I have found a honing guide to be invaluable when sharpening my edge tools. I do sharpen my striking knife, skew chisels, and small narrow chisels by hand since they don't fit in my guide. After a fair amount of looking around and using various sharpening jigs I finally settled on the Veritas Mk II Honing Guide, available from Lee Valley Tools.
There is also an attachment you can buy to use with skew chisels but I don't have that. This honing guide allows me to quickly and repeatedly set my blade or chisel at the correct angle so I can do touch up sharpening while in the middle of a project. This guide also has a feature that, by pulling and turning a knob you can change the blade angle by 1 degree allowing a secondary bevel to be formed. This is handy!
Here the guide is shown with the angle setting attachment on.
This controls the projection of the blade and thus the angle. There is a good instruction booklet that comes with this guide to explain it's use and help decipher the markings.
Here the guide is shown with the angle setting attachment on.
This controls the projection of the blade and thus the angle. There is a good instruction booklet that comes with this guide to explain it's use and help decipher the markings.
Here the guide is shown from the under side showing the chisel blade meeting the stop. The fence on the side keeps the blade square to the roller. You then tighten the blade clamp, remove the angle attachment and you are ready to roll.
At this point you just push and pull the device with the blade registered on the abrasive, as below. You need to pay a bit of attention but it is really quick to do 50 strokes back and forth. More than enough to touch up a blade during use. Notice that I have placed the film close to the edges of the glass. This is so I can lap the burr off the back of the blade without removing the tool from the holder.
Unless a blade is really in bad shape I run through the 15, then 5 micron grits. If I want a high polish I will finish with the 0.5 micron. If a blade is chipped or needs the bevel changed I will start with sandpaper as coarse as 400 grit and work up from there. Some folks use a bench grinder for this. If you do, be careful not to overheat the tool!
When I am readying a new chisel or plane blade for use I lap the back to flatten, smooth and polish it. You don't have to do the whole back, just the bottom 1/8th inch or so. After I have the back in good shape I install the chisel or blade in the holder and start honing. If you are buying a decent quality tool it should come with the blade square and reasonably sharp. The back will probably be flat but rough compared to the front of the cutting edge. Start with the grit that seems appropriate. You want to polish out the previous scratch marks and leave progressively smaller ones until, at 4000 grit or so, you have a nice polished edge. Here is a close up of a chisel blade after sharpening. This is a 1/2 inch chisel. The micro bevel doesn't look as polished in this close up as in real life, but it looks pretty good with the naked eye.
When I am readying a new chisel or plane blade for use I lap the back to flatten, smooth and polish it. You don't have to do the whole back, just the bottom 1/8th inch or so. After I have the back in good shape I install the chisel or blade in the holder and start honing. If you are buying a decent quality tool it should come with the blade square and reasonably sharp. The back will probably be flat but rough compared to the front of the cutting edge. Start with the grit that seems appropriate. You want to polish out the previous scratch marks and leave progressively smaller ones until, at 4000 grit or so, you have a nice polished edge. Here is a close up of a chisel blade after sharpening. This is a 1/2 inch chisel. The micro bevel doesn't look as polished in this close up as in real life, but it looks pretty good with the naked eye.
I hope you have enjoyed hearing about my sharpening practices. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.
Check in again soon.
Check in again soon.
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