to get a roll of the coarser grits of Mirka Gold that several here have recommended in earlier threads that I read through for the initial establishment of the bevels.

[ian maybury]

As i said above Jason (in case it got lost in my fairly wordy reply) - just be aware that the WS is a pretty lightly built light duty grinding solution suitable at the heavy end for not a lot more than refreshing an existing bevel. It's not going to remove large quantities of metal on wider blades, and is quite a lot slower than a dry grinder or a sanding belt based system. It'd probably not be a good choice for heavy use in a professional shop either, there are for example more expensive but more robustly built disc systems available that likely do a similar job.

I'm happy with mine, but within limits. It's held up for two years now, and has handled my needs on chisels and plane irons precisely and well (there's times it's useful with a lot of care for back flattening that's a bit much for waterstones) - but i do my heavy grinding on another system. I might well have gone for something a bit more robust if i had hands on experience before buying.

It needs the accessory work platform and a honing guide to handle plane blades - the under disc set up is for narrower blades like chisels. Even given the patience it'd be expensive to do much heavier grinding on as it gets through the OEM low tack adhesive silicon carbide paper abrasive discs fairly fast on that work. Which last time i looked could only be bought in packs of mixed grits rather than a single grade (what if you only want one of the coarser ones?), and from the maker. Which may be why some of us switched to using the diamond lapidary discs for light grinding.

While i don't use mine for honing, it's actually pitched as a complete sharpening and honing solution - they offer paper discs that go right down to very fine grits….

[Don Jarvie]

Hollow grind on a slow speed grinder then fine India oil stone finishing with a hard white Arkansas. Make sure the back is completely flat if not you will never get the burr. With the hollow grind you can free hand with the stones.

[Curt Putnam]

IAN, WS3000 discs can be had in bulk from Klingspor much cheaper than from the mfg. Jason, if you want a WS3000 you pretty much need to either build an equivalent or buy their wide blade attachment. Using the port means that you only get to use a narrow strip on each paper disc. The table allows you to use a jig and move the blade over the entire surface of the disc. I don't remember how much grinding you need to do but Ian is correct when he says the unit will not hog off metal although it will rapidly get hot enough to ruin temper if you aren't careful. I basically leave the leather stropping disc in the machine. Since the Sigma 13K stone is splash & go, I generally use that if I'm going to jig up for an edge renewal. Power stropping with the WS3000 will get edges ready to go pretty quickly. When I've used up more of my coarse grit paper, I'll get a set of the diamond discs and avoid the paper change hassle. If you go the WS3000 route, get enough wheels to cover all the grits you will use. 1 wheel gets you two grit surfaces. Multiple wheels saves a LOT of time spent changing paper and the money cost of taking off paper that is still good.

As always, JMO & YMWV

[Robert Engel]

You don't need machines to sharpen other than a grinder.

Just my opinion....

[Jason Lester]

I have a really nice bench grinder, but I've always had trouble keeping bevels even on it. The tool rests are not good at all and it is mounted on a post instead of a bench. On a cheap chisel for example, I get multiple "facets" where I can't move it back and forth steady.

I could probably save some money by moving it to one of my side benches and buying a better rest for it. The Veritas one looks nice as well as the Wolverine. I think the Veritas would do what I need along with their jig. That would get all the coarse stuff done for less than half the cost of the WS3000 and then I can finish on my abrasive film until I work up to getting the waterstones. That might be the best bet?