I'm full of annoying questions this week.
I got my #4 plane working, and I worked on the Woodriver shoulder plane that arrived yesterday, and that made me cocky. I decided to try to sharpen an old Buck Bros. chisel my dad stole and left out in the rain for weeks.
I got nowhere with the jig I made for sharpening metal lathe tools in the bench grinder. It just wasn't appropriate, and I kept hacking it up.
I have always been good at sharpening knives by hand. I got out some DMT diamond stones and sharpened the chisel the same way. I shot WD40 on the stones to make the crud dissipate. Long story short, I smoothed the edge off quickly and got it to line up with a machinist's square, and then I polished it with an 8000-mesh stone. I was surprised at how easy and fast it was.
Here is my question: is there any possibility whatsoever that an edge obtained this way is adequate? I would much rather do this than struggle with jigs.
It pops little hairs off of me pretty effortlessly, but I have never personally handled a professionally sharpened chisel, so I don't know what to expect.
Now I find myself peeling little curls off my workbench just to see it work.
06 14 15 Buck Brothers chisel sharpened on DMT stone.jpg