Veritas MKII jig crooked bevel help

[Borneogoat]

I'm a beginner woodworker and bought a Veritas MKII sharpening jig to use with my planes & spokeshaves. I've managed to disprove this device is idiot-proof. When I sharpen/hone my irons they end up with a cooked bevel. At first I thought it was just grinding away the bevels I did previously by hand, but now I know its not. See the photo link below, I'm starting to take away the top part of the bevel on the right side. I'm very careful sitting the jig up square and use even pressure when sharpening. What am I doing wrong? Or is the jig faulty?

All available sizes | Wonky bevel | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[Mr Brush]

It is very important to tighten up the two screws on the clamp bar evenly, otherwise the blade will likely shift as soon as you apply any sharpening pressure.

By this I mean tighten them evenly, keeping the clamping bar as parallel to the surface of the blade as possible. If you just tighten one of the screws up finger tight first, then go back and tighten the other one, you'll find you have tilted the clamp bar so that only a portion of its length is in contact with the blade.

Apart from that, the angle setting gauge needs to be firmly clamped on before setting the blade, and obviously you've taken care to ensure the edge of the blade is hard up against the reference edge of the angle guide.

[rsser]

Yeah, the foxy feller is right as usual.

Only thing I can add is that if your blade sides are not parallel you will have to adjust the seating accordingly.

And you can get the effect shown in your pic if your stone is not properly flattened.

But frankly, no system is perfect and if the cutting edge is straight in that pic I would live with that degree of variation.

[Mr Brush]

Ern - didn't think of that.....

Step 1. Make sure stone is flat !!

It doesn't have to be out by much to cause what you are seeing, and waterstones don't stay flat for long when attacked by A2 steel.

I was all set to order some Shapton Pro ceramic stones today, but (wouldn't you know it) Stu's site is down for cleaning and tweaking......

[rsser]

I'm sure you've done your research on the Shaptons Mr B.

I've had some v. helpful conversations with Stu Tierney about stones.

He was setting up a comparative test last time we emailed; look forward to hearing about it.

For lapping I've found my Shapton Glasstones irritatingly prone to stiction. The sage advice of forum members, to use a drop of liquid soap, has helped but the frustration remains.

It's been posted elsewhere but for the benefit of new readers, I very much like Stu's Bester 1000 and Sigma 8000.

[Mr Brush]

Ern - I form my primary bevel on DuoSharps these days, and coming off the Extra Fine plate (green) I reckon the finish is about equivalent to a 1000/1200 waterstone.

From there, I propose to just do the microbevels on an 8000 Shapton Pro, followed by the 12000. No stiction problems there, as its only a tiny surface in contact with the ceramic.

As for lapping....is there any way of setting up your Shapton in a shallow tray, and filling the try until the surface of the stone is just under the surface? Water moving constantly across the stone as you lap might prevent the stiction, while also very efficiently carrying away any metal particles. I know some people have talked about using Shaptons under running water, but the tray idea might be easier to set up.

Are you up to your neck in slush yet???

[rsser]

Ah, yeah, well actually, we're now about at the stage up here where the slush is giving way to gravity.

We're only about 1300m ASL; it might not be so bad up higher where the cover is thicker and where there was a base of ice in places.

Thanks for the thinking about the Shaptons. The 4000 is the worst IIRC.

I'm guessing it's a question of the balance between abrasiveness and porosity in the baking of the stone and my sense is that this has been done better with the Bester and Sigma.

I had played around with cleaning the Shapton 4000 up afterwards with liquid kitchen abrasive as is recommended with DMT stones but that just made it worse.

Of course lapping is not a regular application and open only to the freemasonry, so maybe I'm asking more of the Shaptons than they were intended for.

[jenkinsr]

I too have experienced this phenomenon on my Veritas Mk II, and I got pretty grumpy about it yesterday, hence this post.

The first time I had a problem with it was on an 1" 1/4 Chisel with quite a narrow back that moved in the jig as I was tightening it, (as per Mr Brush's advice) and I didn't notice until too late.

This time it's a Stanley USA blade on a rescued Nº5. This blade has not had a good first 50 years; when I went to lap the back it there was such a hump in it that it made a map of South America initially. I had to beat it flat with a ball pein hammer over the back of my vice, so it has some more character now but at least it's flat.

I checked the edge with my set square and it was a little bit out, but not a lot. It set up in the honing guide at 30º OK, and as it had chequered past and a couple of wavering hand-held bevels on it already I wasn't too surprised when it started cutting on one side. I had been really careful to hold it tight to the gauge and do the clamp up evenly so it never moved, so I persevered, and here's my list of excuses: it was getting dark, I was tired, hurrying to get it finished, inexperienced, underfed, and I trusted the gauge to be square... I also ended up with a face full of bugs as I'm working outside on a farm under a flouro.

Anyway, I worked through the grits and got a good edge, and if it looked a little odd when I took it out of the guide to give it a little strop I guess I put that down to it's pre-flattening wear pattern. I knew the jig was up (excuse the pun) when I mounted it on the chip breaker. At least a millimetre out across 2", I guess about 87º, well beyond redemption, and I went to bed in a sulk.

In the harsh light of morning I marked a series of parallel lines at right angles across both sides of the blade and carefully mounted it in the guide again, using the same setting, and it mated up nice and firm with the side and the stop - and it's crooked. I pulled the guide to bits and made sure it was all clean and there was nothing stuck under a corner and put it back together, and it's the same. Rinse and repeat. It looks right, the blade fits the guide all the way up the side and is firm in the stop, it doesn't move when I clamp it up but according to my marks and last nights results it's not square.

I don't think the guide is faulty, as it has worked plenty of times already, but I do think it's not good enough. I don't think the clamping/aligning part of the extension setting jig is positive enough to be consistent, and I think the choice of materials, particularly the brass screws, is a poor one; the thread is either too coarse or it galls and sticks at the wrong point. I've been using threaded fasteners for a while now and these just don't talk to me like I think they should.

I haven't found any way to double check that the tool in the guide is square either, apart from the aforementioned lines, and that bugs me now. None of my set squares will fit the particular set of angles and surfaces I am presented with when the blade is in the guide at my average settings.

Once I have a lot more experience with this and other tools I'll probably forget about all this, but right at this point I'm a bit grumpy because I feel like I've been misled. This guide has so much promise and that fit into the extension setting jig feels so confident that it's really disappointing to find out that it's misplaced.

Thanks to Borneogoat for starting this thread. Nice to know I'm not the only one who is feeling a little frustrated with this otherwise excellent tool. Mk III, anyone?

[rsser]

I'd copy this post to the folks at Veritas and get their view.

Contact them at Veritas Tools

[NCArcher]

If the blade is sitting square in the holder and the sides of the blade are square to the cutting edge then the fault may be in the roller. Worn on one side perhaps? Or a bent shaft?
I haven't had any problems with my MkII but it's not very old. I just added the skew registration jig which is brilliant.

[silentC]

Sometimes the eccentric roller is out a tiny amount, so when you want to do a microbevel and you rotate the cam, the microbevel is not coplanar with the main bevel. I solved that problem by refraining from doing micro bevels

So it could be you have the roller set on one of the micro bevel settings and your roller is suffering from this problem.

However there was an offer from LV to replace the roller free of charge if that was the case.

The other thing I have experienced that can cause this is a slight twist in the blade. Almost undetectable by eye but it will cause the bevel to be at an angle to the end of the blade. Only had that with an old Stanley #4 blade. I solved that problem by getting one of Helmut's replacement blades.

[Mr Brush]

A quick update on my experiences with the Veritas Mk II.....

I've had one since they first came out, so its had a fair bit of use for sharpening a mix of plane blades and chisels. Mine was getting steadily worse at clamping chisels, and when I looked closely at the clamping bar it became obvious why this was so (see photo). When working with narrow chisels, the force required to clamp properly is enough to distort the bar over time.

I contacted Veritas regarding this problem, and received the usual excellent customer service that we take for granted . I was quite prepared to pay for the replacement part, but they insisted on providing a new clamp bar at no charge. My MkII is now restored to new condition for use on plane blades, but I no longer use it on chisels for fear of repeating the damage. Instead I bought the Richard Kell guide (handles up to 1" blades), which by its very design ensures that chisels are always sharpened square.

Sundials by Richard Kell

I now own several very narrow chisels (down to 1/8"), and the Richard Kell guide works well with all of them (except the Blue Spruce fishtails...). The Veritas MkII is still the best honing guide I've ever used for plane blades, but it does have clamping limitations for narrow chisels IMHO.

[NCArcher]

Thanks Mr B.
I'll check mine when i get home and keep an eye on it.

[jenkinsr]

Interesting.
I have had a poke around and see that Lee Valley/Veritas do seem to have an excellent reputation for service, so I shall contact them and see what advice they offer.

[jenkinsr]

I haven't noticed any eccentricity when I do microbevels so I suspect the roller is not my problem.

The other thing I have experienced that can cause this is a slight twist in the blade. Almost undetectable by eye but it will cause the bevel to be at an angle to the end of the blade. Only had that with an old Stanley #4 blade. I solved that problem by getting one of Helmut's replacement blades.

Ah. That might be relevant. This is very old Stanley blade, and it was very bent when I got it - I did mention that I had to beat it flat before I could hone the back of it. Looking at it now I can see it has a slight twist to it from top left to bottom right, which I disregarded as when it's mounted in the plane the chip breaker and the cap iron keep it honest. No such luck when it's in the honing guide though.

At some point I decided that more blade extension was better than less, so I honed it to 30º with the blade carrier in the Red (Nº1, high angle) position. More blade extension would accentuate any twist and I don't bear down on it when honing to the extent that it would flex and thus compensate.

Any error in setup could of course compound the error, as does overconfidence in use. I've got a brand new Hock blade, untouched and beautifully square from the factory. I have just mounted it in the honing guide to see if it sets up square first off, and it doesn't: Standing it on a sheet of glass I can rock it on one corner. Not a lot, but enough to make an audible click. I read the manual again, stripped the guide, oiled and cleaned bits of it and put it back together. With the blade extension set at 25º on the Yellow (Nº2, standard angle) in the microbevel position it seems to be spot on. I pulled it out, marked it and put it back in and it's slightly off now. Repeat, and this time it sits flat. A single short and gentle scrape over a fine stone shows the very beginnings of a microbevel from the centre out towards the edges.

Good enough.

I guess what I have learnt is that everything must be flat, and from flat, square is not far away. That, and measure twice...


ps.

Any criticism I have levelled at the Mk II Honing Guide still stands. I think it could be better, I think it could be more consistent to set up, and I still don't like the way the brass knobs require significantly more effort to undo than to do up. Despite that I still think it is a fantastic tool from a great company and I will be telling them all of the above because I think they will listen.