Replies

1. 
   lat_axe | Apr 14, 2020 02:13pm | #1

   Personally I use a guide unless I'm just re-honing with a leather strop after a bout of chiselling or planing that might have taken the scary off the sharp. Unless you do hours of sharpening - i.e. you're a professional woodworker using hand tools a lot - it's unlikely that the necessary muscle memory to hold a blade always at the correct angle(s) by-hand will develop.

   Woodworking tools are essentially something that cuts wood configured within a jig of more or less complexity and versatility to make the most of the cutting part. A sharpening guide is just a jig to allow complex and versatile sharpening.

   Of course, some woodworkers can perform wonders with the most primitive of tools bordering on near-jigless. I know green woodworkers, for instance, that can make many things - some quite complex and sophisticated - with nothing much more than an axe, froe & beetle and a knife.

   But these lads have spent hundreds & thousands of hours perfecting their abilities. We amateurs don't have that many hours, especially if we're olepharts, like moi. :-)

   Lataxe

2. 
   bilyo | Apr 14, 2020 02:31pm | #2

   I have used one of these for many years. It is inexpensive but, effective and versatile. It's disadvantage is that it needs to be readjusted for angle if you change to a stone of different thickness. It's advantage is that, because the wheels don't ride on the stone, you can use the entire stone surface for sharpening. I use it unless I'm doing just a quick touch-up.
   https://www.amazon.com/General-Tools-809-Chisel-Sharpener/dp/B00004T7PB/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=general+sharpening+guide&qid=1586888740&sr=8-2

3. 
   bluemo | Apr 14, 2020 02:40pm | #3

   I trust a sharpening guide over freehand. The process of using a guide goes smoothly once you get accustomed to it. I also enjoy a child-like thrill when a package from Veritas shows up on my doorstep... I like tools. Woodworkers wiser and more experienced than me suggest picking one method and sticking with it.

4. 
   john_c2 | Apr 14, 2020 03:51pm | #4

   I use a Lie Nielsen guide with a wooden setup block I made. Takes me 3 seconds to put the chisel or blade in the guide, and I get a consistent edge every time.

5. 
   _mj_ | Apr 14, 2020 07:35pm | #5

   Cue the divide... I use the veritas mk2, except for the few quick strokes to bring a secondary bevel back in mid-process. I would advise against leather or anything else that deforms as you draw a blade across it because it rounds the plane in contact with the leather. I an not saying the blade cannot be touched up this way, just that the surface being stropped will no longer be a flat surface. This complicates the resharpening process later, essentially requiring a new grind to get back to a flat surface.

6. 
   lat_axe | Apr 15, 2020 03:38am | #6

   Leather stropping .... a very long tradition in woodworking, barbour shops and many, many other places where sharp edges need to be maintained during use. Are all these stroppers victims of the olde wifey tale, wielding blunt edges ineptly!? This is unlikely.

   There is, no doubt, the risk of rounding over an edge if one strops with too much vigour and vim. However, as with all other practices, there are effective modes and the other sort, for getting the required result. Good practice would begin with not stropping flat parts of an edge, such as a chisel or blade back. Once such a back has been made flat and polished, there should never be a need to re-sharpen or re-hone it unless it gets badly damaged.

   Stropping the edge on the bevel side just needs to be done carefully at the right angle; with just a little pressure so the leather doesn't badly deform thus altering the angle-of-dangle; and for just a few strokes. The theory is that micro-bends and burrs made on the very tip of the edge via normal usage are scraped away by the honing compound.

   Personally I find this works well. A still-sharp but getting-harder-to-push edge can be brought back with half a dozen careful back-wipes of the bevel on a piece of leather kept handy at the corner of the bench, charged with honing compound and some light oil. Any resharpening effect can't be seen with the naked eye even with a very close examination of the edge - just felt in the subsequent cutting.

   When the edge does get truly dulled, the micro-bevel is still there and can be reformed quickly in a honing guide with just 5 - 10 back-strokes on a very fine-grade sharpening medium. Any effects from leather stropping will have long been overwhelmed by that eventual usage-dulling so stropping makes no difference to the re-establishment of that micro-bevel and it's new sharp edge.

   Lataxe