Sharpening

[Reed Gray]

Saw this, while surfing You Tube this evening. Like from the old Laugh In, 'Very interesting!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBjiEmN5HzA&t=0s

robo hippy

[David Carroll]

Interesting! I rarely ever comment on sharpening threads anymore, because it's a question like, what type of women are most beautiful?, or what type of beer is tastiest?. Everybody has their own ideas and there is rarely consensus. I remember an account of Tage Frid sharpening on a relatively coarse belt grinder and then finishing on a felt buffing wheel. He seemed to do okay, though it ate up chisels quickly, by the account I read.

I agree in general with the guy's conclusions, It doesn't really matter which system one uses. It's important to strop for a really keen edge. The sharpest edges dull quickly but remain pretty sharp for a long while. Folks often sharpen more than they need to.

Nowadays I use diamond stones and a leather strop with green compound. Even though he says it isn't the best system, the convenience, lack of mess, and little stone maintenance has won me over. My edges are plenty sharp, at least sharp enough for the work I do, in the woods that I typically work with. (soft woods and relatively well behaved hardwoods). I suppose if I were working with more difficult stuff I'd think differently.

DC

One thing that nobody talks a lot about is to sharpen for the specific task. If I am going to be paring end grain or sharpening the plane iron I use for shooting, I always take great care to get as keen an edge as I can. If I am touching up an edge of a chisel for chopping, I am somewhat less careful. I think a lot of folks do this without really thinking about it.

[Raymond Seward]

It's tough to crawl out of that youtube rabbit hole once you get started.......

[steven c newman]

Almost as entertaining as starting a Sharpening thread on this site,eh?

[chuck van dyck]

I like a dan’s hard ark slip stone in the kit and shapton glass in the shop.

[kenneth hatch]

I watched, not a bad video but nothing new except maybe kinda hit on the most important thing about sharpening is getting a smooth cutting edge. No mention of oil stones? Strange. Are folks still posting about the "unicorn" system?

ken

[Reed Gray]

I am either blessed or cursed by being one of those people who just has to experiment. I like the idea of a hard and thin leather for strop. Eric Lofstrom, notable turner uses kangaroo leather for his strop because it doesn't compress. That would make rounding the edge over more difficult to do. The journey continues.... Sharpening at this level is new to me. My bowl gouges are sharpened at 180 grit and no honing or stropping the burr off.

robo hippy

[Jack Dover]

Any thin leather PVA glued to a hard substrate like MDF doesn't compress either. The glue soaks into leather and hardens it just enough. Found this by a happy accident. But then just MDF with polishing compound works as good. I think leather strops come from the days before polishing compounds sticks. Tanned leather has quite a high chromium content, which makes it abrasive, so a strop would hone a nicely polished edge just enough to remove remnants of a wire edge. With the polishing compound a substrate is less important, I had strops made from regular denim jeans in a pinch, works the same (while it works).

Experimenting with sharpening is fun, esp. the days it improves your sharpness. Just beware that it's an expensive kind of fun and that improvements usually come from changes in your method rather than from changing abrasives. Except, of course, corner cases when you graduate from sharpening plane irons on 180grit sanding paper and palm stropping to a black arkie and power buffing, or something like that. In other words, once you start sharpening better than before, it's applicable to any kind of abrasives, be it diamonds, novaculite or waterstones, powered or not.

[Thomas McCurnin]

Jonathan Katz Moses just released a video on sharpening where he spent about $10,000 on sharpening systems and testing systems, including scientific sharpening meter that measures sharp in terms a relative number, in this case grams of pressure against a tensioned wire. He compared Tormex, scary sharp sand paper, sharpening stones, and other methods, along with different grades of tool steel, then deliberately wore down the blade and re-measured sharpness after numerous cuts through hard maple.

I found the video interesting to watch to really go down deep into the sharpening rabbet hole.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBjiEmN5HzA

[Rafael Herrera]

I don't know much about the thread-based sharpness testing device, but it seems very far removed from the actual action of cutting wood. A youtuber did a chisel test some time ago using the a similar device.

I find test results produced with a CATRA device a lot more informative. If interested, check this article by Larrin Thomas.

https://knifesteelnerds.com/2020/05/...-knife-steels/

There's a lot of details in the article, but one can glean the key outcomes for some of the steels we use, i. e. O1, A2, D2.

[William Fretwell]

Something that bounces like a kangaroo yet has a leather hide that does not compress just seems wrong! Perhaps Derek has some kangaroo hide experience?

[Derek Cohen]

Something that bounces like a kangaroo yet has a leather hide that does not compress just seems wrong! Perhaps Derek has some kangaroo hide experience?

Rolf Harris had something to say ... sing ...



I have used Horse Butt leather for about 20 years. You can get it from Joel at Tools for Working Wood.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Raymond Seward]

Almost as entertaining as starting a Sharpening thread on this site,eh?

🤣🤣🤣 Indeed it is...

[Reed Gray]

Tan me hide when I'm dead Fred...... I did like that song....

robo hippy

[Jason White]

I hate this “scientific” crap. Find a method that works for you and build something.