Thread: Looking for advice on upcoming purchases

I don't use a honing guide for chisels, however I know that David Charlesworth would advise that you create a secondary bevel with the 1000, a tertiary microbevel with the 5000, and a second tertiary microbevel with the 12000. Personally, I would find it easier to hone a secondary bevel with the 1000, and then either continue with both 5000 and 12000 on the same bevel angle, or add a tertiary bevel on the 1000 using both the 5000 and 12000 stones.

For bench chisels you want to end with a 30 degree bevel. The primary bevel may be ground at 25 degrees.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Cheers gents. I'll crack on tonight and see how I get along!

Why the multiple micro bevels Derek?

Originally Posted by elanjacobs

Why the multiple micro bevels Derek?

You can take fewer sharpening strokes with each tertiary bevel. Also the last tertiary bevel is smaller and this means that one can grind less.

Note that this is not my preference. I don't have the patience for multiple bevels. This is the practice of David Charlesworth and Brent Beach. My preference, if using a honing guide, would be to just keep the one bevel as the honing guide settings then do not need to be altered. I would rather renew a hollow primary bevel as it increases in size. What I do in practice is freehand on a hollow grind.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Ah ok.

I keep my honing guide set at 30 degrees and turn the knob for the initial micro bevel, maintenance is freehand until the micro bevel isn't so micro any more.
Not a fan of hollow grind myself; mainly for the look, but Japanese chisels mean that I'd need to buy a wet grinder as well

Definitely a learning curve to this stuff, I'm struggling to apply even pressure to both sides of the blade and wind up with skew. Only spent about half an hour on it though, will get back to work on the coarse stone and start fresh tomorrow.



Very happy with the stones, they seem to do a very quick job of things. Appreciate the recommendations!

that degree of skew on the secondary micro-bevel doesn't matter. What matters is that the edge is sharp.
Fix it when you next re-establish the primary bevel AFTER using the chisel.

also, have you polished the back of the chisel?

Originally Posted by ian

that degree of skew on the secondary micro-bevel doesn't matter. What matters is that the edge is sharp.
Fix it when you next re-establish the primary bevel AFTER using the chisel.

also, have you polished the back of the chisel?

Cool, will do. I actually flattened the back of it when I first got it, should I do that every time I sharpen?

The way I look at it is
you have changed your sharpening regime, at the least you should check on your now finest stone, that the back is polished enough for that stone otherwise the two planes meeting to form the cutting edge will have different degrees of coarseness.
I'd check the back on your now finest stone, if that looks like being too much re-work, check on your middle 5000 stone. Don't go back to the 1000 grit unless you really have to.

and a tip
half an hour is a long time to spend working a micro bevel.
10 strokes on each stone should be enough. You want to be working wood, not removing steel.


do you have a piece of radiata pine or western red cedar to test the sharpness on?
your chisel is sharp when you can take clean shavings across the end grain.

Originally Posted by ian

The way I look at it is
you have changed your sharpening regime, at the least you should check on your now finest stone, that the back is polished enough for that stone otherwise the two planes meeting to form the cutting edge will have different degrees of coarseness.
I'd check the back on your now finest stone, if that looks like being too much re-work, check on your middle 5000 stone. Don't go back to the 1000 grit unless you really have to.

and a tip
half an hour is a long time to spend working a micro bevel.
10 strokes on each stone should be enough. You want to be working wood, not removing steel.


do you have a piece of radiata pine or western red cedar to test the sharpness on?
your chisel is sharp when you can take clean shavings across the end grain.

Awesome thanks for the tips. I'll work the back again this evening and see how it goes. And I should have mentioned it was half an hour total from beginning to end, probably only spent a couple of minutes on the micro bevel.

Just tested on some end grain, definitely needs a bit more work. Getting clean shavings from the end grain seems to be a lot of work on some DAR pine I had laying around.

check the back of your chisel on your 12000 stone. my guess is that you'll need to polish it on both the 5000 and 12000 stones

also check that your stones are still flat

Since the eccentric roller of your Veritas honing guide allows 2 settings of micro-bevels, I suggest that you just make use of them say normal bevel up to 1000, first micro bevel at 5000 (by pulling out knob on the roller and set it at "3 o'clock" and the 2nd microbevel at 12000.
You might need to start from 600 again and make sure that you have a burr at the edge before moving to the next grit. It should be very quick to get a burr with the microbevels on the jig.
The easiest to test the sharpness of the blade is hold a sheet of photocopy paper vertically and try to slice the paper with your blade. If you can make a clean cut easily, the blade is sharp enough.

Originally Posted by justonething

Since the eccentric roller of your Veritas honing guide allows 2 settings of micro-bevels, I suggest that you just make use of them say normal bevel up to 1000, first micro bevel at 5000 (by pulling out knob on the roller and set it at "3 o'clock" and the 2nd microbevel at 12000.
You might need to start from 600 again and make sure that you have a burr at the edge before moving to the next grit. It should be very quick to get a burr with the microbevels on the jig.
The easiest to test the sharpness of the blade is hold a sheet of photocopy paper vertically and try to slice the paper with your blade. If you can make a clean cut easily, the blade is sharp enough.

I've actually been using the eccentric roller, very handy for the micro bevel. Flattened and resharpened my 26mm and 18mm chisels last night and they're much sharper now, slicing paper is dead easy.

Going to give them a go this weekend making my first box, will post some results next week sometime.