Thread: What is the best sharpening jig?

Forgot to put a picture of your hands up there. By far the best sharpening jig there is. Learn how to use them you can chuck the jigs away.

I think if you read a few reviews on the Veritas you'll be sold. Search'em out. Hand sharpening is OK if you are doing it several times a day. If like me you want minimal time at the stone with repeatable assurate results, go for the guide. Do we rip on the TS/BS without a fence? Mark out without a guage? Guess bevel angles? Nothin' wrong with a guide.

Den

Gidday Stewart

I'm likely to get flamed severely here BUT I honestly feel the Hype around the Veritas Mk2 was a load of #$%&*#*. I've managed to stuff my 10 000 grit waterstone using the Veritas which tends to dig into your waterstones when used at the higher angles.

This is a JIg that requires care to use effectively & you need to be mindful that there are inherent risks associated with design that may result in damage to your expensive waterstones if like me you push instead of pull the blade......................BE WARNED!!!

I have learnt this from personal experience HOWEVER MUST OWN THAT THIS IS A MATTER OF TECHNIQUE AND INEXPERIENCE HONING BLADES SET AT HIGH ANGLES

Also micro adjustment does not work as supposed to....................in a nutshell there are some dificencies and problems with the VEritas Mk2 that make it problematic to use and unable to deliver the goods as advertised.

HOWEVER i'm sure Veritas will Iron out the problems and perhaps rethink some design features in the not to distant future. Robs committment to customer service is evident in his openness to advertise "if you need to............. send it back for readjustment etc"

REgards Lou

Get a Mk2. Simple to set up, dead easy to use, repeatable, you'll wonder how you lived without it.

Have never had a problem with it digging in. The jig has a roller on the bottom. The only thing that could dig in is your chisel and any jig will do that if the angle is high and you're not careful.

The micro bevel adjustment can be a bit out on some jigs, it is on mine, Lee Valley has offered to replace any that are like this but it's not enough of a problem to worry about.

You wont regret it.

Been busy Stuart?

You can't go wrong with Veritas

I tried out my new Mk2 on the weekend and the micro-bevel feature gave me a much wider micro-bevel on my chisel than I was expecting. The difference in angles between the 25 degree bevel and the micro bevel doesn't seem to be anywhere near 5 degrees.

SilentC, is this the kind of thing that you mean when you say, "micro bevel adjustment can be a bit out on some jigs"?

I still haven't given up on the Mk2 though, I just need to play around with it some more. It's a lot better than the cheaper one I was using before.

is this the kind of thing that you mean when you say, "micro bevel adjustment can be a bit out on some jigs"?

No, I'm referring to a problem some of us have reported where rotating the micro bevel knob causes the axle of the roller to be slightly out of plane with the previous setting, so what you end up with is a micro bevel that is a bit wider at one end than the other - it takes on a triangular shape. As long as you make sure the bevel extends the full width of the blade, there is no problem with the cutting edge as a result.

The actual width of the bevel, if I understand you correctly, is a factor of how long you spend honing it. If the micro bevel angle is only 1 or 2 degrees, which it should be with a quarter and a half rotation of the knob respectively, then you will end up with a fairly wide bevel relatively quickly. You only need a couple of swipes (or in my case, until you can see the bevel formed the full width of the blade).

Another vote here for the MKII.

Haven't had a problem with digging in.

This is a JIg that requires care to use effectively & you need to be mindful that there are inherent risks associated with design that may result in damage to your expensive waterstones......................BE WARNED!!!

Actually, stuff it. I've had enough of being diplomatic. That is the biggest load of hogwash I have read here yet. What is a sharpening jig? It's a device that clamps the blade at a given angle and allows you to slide the blade back and forth across the stone whilst maintaining that angle. They almost exclusively do this by means of a roller. This is fundamentally all the MkII is. It has some bells and whistles that make setting and resetting the angle easy. It addresses some of the problems with the first version. But fundamentally, it is a variation on a well established theme. What "inherent risks associated with [the] design" are there that will cause damage to your stone? The only one I can think of is that it doesn't hold your hand for you.

There, you wanted to be flamed.

Now that I have that off my chest, Stuart I don't like the design of the sled type jigs because they rely on the stone being of a consistent thickness and sitting flat on the table or whatever you are running the jig over. Types that reference the face of the stone are much more reliable, especially with water stones, which can end up looking like axe heads after a few months.

Originally Posted by mythagoz

The difference in angles between the 25 degree bevel and the micro bevel doesn't seem to be anywhere near 5 degrees.

I thought the microbevel setting only added about 1 or 2 degrees, not 5.

I've got Stanley, Eclipse and the Veritas MkII honing guides. The Veritas wins hands down.

The Stanley, my first honing guide, doesn't get used anymore. I don't like it much, it doesn't hold the item you're honing very securely and so there is a tendency for the item to move about in the clamp which doesn't make for accurate honing.

The Eclipse is one of the side clamp styles. It is a good jig but not as good as the Veritas. It is not as easy to set up as the Veritas and the relatively narrow roller means that the if you don't know what you're doing you can end up with a cambered blade due to rocking of the guide from side to side. This is OK if you want a cambered blade but not if you want a nice square one. I only use my Eclipse for narrow chisels. I reckon it holds the narrow chisels more firmly than the Veritas.

The Veritas is a great jig. The wide roller means that even inexperienced users can produce a fairly square edge, if that's what they want, and it is very easy to set up. The only issue I've found, if you could call it that, is that very narrow chisels can have a tendency to move in the clamp on the guide. Here I'm talking 1/8 and 1/4 inch chisels and for these I use the Eclipse. For everything else I use the Veritas.

I reckon you need to take Lou's criticism of the guide with a grain of salt. I think any honing guide can lead to a blade digging into the stone when honing higher angles. It is just something that you avoid through an appropriate honing technique.

I thought the microbevel setting only added about 1 or 2 degrees, not 5.

Yep, like I said: quarter turn = 1 degree, half turn = 2 degrees. I think

Diplomat!

Yep VMkII, no question.

In my humble estimation, it's so idiot proof that if you have any trouble with it as described above, then maybe it's time to take up another hobby! If I can use it, trust me, it's been well thought out!

Toolin' says use your hands, and if you are going to sharpen day in day out for the rest of your life, that's a great idea.

Most hobbyists who sharpen once a month or twice a year or on the 29th February only, won't have a hope of gaining consisitent results.

cheers,

P

I've dug the edge into the stone too, but I didn't blame the tool - not the one on the bench anyway.

THe VII is a precision tool, no doubt, that has taken a simple idea and expanded the possibilities.

BTW I write on the back of the blade in texta what setting I used, for next time. Does everyone else forget to re-set the micro-bevel thing too?

Den

Does everyone else forget to re-set the micro-bevel thing too

Yup