Question about Veritas Mk II – Irregular Micro Bevel
I purchased a Mk II honing guide from a local retailer and have used it several times on older Stanley irons and have never quite gotten a perfectly flat bevel but have gotten them sharp/useable varying the pressure on the tip of the iron. Today I put a brand new Veritas blade in the guide and tried to hone a micro bevel using the micro bevel setting on the guide, and the bevel is very irregular. I have tried cleaning the jig from previous uses, and making sure the blade is straight against the angle attachment, being careful to make sure the screws are tightened evenly and using very light even pressure on the tip of the blade with no pressure on the guide except whats needed to hold it down. What am I doing wrong here? Photo attached of the irregular micro bevel on the new Veritas blade.
Replies
Looks like the irregularity is from the earlier work. If the microbevel is square, or at least a straight edge, then the lower stone grades are where it came from.
The corner on the left in the photo tells the tale. It is ground down further than the other corner and the microbevel has not reached it.
A dished stone leaves low corners. Flatten your stones and use the same care with each grit that you did with the microbevel.
I'll give that a try, thank you.
I assumed the issue was with my setting of the guide, didn't think about the stone being the issue. I am using Norton water stones. The iron came ground at 30 degrees, I put it in the guide and set it to micro bevel and was hitting behind the polished edge that came on the iron. So I worked the whole bevel on the 1000 grit stone at the regular setting until it was uniform, it didn't take long. But, I didn't flatten between that work and switching it back to the micro bevel setting and getting whats shown in the photo.
Re-work the factory primary edge first to get it trued up. That low corner needs some help before you go for a final honing.
Thanks for the tip. I had reached out to Lee Valley Customer Service as well in case it was an issue with the guide wheel or my set up, and they also confirmed it was likely a dished stone. Instead of spending more time on the stones, I reground the factory primary to 25 degrees since that is what all my older irons are at anyway, and flattened all of my stones with a 300 grit diamond stone before honing the secondary bevel and it came out alot better the second time around.
The edge is the only part that matters. Both sides of the edge. The rest of the bevel can look like a lemur ground it, and it won't matter.
From the picture it looks like the rounded edges on the primary bevel may have been done intentionally. For irons on a bevel down smoothing plane, this is done to reduce the “track” marks from adjacent passes of the plane over larger flat areas of wood - like a drawer front or cabinet side.
If that is the case you might want to repeat that when sharpening the micro-bevel by putting extra pressure on the corners of the plane iron for the last few swipes on your stone.
“[Deleted]”