"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Jim; you can add 240v to that growing list of differences.
Stewie;
Paul, I do,they are great for stropping if you add a reverse as well.
Been able to sharpen for almost as long as I can remember, grew up on a farm, butchered our own animals, and woodworking was just part of life.
Used Arkansas stones most of my life and still use them for knifes, but switched to a corse/300 fine/1000 diamond plate for initial burr then Shapton glass up to 16000.
My plane sharpening went through several grits of stone usually 1000, 4000, 8000, then 16000....took me about 7 to 10 minutes from start to using the plane again (freehand sharpening)
However in a recent week long class with Rob Cosman we tried something new, with plane blades and chisels that have already had the back of the blades prepared. We used only the 1000 diamond plate and then 16000 Shapton, spending less than 20 seconds on each stone.
Now it takes me longer to take the plane apart than to sharpen the iron, 1000 to 16000 freehand was truly an aha! Moment for me.
Regards,
Andy
-- mos maiorum
I think I got my start at a very early age. When I grew up on light houses,thee were only adults around. I naturally learned things from watching them work. I can't recall when I could not get my pocket knife sharp.
Yes- Cosman has a video on that 1K to 16K idea.
The thing with sharpening, is that it's not all that hard. But it DOES take practice.
I'd suggest getting a good honing guide like the Veritas Sharpening Honing Guide MK II... once you figure out the process and become proficient with that honing jig, you can then start to practice sharpening by freehand. Freehand, for me, gets things scary sharp... the guide is great, but it's those little imperfections in your angle that gets a microbevel crazy sharp (at least for me.)
It doesn't happen overnight. But if you continue to use planes, chisels, you'll end up sharpening a few times a night... get about 20 sharpening sessions under your belt, and your skill will start to hit that learning curve.
I usually jump from 800 to 8K as I found the 4K seemed to stutter. Twenty strokes on leather & green compound work well to finish. It depends on the work too. When hogging off with the jack plane and it slows you just want to get back to it quickly. When you finish plane a surface, sharpening takes much longer. If I use the diamond plate at 1000x I'm better off to go back to 800x water stone before stepping up to 8k. When you have made a new strop and washed & wiped the blade dry you see how much 'grey' comes off on that first stroke on the strop you get an idea how useful it is.
Except of course that mirror finish is absolutely meaningless as an indicator of edge sharpness or quality.
Mirror vs grey finish mostly has to do with the directional consistency of the scratches. The scratches have to be below a certain size for the finish to appear both smooth and mirror-like, but that size is nowhere near as small as most people think. I've seen both mirror-like reflections from (what I consider to be) roughly finished tools, and a completely matte appearances from tools with very fine finishes. It depends on the sharpening medium, technique, and the steel.
The obvious example of a matte finish that's nonetheless extremely fine/smooth is what LV puts on the backs of their chisels and plane blades. Those have a surface roughness spec of 16 millionths of an inch, which corresponds to ~16000 grit. They are VERY finely finished, and yet completely matte grey. The reason they are matte grey is because they're finished on a lapping machine with effectively randomized directionality. One of the dumber things you can do to one of those tools is to lap it to a mirror finish, because unless you really understand what you're doing whatever you create will almost certainly be worse than the finish it came with.
Last edited by Patrick Chase; 01-16-2017 at 8:26 PM.
Having just re read this thread from start to finish I just want to thank all who shared their knowledge and there is a lot of knowledge there!
I have saved the thread and I'm sure Ill be referring to it as I learn this art as well as older threads that are hiding in the archives.
Mr Cosman is certainly a very shrewd business man when it comes to promoting his financial interests in WoodRiver and Woodcraft. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbInhTxtRcw
Last edited by Stewie Simpson; 01-16-2017 at 9:27 PM.
Yes he is. But so what. More power to him, but even I roll my eyes at the "Cosman angle trainer".
Seriously tho, somebody needs to buy him a pair of long pants.
Dave; I agree with you. He has done very well for himself since his departure from LV. The Cosman Angle Trainer is certainly a little over the top, but I suppose you do what you need do to keep your high profile ticking along.
Stewie;