I have no idea what I am doing anymore

[Patrick Chase]

A friend gave me a 1 1/2'' chisel. It was square when I started out sharpening it free hand. It had a small low area on the left corner. I have been working it on a flat plate with 80g emery paper to get it all the same. It small area is getting smaller. When I held it up after about a total if 20 min. of working it it is no longer square. I have paid close attention to keeping the angle consistent and the blade flat to the surface.
Do I keep on plugging away until the spot is gone and that may square it up? I have had poor luck with even the most fancy sharpening jigs and often get the blades not square also.
Grinding is out of the question. I have burned up two old test irons in the past and lack the skills to do that.
I am of a mind to get the chisels and plane irons I have sharp and to heck with them being square. I can get them all sharp enough to take shaving off of end grain pine with no tear out.
I just do not understand why this happens. I might also add that one sharpening school I went to helped for about a week and it is back to the same old thing.
This is not a whiny crybaby post. It is just plagued me for about 25 years.

A few thoughts:

1. It sounds as though your pressure distribution is a bit off side-to-side such that one side of the blade is being ground more aggressively than the other. Can you focus on shifting the pressure the other way?

2. w.r.t. grinding, IMO that's a skill well worth learning even if you burn an edge or five to acquire it. In my case it was 2... so far. When you do burn a tool it's typically a matter of a couple mm of suspect steel at the tip, and often not even that. Are you sure your test irons were really that badly off, or is it possible you're being overcritical of your results and letting that discourage you?

3. If you really don't want to go the bench grinder route, there are vast range of other options between hand sharpening and a full-speed bench grinder. I'd suggest a search through George's posts about using diamond discs - the surface speeds are <15% of a full-speed grinder, and diamond discs run cooler than most wheel abrasives (other than CBN). It's a heck of a lot faster than grinding by hand, but slow enough to be fairly idiot-proof.

4. This will probably get me flamed, but for the sort of heavy grinding you describe I always use a guide. You're going to be working the tool long enough that the overhead of setting up the guide will be insignificant, and it can save you from exactly this sort of issue. A $10 Eclipse clone would be just fine for this sort of work.

[Stanley Covington]

You need to figure out what you are doing wrong, so you can PRACTICE doing it differently.... I mean right.

Mark the bevel with Dykem or marking pen ink. Recoat frequently.

Check the edge for square with a small square holding it up to a light so you can clearly see light coming through the gap.

Work the high (long) 1/2 to 1/3 of the blade's width on the stone with the low (short) portion hanging off. No point in grinding away at at areas that are already low (short). This is a sign of knucleheadosis, a mental condition most people suffer constantly, but that can be temporarily overcome through attention. Some sufferers have reported that consuming massive quantities of whiskey, beer and tacos (in that order) speed recovery, but they are always either too wasted or too hung over to participate in clinical studies.

Stop working the blade on the stone. Frequently. Every few strokes. Check progress of Dykem removal and squareness. EVERY FEW STROKES.

Figure out how to make it square.

Repeat.

Stan

[Mike Holbrook]

I have actually been giving this subject a good deal of thought lately. There is a part of woodworking, which I appreciate more and more. It is more artistic design than simple physical dexterity. I took a class with Peter Galbert, a trained artist with considerable skill. He illustrated his entire Chair book himself. Pete did not use a ruler most of the time in the class. He would draw, by hand, a 3/8", 1/2" line along contours. Several people checked him several times he was on the money.

There are skills artists learn..... You can train your eye. What I am saying is there is an artistic eye for space and proportion that can be developed, but it isn't exactly a woodworking skill. In design and drawing classes you learn to refine these skills, although there are other ways to develop the same skills. Read George Wilson's posts for a few years and you will find he has developed a certain appreciation for design and proportion, although I am guessing he was not trained formally in design and drawing. Forgive me if I am wrong George, just making a theoretical example, although you obviously have an "artist's eye".

I have had the same issues as our poster in the past. I find that when I do, I am over thinking/emphasizing the physical mechanics and not using my artist's eye. I have learned to sharpen plane blades with subtle cambers "by hand & eye" (might make a good book title, hmmm). I still check with a square on occasion but I am almost always on target. I learned to do it more by eye though than by learning some physical/mechanical skill set. My advice to the OP is to try concentrating on your visual spacial acuity and try not to over stress about mechanics/jigs. It is a little like trying to saw a straight line by forcing the saw....it does not work. The skill requires that the muscles follow the mind and eye.

[Jim Koepke]

There are skills artists learn..... You can train your eye. What I am saying is there is an artistic eye for space and proportion that can be developed, but it isn't exactly a woodworking skill.

+1 on this. The training of one's eyes is a skill useful in many endeavors. It likely is in the arts where it is most practiced.

Below is a section included in a technical manual I wrote for use at my former employer. TTMs are ticket transport mechanisms used for vending and processing tickets in a public transit system. This came about because all of our spacers were mixed together and I thought it would be easier if they were sorted. One day I took it upon myself to sort them. Before getting all the spacers sorted by size it became possible for me to tell their size just by looking at them.

The Calibrated Eye
The purpose of this exercise is to train your eye to recognize small sizes for what they are.
To do this exercise one needs a lot of mixed spacing washers. The sizes found on our TTMs
are 0.001, 0.005, 0.010, 0.016, 0.030 and 0.040" with occasionally some other odd sizes.
A dial or digital caliper is also needed. Small containers or pieces of paper to separate the
washers into different piles are also needed.
With all the washers mixed in a pile, start measuring with the caliper. Look at the edge of each
one during the measuring process. Separate the washers into piles of washers that measure the
same. After a short time, look at the washer before measuring it and see if you know what it
will measure before it is put in to the caliper. Keep doing this until you get good.
Congratulations you now have calibrated your eyes. Recalibration may be needed if not used
on a regular basis.

Likewise it is possible to train one's eyes to evenly divide spaces and recognize a right angle. (in many cases it is good to trust but verify)

It is amazing what we do not see until we have taken the effort to train our eyes to see. I have been concentrating on a sequence in a recurring video with at most two frames with one detail. I have noticed that I have not only gotten better at seeing that detail I have also been noticing details from other single or double frame images in videos. So there are many different aspects of vision training.

Mike's comments served as a revelation aiding me to see a bigger picture of this.

Thanks Mike,

jtk

[Mike Holbrook]

Jim, even a blind squirrel....

Jerry I identify with and feel your pain. I got very frustrated trying to regrind bevels: level, cambered...using waterstones and a Tormek. I could spend hours slaving away at it. One of the frustrations was the work went so slow. By the time I found that I was not on track it was hard to face having to redo because of the time previously invested. Now I have a grinder and CBN wheel that work many times faster, some get similar results with an assortment of stones.. I can actually see what is going on as it is happening and make adjustments that I can see.

I also learned to hollow grind which makes an "edge" at the top & bottom of the bevel. It is easy to feel those two edges on the surface of a stone. I can sharpen the hollowed edge by hand in much less time because I do not have to remove as much metal. This skill set has allowed me to enjoy working wood much more.

[Andy McKenzie]

I've taken a whole bunch of chisels and plane irons out of square. There are a couple of things that helped me: some of them may help you, some may not.

1) Focus almost entirely on side-to-side pressure. The thing that makes the most difference is making sure you're pressing evenly, since greater pressure on one side means more material being removed.

2) Use a finer grit. It will take longer, but it also means you're likely to notice you're getting out of square before it gets too bad to fix easily.

3) This one may be controversial: I found that when I stopped using sandpaper to sharpen, I started getting edges that were closer to square. I'm honestly not sure why, though: it may be that the paper wasn't actually staying flat, it may be that the diamond plates I moved to cut slower, or it may have been that I needed the surface to be an inch higher. Logically speaking, there shouldn't be a difference: they both work by abrading the metal surface, so if they're both flat they should both work the same. Regardless, when I switched to diamond plates, my edges got squarer.

4) Check often, and adjust accordingly. If you're having this much trouble, stop every four or five strokes and check it with a square. If one side is shorter, pay attention to putting less pressure on that side.

5) Watch your body position. As a test: Set things up as if you're going to sharpen. Get a two-handed grip on the chisel. On a wide blade, I put one index finger on each corner of the blade. On a narrow blade (say less than 1/2") I use one finger in the center. Moving very, very, very slowly, slide the chisel forward across the paper. I do best when I'm standing with my feet about shoulder width apart, one further forward than the other (about half a step), and my shoulders and hips square to the bench. Pay attention to how you're moving the chisel: Are you moving your arms relative to your body? Are you using your back and keeping your arms locked? Maybe you're rocking forward with your legs, and everything else is static. I do all of those at different times, and they can all work. Maybe your arms aren't moving the same amount, and one corner of the chisel is moving more than the other, meaning it gets more sharpening. Maybe you're twisting at the waist. You're not going to move this slowly all the time, or even most of the time, but it's a good way to focus on exactly what your hands are doing.

I think the key is to get the blade square to your shoulders, straight out from your navel, and move it in a straight line with even pressure. Some people like jigs. I happen to hate them. I don't think I'm any more "right" than anyone else, I just know what works for me. In the end, all the techniques for hand-sharpening are just methods of getting the iron to move flat across the sharpener with even pressure.


Or you could buy a Worksharp or something. It's not cheating, and it's almost certainly got less of a learning curve.

[Kees Heiden]

2) Use a finer grit. It will take longer, but it also means you're likely to notice you're getting out of square before it gets too bad to fix easily.

I think I don't agree with this. Removing metal by hand on a stone is an inherently slow process anyway. I find it easier when things are actually happening in a measurable timeframe. When things are going (too) slow, it is much easier to get tired and to start cutting corners or loosing control. I always use the coarsest grit neccessary.

[Robert Engel]

I've had this happen to me and the way I avoid the problem is by skewing the blade slightly and alternating the angle to cancel out the error. This plus VERY frequent checks so I can correct it before it gets bad.

I believe what's happening to you is after 25 years your muscle memory is locked in and extremely difficult to change.
Ask Tim Tebow or any golfer who tries to change his swing. I remember a conference I was at once the speaker made the statement "You can have a lot of experience doing something the wrong way."

If it is body or arm position, you're in the same boat as the golfer trying to alter his swing. If it is the result of uneven finger pressure, that is much easier to overcome.

Have you tried skewing the blade a bit and alternating?

IMO a chisel doesn't have to perfectly square to be useable, but I wouldn't want to use it if the handle is tilted quite a bit.

If none of the suggestions help, maybe a Worksharp IS your best bet.

[Andy McKenzie]

I think I don't agree with this. Removing metal by hand on a stone is an inherently slow process anyway. I find it easier when things are actually happening in a measurable timeframe. When things are going (too) slow, it is much easier to get tired and to start cutting corners or loosing control. I always use the coarsest grit neccessary.

Fair. I was thinking mainly of working on sandpaper, which Jerry said he was using. My experience with sandpaper was that things could go very wrong very fast at too coarse a grit. With stones, I agree that it's somewhat different.

[James Pallas]

Jerry you may want to check the thickness of the chisel from one side to the other. It doesn't have to be off much to give you fits when sharpening. This applies even whe using a guide that indexes off of the back. With all of your experience it has to be some little thing that is catching you.
Jim

[Pat Barry]

Maybe a locally hard spot on the bevel is making the process more difficult? That spot would be difficult to grind relative to the rest and would be a high spot. Just throwing out a possibility

Don't know if what I suggested is a possibility because I don't know s--- about heat treating, hardening, tempering etc. But I am curious if getting localized hard spots is possible. George, Patrick, Kees?

[Jerry Thompson]

I thank everyone for your replies. What is vexing me is, I have about 15 or so chisels of various widths and lengths and I have bee able to get them all sharp enough to do the pine end grain test.
This chisel is the one giving me trouble. I broke down and ordered a slow RPM bench grinder. I have several old plane irons and some scrap type chisels. I am going to practice on them. I want to be able to grind the edge straight across and then go for the hollow grind.
If grind up everything I'll hit the Flea Markets and get some more and have a go at them.
What grit/brand stone would be best for my jump into the yet unknown?

[Kees Heiden]

Don't know if what I suggested is a possibility because I don't know s--- about heat treating, hardening, tempering etc. But I am curious if getting localized hard spots is possible. George, Patrick, Kees?

Seems unlikely to me. That would have happened during the tempering process, but it is hard to get one part of the chisel's edge hotter then another part. Not impossible when you temper with a flame, but I don't think they did that professionally with chisels. The other way is more likey, a soft spot somewhere due to overheating a corner.

[lowell holmes]

I'm late to the party on this one.

I reshape chisels with a belt sander. I put the belt sander in a bench vise with the belt side up. I place the chisel in a Veritas honing guide and sharpen the chisel on the belt.
Don't overheat the chisel or else you will have to grind the blue steel off. Don't ask me how I know that. I have gloves on when doing this as well as safety glasses.

After reshaping the chisel ends, I sharpen them on progressive diamond hones. I don't worry about hollow grind. The edges are razor sharp, so be careful.

OBTW, I have a low speed grinder.

[Mike Holbrook]

Another aspect of sharpening that continually vexes me has to do with seeing what is going on while you work. This would be the reason my original post on this thread suggested developing an "artist's eye" for proportions as a starting point. The sooner you see things getting out of proportion the less likely you are to get very far off. The thing that vexes me is the old question of how precisely the work needs to be done in the first place and how we are going to judge our accuracy? There are many places in woodworking where one runs up against this conundrum.

I have a magnifying LED light next to my bench. I check plane and chisel blades with a square under the bright magnified light sometimes. It is easier to see if the blade is square vs evenly cambered, but checking the progression of the camber on both sides may give a good visual idea of whether or not the camber is equal on both sides.

Derek, in one of his sharpening articles on his Blog, suggests making wood patterns using a compass to mark specific cambers. You set the point and pencil at, say 8" apart, which I believe produces what is referred to as a 8" camber. The wood pattern created in this way provides a model to check work against. So far I have not gone to this extreme. I have marked" 7", 8" 9"...cambers with a compass on a piece of paper and checked blades against it. I usually do this when working on a heavier, around 8", camber. I do this in an attempt to make sure I am getting a greater amount of camber than I tend to get just "eyeballing".

I wonder how many people actually go to this length to make sure their blade is flat or cambered precisely? If my memory serves, many people have posted that they "eyeball" most of the cambers they use and never actually measure them. Typically these people are talking about smaller cambers. I wonder, it is not easy to see how even a small camber is, just how even are these "eyeballed" cambers? I suspect that this becomes the ole artists eye thing again, where the woodworker learns to produce a camber that is exactly as accurate as it needs to be.

Derek also mentions a way to make "accurate" smaller cambers on his Blog. His method involves leaning on first one corner and then the other, counting strokes across the stone on each side. Again I wonder how accurate this method is? In the case of cambers this small I don't even know how we could test reliably for this degree of accuracy?

This is why I find the whole artists eye concept important. Even if we are checking cambers or "flat" edges with: our square, a camber marked on a piece of paper, a camber sculpted into a piece of wood... we are still limited to visually looking along the edge of the blade, against the square or model, and trying to figure out among the various reflections and shadows whether or not the results are consistent are we not?