Sharpening issues and questions

[sawduster]

Mar 15, 2010 9:42:51 GMT -6 jb34 said:

spent a lot of time sharpening my hand plane saturday. Sure is nice to hand plane when you get things sharp enough. worked fine bfore but a lot more fun when you take more time on the front end. I didn't want to stop planing.

That does seem to be a fairly common problem when someone finally gets things working well with their hand planes. I know of folks who, on a whim, will go out into their shop, pick up a piece of scrap and just spend a few minutes making shavings, just for the pure joy of it. ;D

[jb34]

varied my grits of sandpaper more and just listened to what I always say to my 4 year old - "Slow down dude".

still excited to get my whetstone. But I knew I would have to get more variety and more methods into my sharpening because I just wasn't cutting the mustard with how I had been doing it. Well cutting mustard maybe, but cutting wood, well not well enough.

I have spent a lot of time on the chisels but not as much hand planing. I have a planer. what I was working on needed the hand plane as it was too big to go into my 12.5 inch wide planer though. So it had been a while since i used it. Yeah forgot how fun it was and I don't know why just once you get going hard to stop.

[Ruffnek]

I guess reading about all this sharpening stuff motivated me 'cause I spent the afternoon watching it snow and sharpening my chisels.

I finally figured out how to use that angle-setting jig that came with the Jet wet grinder and got all my chisels sharpened at 35 degrees and then honed on the leather wheel.

Krenov was right. There is definitely a big difference between the concept of sharpness and a truly sharp tool. Those bench chisels are now absolutely scary sharp.

[Beamer]

Ain't it an amazing breakthrough?

Before I got into woodworking, I always did that "Drag yer thumb across the edge and say 'Oh, that's sharp!'" without actually knowing if it was or not. Ignorant of the concept even ... Just had no clue.

Then I got into woodworking and I figured New = Sharp. HA! New chisels are NOT sharp. Not even close. But I didn't know that, then, either. Until one day, I finally rounded up a nice thick chunk of plate glass and some 2000 grit wet/dry sandpaper ... SHOO! that's sharp, there! I had a hairless arm there for a few weeks. Tho, the itchy and red bumps went away soon.

Little did i know that even THAT wasn't really sharp. Even as vast an improvement it was over my previous impression of sharp, the 8000 grit water stone made it real clear to me that I had finally achieved sharp ... that was, until I learned there are 15000 and 18000 grit stones, too ... oy vey!

There's certainly a threshold of sharp, though. Planes start working real well at about 2000 grit wet/dry - even better at 8000 grit stone, though. Chisels like to be SUPER sharp ...

Now, instead of raking my thumb across the edge of something, I take a fingernail and scrape with the blade. If I cut right through my nail before I even get started, I know it's sharp!

[TDHofstetter]

That fingernail test is an important one - it tells it ALL.

[Beamer]

*NOD*

Including which way the cutting edge is pointing if it's leaned over any. Not something I thought of till I found one with a rolled over edge. Handy test, there

[Ruffnek]

T-Chisel has a podcast on his site where he's sharpening a chisel. He first dings the edge with a hammer...ouch! Then, he re-grinds the edge on the Tormek, sharpens it on a waterstone and finishes with a few honing strokes on a leather strop.

The test of sharpness is when he effortlessly slices end-grain curls off a piece of scrap mounted in his vise.

[garysharp]

I use the Scary Sharp method with the Veritas MKII guide with all of its add ons. I started out using 3m wet-n-dry which is a great way to start , because of the low cost . I now use 3m Microfinishs films. I start at 60 MIC (micron) then 40MIC, 30MIC, 15MIC, 9MIC, 3MIC and finish with a 1MIC diamond. I touch-up a few times with stainless steel (gray) polishing compound on a ROCH-HARD felt wheel normally used by knife makers. I may do one re-shape touch-up with a 15000 shapton stone. I bought the Microfinish films off of e-bay a few years back, but have not found any great prices in a long time. You and some friends might go together and buy some full rolls. Do not buy any that are less tha 2.5 inches wide. You can cut yourself very easy, but it heals quick, because it is such a smoooooth cut.