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Thread: How do you sharpen your edges?

  1. #61
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    My apologies Kees. My feelings were being prompted by life doing tool and die maintenance. The golden age of CPM and like steels changed the industry for the better.
    For instance, I built and maintained dies that formed the staple pockets in 440 stainless steel. The very small punches in the die were made of cpm steel. The other steels were not able to do this task and that led to non invasive staple guns being held up for many years, in the operating rooms around the world.



    I only use those "other", steels in my planes too.

  2. #62
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    Quote Originally Posted by Patrick Chase View Post
    The "rogue particle" problem is specific to the nickel electroplating process that's used to bind the diamonds to most plates. Loose diamonds don't have that problem, nor do resin-binder options like the Shapton flattening plate or the various diamond films (though don't use a Shapton plate on metal, ever. The resin binder won't hold up under that sort of usage).

    You might therefore want to give diamond paste and/or lapping films a try. They both leave very uniform scratch patters, provided you stick to high quality, tightly graded pastes/films. In my experience they're the fastest sharpening option there is, and the best for difficult alloys and carbide tools.

    The lowest startup cost option is the 3M 668X PSA lapping film that LV resells. You can get those for less in 25-sheet inners from other suppliers, but LV's prices are hard to beat for small quantities.

    One other piece of advice: Stick to glass as your substrate when using diamond films. Granite surface plates have texture that "telegraphs" through the film at fine grits. Ditto for machined metal plates, unless they've been thoroughly lapped.

    Yaaaa I just bought a Japanese steel lapping plate ("Kanaban" I think) and it definitely isn't polished or ground to a fine finish. From what I understand it is meant to be used with SiC grit. But plate glass is cheap enough and I just picked up some laminating sheets thanks to your tip so I'd like to try the diamond paste at some point. I would think that the paste is faster than any film so if those laminating sheets last long enough would that be the way to go versus the film?

  3. #63
    Quote Originally Posted by michael langman View Post
    My apologies Kees. My feelings were being prompted by life doing tool and die maintenance. The golden age of CPM and like steels changed the industry for the better.
    For instance, I built and maintained dies that formed the staple pockets in 440 stainless steel. The very small punches in the die were made of cpm steel. The other steels were not able to do this task and that led to non invasive staple guns being held up for many years, in the operating rooms around the world.



    I only use those "other", steels in my planes too.
    No apologies needed. My comment was tong in cheek. I really like those simple steels though, for woodworking. For steelwork, give me solid carbide every day of the week!

  4. #64
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    I kinda knew that Kees, I was just trying to have polite conversation.

    Patrick, Your mind amazes me. I had to look up Adulterated in the dictionary, as I thought it was more of a deviant word. Low and behold, it applies kind of to what I was implying.

    Adulterated: To make impure, spurious ,or inferior by adding extraneous or improper ingredients.

  5. #65
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    Quote Originally Posted by michael langman View Post
    I kinda knew that Kees, I was just trying to have polite conversation.

    Patrick, Your mind amazes me. I had to look up Adulterated in the dictionary, as I thought it was more of a deviant word. Low and behold, it applies kind of to what I was implying.

    Adulterated: To make impure, spurious ,or inferior by adding extraneous or improper ingredients.
    I actually like high-adulterant PM steels (I have a lot of PM-V11, some HAP-40, etc), but I also have a fair amount of O1/HCS and understand where folks like Kees and Brian are coming from.
    Last edited by Patrick Chase; 08-21-2017 at 7:13 PM.

  6. #66
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    Sorry for the double-reply, but I can't resist...

    Quote Originally Posted by michael langman View Post
    Patrick, Your mind amazes me. I had to look up Adulterated in the dictionary, as I thought it was more of a deviant word. Low and behold, it applies kind of to what I was implying.
    It pays to understand the ever-so-fine distinction between "adulterated" and "adult-rated".

  7. #67
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    Patrick, .

  8. #68
    Someone always has to drop a BabbyRuth in the punchbowl, I guess this time is my turn. First I can't believe folks go to that much effort for what should be a simple process unless you are Brian getting ready for his contest. The bottom line, no matter how supper sharp and polished the iron with it's first contact with wood it is no longer "supper sharp" and becomes working sharp. Working sharp can last awhile mostly depending on the type of steel, "stones" used and stropping can help depending on smoothness and scratch pattern you started with.

    ....KISS and go work wood.

    OK back on my meds,

    ken

  9. #69
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    I keep two grades of diamond hones and a stropping raw hide faced board
    loaded with stropping compound out on the bench. I learned this
    from Paul Sellers at Homestead Heritage when he was there.

    My edges are never dull. I sharpen using scary sharp methods, but I touch up
    the edges as I work. My edges are never allowed to get dull.
    Last edited by lowell holmes; 08-22-2017 at 3:47 PM.

  10. #70
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    Quote Originally Posted by ken hatch View Post
    Someone always has to drop a BabbyRuth in the punchbowl, I guess this time is my turn. First I can't believe folks go to that much effort for what should be a simple process unless you are Brian getting ready for his contest.
    Ironically Brian's contest prep was/is apparently pretty simple this year: Synthetic waterstones followed by a JNat polisher. Given his passionate love of burrs I wouldn't be surprised if there was a plain leather strop in there as well, but all the same that's a pretty straightforward workflow compared to some.

    Quote Originally Posted by ken hatch View Post
    The bottom line, no matter how supper sharp and polished the iron with it's first contact with wood it is no longer "supper sharp" and becomes working sharp. Working sharp can last awhile mostly depending on the type of steel, "stones" used and stropping can help depending on smoothness and scratch pattern you started with.
    If you're working particularly difficult grain then those first few "super sharp" cuts can make the difference between success and failure, provided you hone right before what a rock climber would term the "crux move".

    With that said I generally agree: There's a lot of overkill here.

    I recently prepped all 52 irons for a Stanley 55, and I was forced to simplify my process both because of the sheer number of irons involved and because of some of the geometries. For the majority of the irons I did the following:

    • Rough flattening with a cheapo diamond disk on a Veritas rotary sharpener (though any turntable-style sharpener would work here)
    • Final flattening and back refinement with diamond paste on steel laps. I chose this for speed, but stones or diamond plates would also work.
    • Sharpening and initial honing with India and Arkansas slips (from this).
    • Where possible and when needed, final honing with green compound on profiled felt wheels.

    While not up to the standards I aim for with straight irons, the results are more than adequate for any "real" use. There were a couple hollows that were dinged up, so for those I dressed a spare AlOx wheel with a convex profile and reground, but that's the fanciest I got.
    Last edited by Patrick Chase; 08-22-2017 at 4:17 PM.

  11. #71
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    It was super simple this year, 1k, 3k, 8k, 12k synthetics, I dabbled between Jnat and no Jnat and did not use a strop. No need to strop with such a fine landing behind the edge, in fact it just makes the need to resharpen sooner and dubs the landing.

    That's slightly more complicated that my normal approach of 1k, 3k, Jnat but for competition I decided to refine the edge beyond my normal, not sure if it had any real effect.

    The lesson learned over last year was the quality of effort is more important than quantity of effort. Meaning that I basically set my blade up, make a few test passes, resharpened then set it aside for competition. I focused on deleting the wear at the earliest stage possible (800 or 1000 grit), then the remainder was focused on fine tuning the burr and edge until it shed itself off of the iron at the final stone.

    I had more trouble with the plane body this year since the humidity went crazy overnight and the room itself seems to take on a ton of humidity as the day goes on. The dai moved and so I had to straighten it out and ensure it was perfected.
    Last edited by Brian Holcombe; 08-22-2017 at 4:23 PM.
    Bumbling forward into the unknown.

  12. #72
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brian Holcombe View Post
    It was super simple this year, 1k, 3k, 8k, 12k synthetics, I dabbled between Jnat and no Jnat and did not use a strop. No need to strop with such a fine landing behind the edge, in fact it just makes the need to resharpen sooner and dubs the landing.
    Yeah, I don't bother stropping if I go much below 1 um abrasive when honing (my 13k stone is 0.75 um, and I usually finish at 0.5 um when I use paste/film). I'm pretty picky about edge geometry though as noted in the previous post you sometimes have to compromise when working with profiled irons, hence the felt wheels.

    Out of curiosity how much difference did the JNat make? I recall you saying you got a slightly thinner shaving with it...
    Last edited by Patrick Chase; 08-22-2017 at 4:34 PM.

  13. #73
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    It's really hard to say since I did not do enough back to back testing, but I could turn a thinner shaving by a few micron.

    I try and keep the stropping to a minimum, generally only got western tools that do seem to perform slightly better having been stropped after natural abrasives.
    Bumbling forward into the unknown.

  14. #74
    Quote Originally Posted by Patrick Chase View Post

    Sandpaper sharpening is indeed the least expensive by far in terms of start-up cost, but it's also the most expensive in terms of ongoing costs.
    It can be expensive if you think you need a pile of different grits as many do.

    I've taken a tip from a carving mentor. You don't need 8 different grits and there is no need to go to a mirror polish with sandpaper. 280 grit sandpaper, 400 grit sandpaper and then strop. If you insist on one more grit get 800 grit sand paper as well. There is no need for the automotive sandpapers over 1000 grit nor the 5, 3, 1, .5 micron papers at all.

    Sharpen quick and get back to work. Many make it some sort of ritual and waste too much time.

    If you don't use sandpaper here are my stone recommendations.

    For diamond 325 grit, 600 grit and strop.
    For oil stones Norton India Coarse/Fine, Soft Ark, and strop.
    For water 800 or 1000, 4000 and strop

    I used to think I needed 10 grits and a ritual, but found out I was wrong.
    Last edited by Warren West; 08-23-2017 at 1:00 AM.

  15. #75
    Quote Originally Posted by Kees Heiden View Post
    Then sandpaper, also only very temporarily because of the hassle with glueing the papers and removing them again when I really didn't want to.
    Get a clipboard. Clamp the paper on one side and then use a bit of masking tape on the other. No need to get fancier than that.

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