More sharpening (some specific questions)

[Shaun Mahood]

I was hoping to figure this out without adding to the crazy amount of sharpening questions, but 2 books and the internet haven't quite solved everything. I'm using scary sharp and a honing guide and can get things as sharp as I want, but I want to change some things.

Here are the things I'm looking for
- no power grinder (which means no hollow ground)
- no soaking of stones
- no sandpaper
- gradually transitioning to freehand honing
- all O1 steel

I'm leaning towards adapting something like George Wilson's method (DMT and spyderco) or Larry Williams' method(DMT and oil stones), both with a strop at the end. I really want something with as little mess as possible, and to not have to worry about things going out of flat. The spyderco sound wonderful but I'm not sure if I will need an oilstone as well.

Does anyone have any advice about freehand without the hollow grind?
Can I use the DMT for grinding, or will that ruin it?
Would a Spyderco medium work for all my grinding?

If these have been answered before I apologize, I have some trouble deciding what I want to do when there is no one right answer.

[Stuart Tierney]

Very quickly since I'm swimming in gear here but;

- no soaking of stones

I can't help you, and good luck.

Not if you're looking to replace a powered grinder with something as fast as a power grinder. There's only one stone that I'm aware of that approaches the speed of a grinder, and it needs soaking.

Sorry.


Stu.

[Shaun Mahood]

Stu, what stone would you recommend? I'm open to soaking for the grinding portion.

[Norman Hitt]

"IF" you just want to eliminate power, but would still like a hollow grind, there IS a way to do it. Buy an old Hand cranked grinder, and mount it on the end of a bench top that sticks out past the legs about a foot, like a Roubo. Next, remove the crank handle and install a small bicycle chain sprocket. Now make a frame to attach a Bicycle's Pedals, drive sprocket and bearing housing to the legs, and install a Bicycle chain on both sprockets. You will probably need to make a blade guide attachment in front of the hand grinder for good angle control while grinding and then you just pull up a stool and pedal away and grind tools to your heart's content.

YOu could aLso modify a stationary bicycle or exercise bike to do the same thing by mounting the grinder to an attachment fitted into the part where the handlebars mount tin the frame and then bring the chain up to it from the pedal sprocket.

Now you can be a REAL Neander, and get your exercise at the same time. (maybe you could convince the LOML to exercise there too, and of course, grind a tool or two while she's at it.

[David Weaver]

If you are using O1, why do you want to omit a power grinder? O1 grinds really easily and quickly, and it takes much longer and much more effort to use paper or stones to do it. It might be a couple of minutes instead of one on a fast stone or coarse sandpaper, but you have other issues with those.

I would use george's method over oilstones for two reasons:
1) oilstones *do* need to be flattened (well, they don't need to be, but unless you're going to spend extra time honing aimed at keeping the stone flat, you'll need to flatten them)
2) the groove that a ceramic stone leaves is much more appropriate to follow diamonds unless you start very coarse with the oilstones

Medium stones of any type will not be suitable for grinding. Like norman says, maybe a hand crank grinder would help, but you want the hollow grind - it will cut down your time and improve your results considerably. You can freehand anything with a coarse stone by freehand grinding with the coarse stone, and then increasing the angle slightly with each finer stone, but it takes more time and more stone maintenance than a hollow grind.

[john brenton]

It's entirely possible to freehand without a hollow grind, but you most likely won't end up with a flat bevel. When you go to polish the bevel edge you'll see that there is most likely a little belly. The best thing would be a honing jig.

Soaking doesn't take that long. I keep water in a spray bottle, and when it's time to sharpen I just dump a little water from it in a discarded plastic dish and let the stone soak for a few minute. The Norton's aren't as bad as the King stones....you could throw a King stone in a swimming pool and I think the water level would go down by half. Those things take forever. But not the Nortons...and especially not the higher grits.

And a grinder...well...after you see how much wear you are putting on an $80 stone then you might change your mind!

Does anyone have any advice about freehand without the hollow grind?

[jamie shard]

I just wanted to add: grinding is fun! ...and combo grinder/belt sanders are really fun!

[John Tallyn]

If you are willing to do a little soaking, a 200 grit king stone is about the fastest way I know of to take a lot of steel off, not as fast as a power grinder, but still takes a fair amount of steel off in a shorter amount of time. There maybe some folks out there that can discuss diamond stones, but I've never used one, so not sure how fast they work. Myself, I'm into a 1" belt sander, then I use sandpaper on glass for the rest. Occasionally I see large foot cranked stones for sale around here at some of the ranch/estate sales, that's how my dad taught me to sharpen, but I think it was as much for punishments sake as anything else.
John

[Andrew Pitonyak]

As already stated, when going free hand, watch out for rounding the blade. I recently purchased a #6 with an OK sharp blade, but, the front of the blade had quite a bit of an arc to it (watch the blade roll if you try to free hand it with this blade) and the back has a pretty large back bevel.

I dropped the blade onto my Tormek so now the blade has a hollow grind to it. The back heavy bevel is still there, and there is still a small nick in the blade. The blade is, however, now sufficiently sharp for testing.

I own water stones and I own DMT plates (extra course, fine, extra fine, and an 8000 mesh polishing stone). The DMT plates cut pretty fast, but, I find that the super fine diamond plate leaves course scratches. The rumor is that this will wear down, but, it means that I don't really use it as it is intended, and I perform final polishing on something else.

You do not list your location, if you live in the area, you should wander by and we can have a sharpening party (not that I am an expert, but I do have things you can try).

[george wilson]

Diamond stones do leave a coarse surface,but they cut very rapidly to get the initial sharpening done,which is to eliminate the rounded cutting edge,and possible little nicks from use on wood. The black,then fine white ceramic stones make a quick job of making a smooth micro bevel at the cutting edge. If you get ceramic stones,get the super fine white,as it has already been flattened and smoothed. I had to hone fuzz off my white Spyderco with a diamond stone,and make it flatter. This was done under the sink faucet. You may want to save yourself this labor,and the wear on your diamond stone.

I don't think a frequent user could produce any wear on a ceramic stone in 100 years.

[Shaun Mahood]

Thanks for all the replies, I really appreciate the advice.

I would love to have a foot powered grinder at some point, but I don't have much room in my shop and want to set up the smallest sharpening station I can get away with. This is kind of step 2 of my sharpening journey - step 3 may end up getting a grinder.

Definitely going to go with the spyderco stones, and see how DMT works for the initial sharpening.

We'll see how the freehand honing goes - I do like how well the honing guide works, but the idea of freehand honing kind of taps into the part of my brain that gravitates towards hand tools in the first place.

[john brenton]

I started out trying to keep things as simple and neander as possible, not just for some weird innate desire, but also because of money issues...and the time I've spent doing everything by hand is invaluable.

But, they don't call it "the hard way" for nothing, and eventually you'll want to speed up the process.
I'm not sure how far along you are, but I'm pretty sure that fairly soon the idea of a garage full of power equipment won't sound like such a bad idea. There was a time where I'd look at a finished project and say "Look at me, I did everything by hand!", but now I say "dang, I could have made three of those if I wasn't doing all this by hand." This is especially true for simple furniture that really gains no value by being hand made. Perhaps hand crafting a 17th century reproduction carved writing desk or something would get my socks rolling up and down, but not a relatively simple coffee table or cabinet.

Anwyho, the honing guide is a good thing, not just a "convenience", and it's something that I was not interested in either. It came with a set of stones on ebay for dirt cheap and I gave it a go. I can still freehand hone, but choose not to. That solid edge and the ability to make accurate secondary bevels saves time in the long run.

I didn't know about forums like this, or read any magazines when I was starting, so I was just playing it by ear..picking up tools at the flea market and having no idea what to do with them. If you don't have your arsenal already set up, I would see what people here have as far as tools and sharpening, because they are all GENERALLY frugal people who share our love of hand tools and working with them (some guys don't seem so frugal (I'm jealous), but in the end I guess it all works out the same). Chances are that if people here have them it's not some "modern frivolity", but something that works and makes work easier/better.

[Larry Williams]

Shaun,
There are hand cranked grinders available and they're capable of doing almost everything you need for bench planes and chisels. Then get a medium India stone and a good hard Arkansas translucent stone. I suggest a coarse diamond stone to maintain your oil stones but don't use it on steel. The medium India will quickly work problem areas and the hard Arkansas is the equivalent of a 6000 grit water stone and , when properly maintained, cuts faster than the 6000 grit water stone--fast enough that you don't need to go through a series of stones. Your stones will easily fit into an area of a square foot while requiring significantly less maintenance than water stones. All the oil stones require is appropriate dressing before each use to stay flat and fast cutting.

[john brenton]

not to mention all the other stuff you'll be using that grinder for: fixing damaged threads, shaping different objects, taking burrs off of tools or other household stuff, etc.

I just wanted to add: grinding is fun! ...and combo grinder/belt sanders are really fun!

[george wilson]

Many thousands of woodworkers use diamond stones on steel. I have since the 70's. What's the problem? An Arkansas stone is much softer than a ceramic stone. I have easily ground damaged Arkansas slip stones to special shapes on my belt grinder with ceramic belts. You can't cut a ceramic stone like that,though. It won't need flattening,ever. India stones are good stones,but pretty out dated. I used them many years ago.

If you mean don't use a coarse diamond stone on your steel,I use a 325 and a 600 grit diamond stone on steel.