Lie Nielsen honing guide

[Ralph Boumenot]

A while back I got my new LN honing guide and noticed a problem with it. My LN 1/8 and Ashley Isles 1/8 chisel wouldn't fit in it. Both chisels were cocked in the small jaws. I couldn't get them to lay flat in the jaws and have the back of the chisels parallel to the top of the guide. I thought the problem was with the smallness of the chisels and went back to sharpening those two in my Kell guide. Everything else I had fit in the guide I had no problems sharpening them.

I recently tried to fit my LN left hand 30° skew jaws on the honing guide and one of them wouldn't fit. I sent the jaws and the guide back to LN and they sent me a new Honing guide and LH skew jaws. The repair department at LN said that my honing guide wasn't square. That was why the one LH jaw wouldn't fit. The jig not being square solved a few other problems too.

There is now much joy and rejoicing in Mudville. The new honing guide holds my LN and Ashley Isles 1/8" chisels perfectly. Both chisels are secure, flat and parallel in the guide.

I also got a much better fit on my Lee Valley RH rabbet plane iron in the new guide. I think if I spend some time playing with it I might be able to use the LN guide to sharpen it. Having a guide that is square certainly changed things here.

Just a heads up to anyone else with the guide who may be having a hiccup with it. Check to make sure that it is square and that the screwing action is smooth, fully tightened down to fully open. Mine got tight and hard to do in the final 1/3 of the way in closing it up. I attributed that to getting sharpening debris on the threads.

[Jebediah Eckert]

Thanks, I'm going to give mine a once over today. I'm pretty sure mine is fine, I have done a bunch of plane irons and chisels and results have been good. However, the iron for my small shoulder plane finished out of square. That obviously is a problem but I have been freehand sharpening it for the last bunch of times so maybe it was my fault and I didn't pay attention on the stone as much as needed. I was using the standard jaws and it seemed to hold fine but maybe the chisel jaws would be better?

[Mike Brady]

Ralph, you are using the narrow chisel holder, right? Also, Chris Schwarz warned in his review of the LN guide that you have to keep it clean, which is very easy since it can even be washed in water. I flush mine with WD-40. Per your post, I also had to trade in a pair of jaws because of a very slight error that made them hard to attach. It took them years of development to be able to make the little critters.

[Bill Fleming]

Has anyone used the LN guide with the Ray Iles mortise chisels? If so, with LN mortise chisel jaws?

thx Bill

[Patrick Chase]

Has anyone used the LN guide with the Ray Iles mortise chisels? If so, with LN mortise chisel jaws?

thx Bill

The Ray Iles chisels are traditional tapered-side pigstickers (the good kind), while the L-Ns are registered "sash mortise" style chisels (not the good kind :-).

The L-N mortise chisel jaw has much lower bevel than their other chisel jaws, which makes sense given that it's designed to grip a parallel-sided chisel. If that bevel is lower than the taper on the Ray Iles chisels then that may be a problem (though I doubt that will be the case, as the taper should only be a couple deg).

Also the Ray Iles chisels appear taller than the L-Ns, so that could be an issue as well.

I'm still not a fan of that honing guide design. It just seems so.... wasteful (in the sense that even with an expensive pile of accessory jaws it's still limited in terms of skew angles, tool compatibility, etc).

[Mike Cherry]

Sounds like another fine example of exemplary customer service from a great company! Glad to hear your happy Ralph.

[Derek Cohen]

Has anyone used the LN guide with the Ray Iles mortise chisels? If so, with LN mortise chisel jaws?

thx Bill

Hi Bill

The LN guide does not hold a RI mortise chisel securely in its basic disguise. Here it is with a 1/4" RI ..



For that matter neither dies the LV with small blade attachment (although it feels more secure, especially if sandpaper is glued to the jaws) ...



For me, the value of the LN lies with BU blades (I hone everything else freehand) ...



Regards from Perth

Derek

[Patrick Chase]

For that matter neither dies the LV with small blade attachment (although it feels more secure, especially if sandpaper is glued to the jaws) ...

I sharpen my mortise chisels using the LV guide with the standard top-clamping jaws. It works fine, though you have to be careful not to bump the chisel as it's not all that secure in rotation.

I agree that the side-clamping "small chisel" jaws are problematic.