Replies

1. 
   Guest_ | Jun 09, 1999 04:01pm | #10

   *
   If you have ever invested hours sharpening your chisels or plane irons with stones (like a certain knothead from THE GREAT NORTHWEST) you will appreciate this. Go to http://www.cabinetmag.com/cmhome.htm and find "Wood Explorer general forum" scroll down to "Just thought I'd pass this along". Give yourself 15 minutes, 'cause these guys enjoy writing, but I tried their technique and it works great. Man, I love this internet thing. - jb

1. 
   Guest_ | Jun 08, 1999 09:43am | #1

   *Jim,Have you tried it yet? I suppose it makes enough sense. Pete

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   Guest_ | Jun 08, 1999 10:03am | #2

   *Hey Pete - Yeh, didn't even have a hard time findin' the paper. Works great, I started with a belt sander to get straight and nick free, then progressed through the paper. All together, maybe 15 minutes per blade. I highly recomend it, but I just today noticed that tomorrow afternoon they are changing their URL, so if you want it, go get it in the AM. Just got home from senior awards night at the H.S. That knucklehead kid of mine got the two top scholarships from the community and gets to go his first year at a 28,000/yr school for about 2,000. I am so impressed with his work ethic. He set a high goal for himself and achieved it. I really admire him. - jb

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   Guest_ | Jun 08, 1999 11:00am | #3

   *JB, congratulations on your son's achievement. There is nothing better than to see your children doing well in their lives. Joe H

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   Guest_ | Jun 08, 1999 12:36pm | #4

   *Jim,Interesting info, thanks for sharing that.My sharpening sucks.

2. 
   ml_ | Jun 08, 1999 01:44pm | #5

   *What's the microbevel they keep referring to?

3. 
   Guest_ | Jun 08, 1999 06:00pm | #6

   *ml - I asked Adrian Wilson that question, and he explained it very clearly. I'd rather give him the chance to explain if you don't mind. - jb

4. 
   Guest_ | Jun 08, 1999 07:08pm | #7

   *So, what you're saying is that you CAN resharpen chisels and stuff. I just keep buying new ones. Go figure. When I need a real good chisel I just rub my stanley flat-head screwdriver on the sidewalk for a while to give it that keen edge.Seriously though. Did you use one of the thingamajigs to hold your blade at the same angle while you sharpened or did you do it by eye?I will have to try it some day when I get around to it like I get around to everything else.Pete

5. 
   Guest_ | Jun 09, 1999 10:06am | #8

   *Pete - I use a Stanley 81-050 sharpening jig. Probably paid 5.00 (US...heh,heh) so long ago I can't remember. Has little wheels on the back and you insert the blade to whatever angle you want. - jb

6. 
   Guest_ | Jun 09, 1999 03:46pm | #9

   *I first learned to sharpen chisels from an old woodsman. He had fed himself through the depression cutting firewood to sell. Felled the trees with a double-bit axe. You used one bit for felling only and never let it near the ground (dirt and stones). You used the other bit for cutting the felled tree into sections for hauling to the bucking yard. It did hit the rocks and dirt and got dull. He had a round "axe" stone in a leather pouch on his belt. You cupped the round stone in your hand to sharpen the axe. He still had that axe and showed it to me, the non-felling side was about a third the size of the felling side from all that hand sharpening!Anyway he had obviously developed his technique with that round stone and used it to sharpen his chisels too. He produced a fine edge. The circular motion tended to produce an elliptical leading edge which was fine for the heavy wood removal he used his chisels for in tree surgery. Not so great for woodworking. The real point is that what I learned from him is that the new, store bought edge on a chisel is far from good. There was a tongue-in-cheek mesage in this thread about buying new chisels rather than sharpening. I've known people who really do that (though they seem to leave the rejects in the bottom of their tool box rather than giving them to me... or they have serrated edges from cutting nails and I wouldn't want them!). $10 for a hardware store chisel is probably cheaper than an hour of hand sharpening and honing. But if you learn to know the difference, there's no performance payback in work done.I try to keep a couple of chisels for utility work and abuse and the rest for finer work. Get by with hand stone touch-ups on the good ones and even a file on the rough work ones. When they all need real work I haul out the Delta Sharpening Station with the wet wheel.

7. 
   Guest_ | Jun 09, 1999 04:01pm | #11

   *Microbevel: say you grind your chisel at 25 degrees, a good general purpose angle. You then take the chisel to your stone or paper or whatever. If you start honing away at 25 deg, you are removing steel at the top and the bottom of the hollow grind (the shape that comes off the grinder), which takes a lot of time and work. But, if you raise the honing angle just a little, like 1-2 degrees, you are only working on the edge, getting done faster by removing less material. This second, slightly steeper angle is the microbevel. It doesn't take long to sharpen that little area (it should be just a sliver at the edge of the chisel or plane blade), so you tend to not put off sharpening so much. Lee Valley makes a guide with an automatic microbevel function, just turn a little knob and it raise the angle a couple of degrees. The other thing to remember is that a perfectly flat back is just as important or more so to getting a sharp edge.There is also a little problem with a 'wire edge' that gets turned up when you alternate honing with from the back and the angle; this needs to be polished off with a really really fine stone (like 8000 grit), or stropped off with leather or some soft pine. It's worth learning to do; amazing what you can do with a sharp chisel.