Thread: Sharpening and polishing compounds

Boban,

Check out Ryan's use of his TORMEK in this thread reply #15

Originally Posted by apricotripper

So, we could be debating such topics forever.

And the problem is................. ?? :confused:

Has anyone compared the results of the Veritas green rouge to the green stuff that comes in buffing kits, eg. Josco?

Enjoying the discussion fellas.


Cheers...........Sean

Boban my brother,

I've had my tormek for a couple years, and my sharpening technique is still constantly evolving (especially after reading derek's posts). my chisels, scrub plane blades, knives get sharpened exclusively on the tormek. finish plane blades get ground on the tormek, then sharpened through 10,000 grit h2o stones.
an interesting note is that a tormek sharpened blade feels as equally sharp as a hand sharpened blade, but definately looses it's edge noticebly quicker (10-20 strokes). this is balanced by the the ease of re-honing the edge.
what have your experiences been?

Derek,
though i have the utmost respect for your skills and ideas, I must say that my experience goes counter to your theory of "the sharp but unsmooth tormek honed blade" I too can still see the scratch marks on the bevel after sharpening on the tormek, but cannot feel a difference on the surface of the timber. they both produce surfaces like glass. while i readily concede that my water stone sharpening skills are surely not the equal of yours, i would like to caution against our theoretical musings holding more weight than our experiences.

Arron,

Answer to your original question - check this link:
http://www.hoj.com.au/compounds.htm



Red is for soft metals; green will do in most cases. If you want to go further then local supplier recommended Blue Hubble compound.

Also check this link:
http://www.australianabrasives.com/compounds.htm


Cheers,
Theva

Originally Posted by ryanarcher

i would like to caution against our theoretical musings holding more weight than our experiences.

Sir, that is the most abominable, outlandish, incomprehensible piece of truth I've heard for ages.

Originally Posted by outback

Sir, that is the most abominable, outlandish, incomprehensible piece of truth I've heard for ages.

:confused: :confused: .....spose. Finding 'truth' is bloody hard. They say that truth is 'out there'. Where ? And when you find it, if you find it, its most probably incomprehensible :confused: :confused: (<- why the crap are words allowed to get this long anyway....why can't you just say ' huh ? ' instead of 'incomprehensible'.....too many bloody letters) , What a waste of time; searching for ever for something thats turns out to be 'huh?'. You know what I mean. ????? get my drift ......

And whats with this 'Sir' business ? What are you trying to sound like ? Some bloody clever well bred type or something. Who are you kidding. eh, eh ?

And what the **** does 'abominable' and 'outlandish' mean ? :confused:

Jake

I think he was agreeing with you

Ryan

There was a follow up post to my own on Wood Central that is worth reading:
http://www.woodcentral.com/newforum/...andtools.shtml

Edit: the link does not work. Here is the quote, from Lyn Mangiameli (Lyn is very well known and respected on the Web for his authoritative research and articles on sharpening and planes):

Derek well illustrated the difference between sharp and refined (the latter being mostly my choice of terminology)

Sharp is when all portions of an edge are composed of two planes at intersect at an angle at or below 90 degrees (usually for flat blade purposes, 20-35 degrees; for round turning tools, from 35-90 )

Refined is when all sharp points of an edge occur along the same planes.

Both are essential for clarity and smoothness of the cut surface, as well as optimal tool life.

As a crude but quick example, all points along the edge of a serrated bread or tomato knive may be sharp, but the points of an edge are not in line along two of the three planes. It may cut efficiently, but some the edge will wear more quickly (due to lack of side to side buttressing-the narrower the points and the deeper the valleys between them, the worse this will be), and when used for a pushing cut rather than a sideways slicing cut (as a chisel or plane blade is most commonly used) and you will get a very uneven surface.

What you want in a blade for finish smoothing or refined cuts is a blade that has an edge both sharp and refined. The Tormek will allow you to set proper geometry and give you a sharp edge, but it won't give you a refined edge.

Now if I could just get woodturners to take this stuff seriously.


With regard to the use of stropping, here is a thought provoking article:
http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Str...Stropping.html

Lastly, here is a great all-round article covering many aspects of sharpening with grinders, etc.
http://members.shaw.ca/petermichaux/...harpening.html

I'm too flat out with work at present to discuss this, but just wanted to toss a bit more into the ring.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Jake

I think he was agreeing with you

yeh, I know,,,,,just being faseeeshus; you know, trying to be funny,,,,,I'm a bit bored you see. Sorry about that fellas.

.....and good links Derek. I didn't fully understand all of it, but clearly good stuff. I'll go through it properly latter.

Does any of it provide proof on whether or not buffing straight from grinder right on tip only, removes all previous scratches ???? This is something I'd like to know. Because you certainly can't see any scratches in that tip after buffing. It looks liquid smooth, like your seeing your reflection in water. If you know what I mean.

Seeya.

Hi Ryan,

I'll confess that in the area of sharpening I am a keen beginneer. It has always been of some interest to me but I have avoided, not deliberately, the sharpening threads by simply not being overly proficient at searching for them. I seem to stumble upon them.

I like the ease in which you can get a working edge with the Tormek. It is very quick. Most of my sharpening is of chisels and I could not think of a better way to sharpen them. Speed compared to results.

As far as my plane blades are concerned, well I've never noticed a rough surface but I've never really taken the time to really focus on the result in such a manner in which I would notice them. Let me put it this way, they are not obvious if they are there.

I read the article on stropping and its really interesting. Certainly the opposite of what I thought.

Here's a thought, if you need a microscope to see scratches in the tool's edge, are the results in timber going to be seen? A little more of the how sharp does it have to be to induce wood failure.

I appreciate the manner of the responses BTW. Thanks guys.

And for you Jake I just cant resist.....
"just being faseeeshus"

You're now reduced to phonetics?

Originally Posted by boban

And for you Jake I just cant resist.....
"just being faseeeshus"

You're now reduced to phonetics?

Ohhhh, now look who's being a smarty pants !!!!!

' faseeshus ' <- I wasn't trying to be clever. Just don't know how to spell it thats all. And I couldn't be bothered paging through for a dictionary for it.

So, is that the best YOU can do !!!! God ! , you bloody Tormek users are all the same.....

Originally Posted by Arron

As for whether the two-grinder method really does produce a 'glass-smooth' planed surface, I guess the only way to prove it is a blind test. I have 2 identical mujingfang smoothers - the Chinese style ebony ones with the short HSS blades. One was labouriously scary-sharpened to 2000 grit and then buffed, used once then not used again. The other I will sharpen using the grinders. I'll set both up, and using the same piece of timber get my wife to tell me which she thinks is smoother (assuming more sensitive fingertips there).

Result of test was that my wife picked each specimen in roughly equal measure (as I suspected, being well familiar with the results of both methods). At the end of the test, she said they were effectively the same and she was probably just guessing. That finishes it for me.

Arron

Arron, out of curiosity, what timber were you using?

Regards from Perth

Derek

Guys you lost me somewhere on page 1. I think I need some demos, I do better with demos than "reading about doing".
Can I be a complete troll and ask....
You blokes seem to be getting into the nth degree here. Which is cool, been there and done that and enjoyed it, (go on ask me any question about radio antennas, I dare you).... but ....

Is there a point where it does not matter anymore?
Aarons wife couldn't tell the difference...
Do I only need a super scary sharp plane on really difficult grains, and for the rest it wont matter if it is 95% sharp versus 99.999% sharp?

Just wondering because it seems that I could spend 20 years learning to sharpen to the last 0.5 of an atom, and maybe I would be wasting a lot of my time.
Told you I'd be a troll )

Hi Derek,
Oak, beech, pine and brush box.

Actually, I really dont see what is so hard to accept here. It seems to me fairly obvious that if you hollow grind a cutting tool, so that the entire bevel is hollow ground from its leading to trailing edges, and then run it on a fast cutting green compound, then both the leading and trailing edge of the bevel will be smooth. Any scratches from the grinding will be removed by the green compound - I think we all know how quickly these compounds cut, so removing scratches from the very narrow leading and trailing edges on either side of the hollow grind is not a great ask.

On the negative side, this method produces an edge which is probably not very long lasting. Also, the edge would be somewhat rounded, although I think that can be discounted for at least the first hone after grind. And remember I never said it was the sharpest edge in the world - I think I said in the first post 'on the lower side of shaving sharp'.

Cheers
Arron