Member
When you are using a granite plate with wet or dry sandpaper, you only have to put another sheet of sandpaper on.
It makes short work of sharpening planer knives as well as chisels. I'm surprised more are not using the granite plate.
You can visit Woodcraft to see what I'm talking about.
Member
Lots of folks do, but there are 3 good reasons why most DON'T use any type of scary-sharp system:Originally Posted by lowell holmes
1: It makes a mess.
2: Sandpaper gets expensive after a while.
3: If you sand dry, with no vacuum, the airborn steel dust is incredibly bad for your lungs. (I use my Spydeco's without water, but I do so in front of a vacuum system.)
Member
Well,
I have oil stones, water stones, granite plate, and diamond hones. I have yet to wear any of them out.
A diamond hone stays out on my bench with strop for instant touch up. The other devices are used as the spirit moves me at the moment of use.
I have a Deulen jig for sharpening jointer knives. That jig with the granite plate allows me to keep the jointer knives sharp.
I bet I'm not the only one that is so fickle.
I sharpen free hand so 2" wide is plenty, most of the old oil stone are 2" and that's not by chance, it is easier to keep the stone flat and it dosent take up more space than it needs to.
About the sigma, the 1k or 1.2k are great stones, but they need soaking, they can load more than I like and there are other 1k I like more. The 6k and 13k I don't like so much, they load up fast with even moderate pressure and don't have a nice feel. Both can get a little sticky when flattening and honing, just not my cup of tea. Not bad stones, they just don't work like I like a stone to work.
Can't say about ceramics but spyderco are a safe bet.
Friend of the Creek
Ian, thank you for starting this thread. I was all set to go diamond only based on Paul Sellers vid, but the responses here may have kept me from a $$$ mistake.
I currntly use sandpaper on 1/2" float glass. It works for me. For touch up, a quarter sheet of 600/800/1000/1500 each and strop is all I use.
Major reconditioning of garage sale chisels and irons can chew through a lot of course sandpaper, but I can usually find loads of course paper at garage sales for next to nothing.
I have a set of Norton wet stones, but just found them messy and inconvenient without the space to have them set up all the time. And frankly, I just didn't put enough practice in to get comfortable with using them...I was getting a much better edge with sandpaper.
Lately I have been "preaching" for people who are trying to set up a first sharpening station to take a different approach than what they frequently hear. Many people start out buying tools that have reasonably sharp blades, add that to the fact that the greater part of sharpening is maintenance work, honing a blade that just got dull after some hard use and it causes people to start out with stones oriented towards that work. The thing I discovered though is, although honing (finishing an edge) may be done the most often, it is the regrinding that eats up the most time and effort.
I started out with Arkansas and Wachita stones as teenager, went to King stones when I got into woodworking, bought a Tormek thinking it would fix everything, tried a few Shapton Pro stones, then I invested in Sigma stones from Tools From Japan, more coarser Sigma stones...along the way I also tried a granite stone with sandpaper and a large DMT Diamond plate, a belt sander......
The problem I had was getting blades to the point of needing honing, Sure we should spend most of our time just touching up our blades. Unfortunately if the bevel/camber...of a given blade is not ideal for the work we have a larger job that needs to be done before we can hone. Using even a diamond lapping plate and very coarse stones it is hard to make progress on regrinding bevels. I spent days trying to regrind bevels in thick BU & 3/16-1/4" thick wood plane blades, not to mention the fact that the whole process of making a hollow grind like Derek and others suggested totally eluded me. The Tormek, in my humble opinion, is a painfully slow way to regrind. Using slow stock removal methods I had a very hard time seeing and feeling what I was doing, often ending up with results that were way off. I was wasting a great deal of "shop time" trying to get blades ready for honing. Those blades that had good bevels were often getting "polished" before I had a good edge, which of course was more wasted time.
My suggestion is to start off with the ability to grind off more steel quickly. I have found that the cambers and hollow grinds that many posters use can be very frustrating to learn how to make if the process takes too long to do. I found that I would get impatient and start using too much force/pressure causing all sorts of other issues that winded up meaning all the extra time I spent was fruitless. Some of this work ends up needing to be done by hand without guides/jigs.
The difficulty in learning to do this work isn't learning to hand sharpen, it is having a grinding system that allows the user to see what the heck is going on while it is going on. For quite a while I did not see what I think guys like Derek Cohen and David Weaver had been trying to tell me. I needed a better grinding system. I eventually winded up with a relatively economical Delta grinder and a CNC wheel. Although I love my CNC wheel many posters will be astoundingly quick to point out that the same work can be done with decent, less costly, stone wheels. The problem I and others have with stone wheels is a fear of over heating steel blades. Certainly most people can learn to do this work safely on quite a few of the stones available now. The CNC wheels just cut faster and cooler than stone wheels. They also don't break apart, tossing less dust into the air and dramatically reducing the chance of the wheel breaking into pieces during the work (safety feature). Apparently CNC wheels do not wear out, even vs diamonds which are harder. It isn't always just about hardness.
I can now walk into the shop and camber/hollow grind/regrind chipped blades.....that I could never, I actually mean never, succeed at before. I could spend an entire day sharpening that ended up wasted time before. Now I can take several blades regrind bevels and cambers, prepare for honing, hone and be done in an hour or less. For me the ability to regrind is where one should start not work up to after 30 or so years. Hollow ground blades are sooo much easier to resharpen. It takes experimentation to find the best camber, bevel angle, micro bevel or not..., different strokes for different folks as it were. Trying to do that work with stones that are too fine is probably the most frustrating thing I have tried to do in woodworking. Shortly after getting a better grinding system I found a whole new world opening up for me with edged hand tools. Sharpening isn't a thing for using edged hand tools, it is THE thing! My suggestion is to start at the faster end of steel removal and work your way down instead of the other way around. Take the money many invest in expensive super fine 12-20,000 grit stones and buy better coarse grinding gear. I think the majority of people new to hand tools will be much happier and successful if they do.
Last edited by Mike Holbrook; 10-26-2015 at 1:13 PM.
Member
And how many edges have been ruined by a newbie on a power grinder? I ruined an edge or two.
I have a variable speed grinder with white stones that gets used about every year or two.
Lowell, so far I have not heard of a single person ruining an edge on a CNC wheel. Certainly it can be done if the user works hard at it. I learned to hand grind on a CNC wheel in less time than I have spent trying to figure out how to use many sharpening jigs. The other question I would ask is how many blades are lying around with edges that want do the work they were designed for because the owner can't regrind. I would guess there are thousands of blades that need attention for every one that has been ruined in the attempt.
How many BU or 1/4" plane blades get reground with the typical stones people buy? How many people experienced or not regrind all their plane blades to a hollow grind using stones? How many people take the beat up blades that frequently come on flea market finds and regrind them with hand stones or even diamond stones?....To my way of thinking I am suggesting that people starting out in hand tool sharpening learn to "walk before they try running".
My point is it is the "heavy lifting" of sharpening that can drive one crazy. It is the heavy lifting that eats the bulk of ones sharpening time. If the media one uses for sharpening is weighted towards making that super "razor" sharp blade instead of towards removing steel fast the big jobs can be very hard to get done. Certainly super fine stones are more expensive stones with: Shapton, Sigma, King....I say spend a little more on the coarser grinding gear to start and less on the super fine gear. CNC wheels or coarse grinding stones are simply the ultimate examples of the principal.
Last edited by Mike Holbrook; 10-26-2015 at 12:57 PM.
Member
I have the Duo Sharps in all grits.
Not particularly pleased with the coarse pretty much worn out already.
Used mostly for lapping and flattening waterstones, if that helps.
I think I will go to granite and sandpaper next time I need to flatten an iron.
Mike - I also found using coarser bench grinder stones generate less heat. Use to be scared to use them.
Last edited by Robert Engel; 10-26-2015 at 12:42 PM.
Member
Not to be picky, but I think you are referring to CBN wheels. Just wanted to point this out in case someone wants to do a search for them.
Matt
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