Best way to sharpen hand chisels?
Any tricks, my planes need some help too.
Stones? Oil, wet?
I see some tips here, but these Stanley chisels have been with me since my high school days, and may need some special attention.
I have a bench belt sander, with diff. grits, will it make things worse, or just take my time?
K.
Edited 2/22/2006 2:11 am ET by Kurt in MPLS
Replies
Kurt
There are many techniques and methods used for sharpening, from grinding wheels like tormek, sandpaper, oil and water stones! The key for you is to find one that you're comfortable with, and STICK with it. IMHO, a person is only going to get proficient with sharpening through practice, practice, practice. If you keep switching back and forth between systems and media, you'll probably get mediocre results from all.
I have a Tormek system, but I only use it for regrinding bevels that are bad, wrong angle, or where the edge has been damaged. I keep 3 waterstones in a pond on my sharpening bench, and use them almost exclusively to get an edge suitable for any work going on in the shop. Usually, I only need to touch up the microbevel on a 4000 stone, and then polish on a 8000 stone.
Pick a system, and get good at it by sticking at it. Regardless of which system you choose, you WILL get sharp tools by getting efficient at the process.
Jeff
I use a Veritas honing guide and 600 wet/dry sandpaper and WD40. The back of the chisel needs to be honed flat also. I can see myself in the back of my chisels.
I've tried a bunch of types of stones, but the stones clog and need to be re-faced, not to mention the cost. Now I stick with wet or dry sand paper on a piece of plate glass (a left over medicine cabinet shelf I think) with a little WD40 as lubricant, from 220 grit (for really dull or removing chips) to 600 grit for the final polish. It works with any size blade (from 1/4 inch chisel to a joint plane). It's the fastest method I've tried, and gives me the best results. Since the piece of glass would have otherwise ended up in the dumpster, the total investment was about less than $10.
You apparently get your paper free. I use sandpaper as well, but I find that good paper is about a dollar per sheet on average and doesn't really last very long. I also have to keep an inventory of it on hand, so it is not cheap in any sense.
I now do all of my flattening on sandpaper, and all of my bevels on water stones. My theory is that the backs of irons and chisels need to be flat and have a large area to work with. Thus I use granite with paper attached for backs amd soles. Bevels (or bezels) need to be very keen and only an 8000 stone can do that, so that's what I use for the bevels. I guess you could say that I use a hybrid system, since that is a trendy word right now.
Has anyone found paper finer than 2000? That's the best I can do at automotive stores.
Rockler has packs of different grits and they go to 2500. Autobody supply stores have finer grits. There was a vendor at the WoodWorking Show yesterday that has 12000 grit. I wasn't going to count the grit but it actually polishes bare wood.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
There was a vendor at the WoodWorking Show yesterday that has 12000 grit. I wasn't going to count the grit but it actually polishes bare wood.
12000 Grit? I'm pretty sure that's called Charmin.
David C
You might try a slurry of jeweler's rouge on glass. Polishes to almost a mirror finish.Leon
I'm paying about $3 for a package of 4-sheets of one grit size (and I'm a weekender, not a pro sharpening every day), but I've found that a sheet should last at least a couple dozen sharpenings. So, for a large project, I can get at least 1-2 weekends our of each sheet. I've found that if I need to put more than 10 or 12-strokes of the blade across a piece of sandpaper, I should have started at a courser grit (or I skipped a grit moving up). The other issue that make the paper wear out faster is metal buildup - the paper needs to stay clean or its going to wear out by re-cutting the filings continually as the blade pushes them back and forth over it. That's why I prefer WD40 as the lube. Every couple of strokes I spray the filings off with a shot from the can and blot it with a paper towel. I also flatten the backs of my blades - but I use the same system of sandpaper on glass.
You can spend hundreds of dollars on special "float glass" or granite surface plates, but lets be serious about what we're working with. We're working with wood, not making optical mirrors for satellites. Look at the size of the cells in the piece of wood in front of you. If the chisel is sharp enough to split the cell or give a clean cut across the grain, it's sharp enough. Most of my work is oak, and I have never had a problem paring end grain with a tool sharpened up to 600 grit. I have tried going up to 2000 grit, but I've found that after a minute of two of using the blade, it's no sharper with a 2000 grit edge than it is with a 600 grit edge.<!----><!----><!---->
If you really want to get a nice shine on the blade - get yourself some lapping compound from an industrial supply shop that sells materials for machinists. (McMaster Carr sells it up to 8000 grit lapping compound in a 2oz jar for less than $10.) You can use it on glass, or spend some big bucks on a granite surface plate or lapping plate for it. The shine you get will make people who hand polish mirrors for telescopes jealous. My suggestion, however, is that you spend most of your hard earned dollars on wood rather than tools, and most of your time working the wood, rather than admiring the shine on your tools.
WoodCraft sells a granite slab (about 12"x12") for under $30 and it's about 2" thick. I wouldn't recommend using lapping compound directly on granite or marble, though. I got the bright idea to use a drywall screen to flatten the sole of a plane and when the screen shed the grit, it fell through and ground the surface really quickly. That piece of granite is toast for everything other than adding a bit of camber to a plane iron. Fortunately, it was a granite tile, not the slab.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
I have not used the lapping compund that you both have mentioned, but from reading, it sounds like an MDF block would be just right for this application. Use it and lose it. MDF is very flat and is probably laying around in most of our shops in cutoff form...just right for lapping.
I found some spray adhesive at HOBBY LOBBY that allows you to peel paper from a surface without leaving the backing behind. The 77 and 90 products from 3M are really way too sticky and leave a lot of residue.
I like the Norton waterstones very much, but keeping them flat is a chore. Sandpaper in the 2000 grit sticky'd on to granite or MDF is like a brand new stone every time, and there is no water involved .
Who started this anyway? Back to the bench!
Actually, it wasn't lapping compound that I was using. The grit came off of the sanding screen and as it worked its way under the screen and plane iron, the movement of the whole thing ground the top surface of the granite tile to the point that it was useless for most of the honing I need to do. If the Norton stones you're trying to flatten are the fine ones, you can use their flattening stone or a 200 grit stone, moving the fine one in a circular motion, not parallel to the bottom one. Once the fine stone has a consistent color, it's flat and when you start honing again, the slurry is what will be doing the work. I have watched the demonstraions at the Norton booth when I was at the WoodWorking Show and it took hin about a minute to flatten the one he was using. Same for the Lie-Nielsen booth, although he didn't do as much honing. Deneb is using a honing guide at the shows now and, while he can and does hone free-hand, he said he uses the guide at the shows because he wants to show people that the honing process isn't the PITA that some make it out to be and that if people see how little time it takes, they'll be more willing to buy a plane. That is probably the main reason so many planes have sat, unused and neglected for many years, just waiting for someone who knows what to do with them.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Howdy - Finer papers:
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Through 2500 at Amazon - search "wet or dry sandpaper"
About $0.25 per sheet in bulk.Through .5micron (9000) at
http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/Merchant/merchant.mvc
... Select Tool Dept dropdown as "sharpening"
... then click link to "3M microabrasive film for "scary sharpening"
... then click link to "non-PSA"
These are more spendy at over $1, but they should last a while.
5 micron is roughly 5000
0.5 micron is roughly 9000Personally, I prefer plain wet/dry paper (without adhesive), because capillary action of cutting fluid will pretty well glue it down in use. Have found several PSA types to have ribbons or lumps of adhesive, which defeat flatness absolutely.====================
Regards,---John"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others."
---Pericles
Edited 2/28/2006 1:00 am by PJohn
Hi All,
I go up through the grits, 120, 180, 240, 320, 400, 600 & 1,000 on float glass. The other day I had just done up 2 plane irons but wanted to see if I could get a mirror finish beyond 1,000. The local auto store only had 1,500. Talking to the salesman, I asked him if he had any valve grinding compound, like used for grinding valves in engines.
Mix a few drops of water and Ooohhh baby, did that work sweet!
Contents of compound: Water, Silicon carbide, Ethylene glycol, casteroil and carbon black.
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
Kidderville, NH
Use whatever tool needed to Git 'r Done!
Edited 2/28/2006 8:11 pm ET by KiddervilleAcres
Kurt,
Here's my method. It may not be the best, but it's cheap, and works great for me.
1) bench grind any large nicks out.
2) hand sharpen(dry) with sandpaper which I put face up on my table saw top. The TS is good and flat (cheaper than a glass system). The sand paper I use is used sandpaper from previous woodworking projects. When I get sandpaper that is worn, but not torn, or contaminated I put it away for future sharpenings. This is the cheap part. Discard the sandpaper when done... Keep the tablesaw.
3) polish out sandpaper scratches with 1000 grit water stone.
4) hone with 6000 grit water stone.
I find this system effective, and fairly fast. My cost.. $40 for the water stones in 1983. I would have owned the table saw, and bench grinder anyways.
I first hollow grind on the tormax at 25 degrees, and the with a veritas honing guide I put a 30 degree microbevel on them. The backs are flattened on a 600, 1200 and 4000 waterstone and then finely polished with a fine grinding past until I can read a newspaper off the reflection.
I can't use your method, because I can't read backwards.My goal is for my work to outlast me. Expect my joinery to get simpler as time goes by.
Hi all -
(this for what it's worth) ...
SiC Paper, Float Glass, Honing, Stropping Alternates, Angles, and Secondary Bevel
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Seems this gets into discussion several times a year. Gonna post this soon as a web page. Not encyclopedic, but defensible as a method. Lots of folks practice this and many may have more sophisticated ideas. This isn't intended as an invitation to an opinion brouhaha. Hopefully, it will help newbies and perhaps confirm a useful idea or two to older hands.
Note: With minor modification, this same system serves to flatten and square hand planes, and to sharpen blades. Refer to David Charlesworth's excellent articles and instructions regarding fettling of planes.
It takes lots of words to say how it works, but bear in mind that the whole idea is to practice a very fast, accurate, consistent and effective method, and at reaonable cost. Who wants to spend a lifetime sharpening, or sharpen poorly?
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SiC PAPER:
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Just for reference, Amazon sells good SiC (silicon carbide wet or dry) paper for $12 per 50 - about $0.24 per sheet. The link is as usual overly long, so I'll just suggest that you go to Amazon and search on "wet or dry sandpaper" - it'll come right up. Sure beats $1 at the hdwe store.
Suggest ordering about 3:1 of coarser versus finer grits. My own experience is that through 2500 is *really* a fine edge - one which will degrade quickly in heavy service. (I also infrequently use 5000 and 9000 - - that is, about 5 micron and 0.5 micron.) There's a lesson - somewhere between 600 and 1500 is a good place to hone for every day rougher work, save for the super-fine light paring blades. (Finer honing is definitely perceptible in hand working, but soon lost under striking conditions in hard material. Personally I always go to 2500 because it's fast and easy, and is always better so long as I ain't a-beatin' on 'em.) Not efficient to skip grits, as it just takes that much more work on the next finest to remove past scratch marks. I find that 8-15 fast strokes for each grit gets there in about 5-10 seconds per grit.
A little experience will let you set your own working standard. Nothing is sacred, and there's no point in huffin' argument. This is a good method, and you can extend it to whatever level of refinement best suits your particular working style.
Heavy removal for flattening or nick removal will require 120-220 grits, and will consume them quickly. Once surfaces are correct at those grits, then refining through finer grits is very fast, and consumes much less paper.
Routine:
120 then 220 to shape and flatten
Then: 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000, 2500
Then maybe 5000, 9000
Finish with green stick and hand-slap (see below.)
Lesson: The paper wears quickly enough. Little point in wasting time with pressing harder or pushing to wring out the last cent's worth of sharpening. Buy cheap paper and dump it as soon as it becomes marginal, especially the coarser stuff.
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FLOAT GLASS:
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There's nothing exotic about float glass, although it's an important part of the method. Something over 90% of all the flat glass produced in the U.S. is "float glass", produced by the float method in which rolled glass at plastic temperature is introduced to a furnace containing a bath of molten tin. The tin's surface is naturally dead flat and hot enough to melt the glass to liquid, and the molten glass tends to layer out at perfect and uniform thickness - flat both sides. Many glass shops dont' even know that's what they stock - sometimes it takes a little asking to be sure that's what's being sold every day.
1/2" is ideal, just because it has the strength to withstand a little knocking about. Be sure to have the edges and corners fully radiused - that is, they need to be sanded (at the glass shop) in the usual everyday manner so as to minimize the potential for chipping when accidentally struck with the tool you're sharpening.
Tempering isn't a good idea, as it involves heating the glass to plastic temp and rolling it, which tends to introduce surface irregularities which destroy the float's inherent flatness.
Bottom line:
Just get a hunk of 1/2" standard annealed glass with the edges sanded as though for shelving. (Homework: get 'em to confirm that it really is float glass.) I attach the little clear self-adhesive buttons every 3" so I can easily set it down and get it back up again.
I use 12 x 12 for nearly everything, although I do also have a 12 x 30 to fettle longer plane bodies.
WD40 is a good cutting fluid, but it's stinky and not good to breathe for long periods. An open door, etc., is a good idea. (I have given myself emphysema over these many years by generally ignoring such minor safeguards. Live hard, learn hard.) Water works extremely well, but is harder to manage from the standpoint of not ruining whatever is under the glass.
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ALTERNATES:
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I don't much care for the idea of using a saw table, etc., as the mounting surface for paper, because 1) that ground surface isn't as good as it may appear to be and 2) the process necessarily releases some grit which can (will!) erode the mount surface. Personally, I'd sooner replace a hunk of glass than the saw table.
I regularly polish 3 base surfaces plus the sharpened bevel. The cutting edge is affected by the underside, the two vertical sides, and the sharpening bevel at the line where all 4 come together as the cutting edge. Flattening the underside and edges should be a one-time event, save for repair of inadvertant damage. (If edges aren't also polished, then the corners are always suspect and frequently flaky.) I flatten and polish just those three at least through 1500 grit, then polish them with green (chromium oxide) rouge on a cloth wheel. Once that's done, the polishing wheel never again strikes the bottom of the chisel until/unless damage is being repaired, as I want for that surface to remain as flat as possible.
Similarly, I'd never strop the underside after sharpening. No matter how fine, underside stropping must inevitably cause an unwanted back bevel that will interfere with the tool's operation.
Once those 3 surfaces are done, then the sharpened bevel may be addressed. Although it may be done somewhat haphazardly by feel (the macho old-fashioned way I did it for 40 years before scary sharp arose), the only good way to ensure ease and accuracy of honing (& re-honing) is to use a good sharpening jig, such as Veritas'. Run through all of the intended grits. Don't worry about underside burr - it gets progressively finer with each grit.
When all the intended grits have been applied, turn the blade underside-down on 2500 or 5000 paper, hold it dead flat, and pull it backwards an inch or two to (almost) polish off the final burr.
At that point, I run the bevel ONLY across the green polishing wheel - never the underside. It's still likely that a microscope could reveal an infinitesimal burr, which can be removed by the ancient and time-honored palm-slap method. (Balance and ease-of-motion will come quickly.) Just hold the tool so that the underside will strike the palm of the opposite hand when the tool body is rotated downward, and the sharpened bevel will strike the back of the hand on the return up-stroke. Up/down, up/down, slap/slap ...
Additional description:
This slap-slap-slap etc. action is performed repeatedly as the chisel rotates in about a 90deg arc up and down. Hands are held at the same level, perhaps waist high. The struck or target hand is held flat, horizontal, and palm up. The striking hand holds the tool underside down at about its midsection, and rapidly (after you learn how) rotates the chisel over its length so that the sharpened edge first strikes the palm and then the back of the struck hand. Rotate the struck hand slightly and in alternating direction so that each strike allows the sharpened edge to slide off. This tiny bit of skin-stropping really will remove any remaining burr, and provide a finer stropping than any leather-and-compound method.
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ANGLES:
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The various chisel types are assigned increasingly steeper angles in anticipation of more and more vigorous work. A 35 degree angle will virtually always work, but a 20 or 25 will pare much more easily. (Paring chisels are never struck.) You will undoubtedly develop your own recommendations. My regimen is:
Paring: 15-20 degrees, + 5 degree secondary
Bevel Sided bench: 25 degrees, + 5 degree secondary
Firmer or Registered: 30 degrees, secondary optional
Mortising: 35-40 degrees, secondary optional
(Although a steeper angle will always work, I find that my own hands are particularly sensitive to nuance as the blade moves, and I genuinely prefer the variability in feel with varying angles. Not everyone agrees.)
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SECONDARY BEVEL:
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The Secondary Bevel allows for quicker interim honing, as only a small area is ground at one time. It saves time, in that the primary bevel may be ground (honed) coarsely and therefore faster, with only the secondary refined through extra fine grits. It might grow to 1/8" wide (pretty big), but is most useful at around 1/16"to 3/32" Our forum friend Lee Grindinger convinced this old skeptic to try them, for which I'll be forever grateful. They don't mean hooey (other than honing speed) when the chisel's right-side-up, but when the chisel is turned upside down for delicate hand paring or trimming, the secondary bevel imparts a tremendous added degree of sensitivity and depth control. Such an edge blurs the distinction between traditional carving gouges and bench chisels, as should be the case.
If you have but one set of chisels, then a 30-35 degree grind with a 5 degree secondary bevel may provide about optimum performance for you.
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Finally, though this is method is a relatively quick way to develop extremely fine edges, it's not instantaneous, and losing an edge to accident or abuse remains painful. In my own practice, chisels receiving this degree of attention are not carried around the house in a metal tray for weekend projects, nor do they perform any rough-in work. They're protected as well as is practicable with rubber floor mats in the work area, and restraints on the benchtop. (I keep a set of beaters plus an all-steel rough-in set for the bull work.)
Storage can be an issue. Some folks like wall-hung racks, but in my neck of the woods, any fine steel left hangin' around will rust in a heartbeat. I prefer a closed cabinet or drawers into which I can toss a mothball to minimize/prevent oxidation. Paste wax is an automatic and generously used part of the care-and-feeding routine. So are dividers to keep the edges separated form one another -- duh.
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Hope some was useful.
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"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others."
---Pericles
Fergot ta mention flat back philosophy, which may or may not meet with agreement. For what it's worth:
Some say to flatten only the end 2 or so inches of a chisel's underside. I disagree, from the standpoint that on the occasion of needing to actually follow a guide to maintain a specific angle, any back only partially flat is going to rock and therefore will not yield the desired cut plane.
Rather, I flatten the entire length (only has to be done once), but with extra firm pressure at the business end. As a result, the entire back is made planar, but only the last 1"-3" are actually polished and free of scratch marks.
If the underside has any cup (seen often enough from overly aggressive grinding by mfgr), I only flatten until all of the cupped area is showing perhaps 50% contact. Also there must be an area extending back 1/2" or so from the edge that's entirely flat and polished. The approach ensures that the cutting edge is sharp and straight and that the entire length of the chisel's back will follow a guide, but doesn't require excessive removal of material at the time of initial fettling.
As length is gradually eroded from honing, the cupped or non-polihsed area may require a bit of additional flattening, but will require less effort than it would had the work been accomplished at first pass.
Regards,
---John
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"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others."
---Pericles
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