We don't need sharpening jigs-or do we?

[chook]

One of the arguments used in favour or freehand sharpening is speed. There are two things to be said about that.

Firstly speed is never a requirement for me in the shed. If I want timelines and speed I can go to work.

But actually how many seconds does it take to put a chisel into a honing guide anyway. I suppose if I was drunk and the lights were off I could set up the Veritas honing guide in about 30 seconds. I spend longer than that scratching my bum wondering where I left the sharpening stones.

Derek is correct when he says that hollow ground chisèls can be more easily sharpened free hand. I do my 20 degree chisèls that way.

As for plane blades the bevel is so narrow that it is just easier to set the angle with a jig. I set the blade at 40 degrees on my BU smoother and it works wonderfully. Other angles not so good. I don't want to guess the angle.

The only plane blade I freehand sharpen is on a scrub plane. It has a radiused bevel and it is not worth the effort to buy a jig to sharpen it. I don't use it much anyway and I don't have to fiddle about sharpening it all that often.

i suppose I could hollow grind all my chisels and touch them up freehand but I am suspicious of that. I would not trust the edge on mortise chisels done that way and I prefer a long flat bevel even on the chisels I use for dovetails.

But there is is a more fundamental issue here. Many woodworkers are, like me, part time hobbyists who get into the shed whenever we can. We would like to be able to spend time every day playing with the tools but until somebody starts paying our bills for us we have to work. Some weeks I am am lucky to get into the shed at all. Other times I have long uninterrupted days. I once heard Peter Sellers say that all we had to do was spend two hours a day developing our skills and we could be craftsmen. Two hours a day! Dream on. My woodworking is always a compromise between the time I have, the skills I possess and the goals and standards I aim for. If a jig or a shortcut helps me then I will use it. I get boundless pleasure from my hobby and I am well pleased with the skills I have developed. But I will not ruin this by comparing my work with either the naturally gifted or the full time proffessionals. I respect what they do and I try to learn from it, but that is all. For people like me, the bit of a leg up that the use of some tricks and jigs give is very welcome.

[IanW]

It's a trade-off between how much time you're prepared to allocate to acquiring any particular skill, how much you can tolerate fussing about setting jigs, or how anal you are about exact angles. Chook, hand-sharpening is simply far less faffing about as far as I'm concerned. I'm more product-oriented than a process person, I suppose, I get very little Zen out of preparing tools for work. Like Luke, I'm happier using the blade for it's real job. But it's a personal choice, and it really doesn't matter how you get your tools sharp when you are not earning your living with them.

I guess it's no accident that in many trades, apprentices were shown how to sharpen tools from day one, and made to stick at it until they could deliver a result that satisfied their seniors. As with any skill, some get it quickly, others take a while. Rod has hit on my big weakness - twist drills! Despite years of sporadic attempts, I simply cannot get them right. I've watched numerous skilled hands as their owners showed me how easy it is, just pffft, pffft, done! But it remains a hit & miss affair for me. Given the number of drills I need to sharpen, I decided I was never going to get enough practice to do it properly by attempting to sharpen them as required. I contemplated buying a couple of cheap sets and grinding them away til I got it, but eventually decided on the coward's way out. I went out & bought a 'lectric drill sharpener. There is a learning curve with these, too, but after a few screw-ups, I can now consistently produce a drill that starts true & cuts cleanly! We all have our Achilles heel.

Cheers,

[Bushmiller]

The thing about a sharpening jig to my mind is that it saves your sharpening stones. I look at it that I became lazy and went freehand. After the third time I dug a chisel into the stone (probably not concentrating enough) and took out a gouge I went back to the sharpening jig.

The stones are much too valuable to risk in that way.

Regards
Paul

[Evanism]

Good to read over the thread. Being quick, these are my thoughts...

-- the Japanese apprentice will focus on the base skills until they are perfected. Sharpening, sawing and marking out. Practice until it become muscle memory. I agree with this.

-- Who can't grab their stones and do a single chisel at the kitchen sink each night? Really? Can't find 10 minutes a night to practice?.... 10 minutes a night on your oldest mankiest chisel... After one month I'd wager it will be your best.

-- more on that point, if you create great skill by entirely sharpening a "good" chisel or plane blade into a nub, is it "wasted"?

-- like everyone, I bought the Veritas honing jig. Nothing wrong with it, but it lets me use only 1/3rd of the stone. Those little 2" movements are too small. Free handing in big figure 8's provide 12" or 14" of grinding per pass.

-- pushing down on the bevel with your forefinger will keep the rocking down. The back hand is only for support, not fine control.

-- stand. Get the posture right.

-- Focus. Think and watch. If you are rocking, don't. Stop. Just don't.

[Robson Valley]

I like to think that I'm competent to free-hand sharpen all of my wood carving tools, straight edges or sweeps,
crooked knives and adzes. Bevel angles from 6 degrees to 30. Flat stones, flat papers, tubular abrasives = they all work OK.
I do lathe turning tools, draw knives and carving tools for other people.

However, if I needed to tune up many straight edges, I'd buy a jig, as somebody pointed out, for the sake of consistency.

I do several things in my freehand process which seem to help:
1. Paint the bevel with black felt marker so I can see immediately what's happening. Maybe after each abrasive.
2. Make up "angle cards" which will stand by the abrasive. My ability to estimate angles is far too poor.
3. Stand up. Hold my forearms firmly against my sides. Elevate the tool to match the card.
4. Pull strokes only. The gouge sweeps get rolled from one corner to the other.
5. At the end of each pass, STOP and lift the tool straight up. If I "swept" it up off the abrasive, there goes my required bevel angle.

I examine the edge in a bright light, looking for evidence of reflections which imply that the edge has been crumpled.
Sometimes I see that as distinct scratches, working in dark wood.
I find 600 is the abrasive to start with to cut back the damage. Then 1,000, then 4000 then hone with CrOx/AlOx on a hard strop.
A soft strop will kill your edge. Pressing down, the strop compresses only to rebound right at the very edge you want.
Box card, masking tape, any hard flat surface, no more than 6-8 passes.
Test in the wood I'm carving. I don't carve fingers and thumbs, I don't shave my arms = I'm not carving soft protein.

If there's any "practice" involved, it's to get even just one single edge to perform properly.

Maybe this helps nobody at all. For me in the past 15(?) years, it's been satisfying to get it right, every time.

[D.W.]

100% freehand. Oddly, the thing that converted me over to 100% freehand was probably using those specialty irons and such that just seem a pain to jig up. All of the various skews, etc, it seems two things happen when dedicated to jigs:
1) it takes a lot of time and money and thought to figure out how to jig something up
2) I found myself deciding not to use given tools (skew rabbets, etc) as much because it was easier to sharpen a square rabbet tool, etc, that kind of stuff.

And then what do you do for something like a stanley 79? or a chisel that is way out of perfect in terms of its cross section (as in practically trapezium). And curved irons...and whatever else.

And the speed of freehanding just knocks it over the top.

AS far as the picky things like skews and small irons and such, I always take a look at them in the plane just before I rehone them. If the plane is in current use, the iron must be close to where it needs to be, and a quick eyeball tells where to bias the next honing.

The other part of this equation of always keeping things just in shape is learning to hone and use tools such that they don't nick in use, and instead fail just by wear. That's an important part.

I did like the eclipse guide when sharpening with a jig when a jig is the way I went.

But the freehanding just opens up sharpening more things. Curved, skewed, knives, axes, scissors, etc. Eventually you get mental fatigue trying to come up with jigging to sharpen those different things when you really just want to take them to the stones and refresh them quickly.

[auscab]

The only plane blade I freehand sharpen is on a scrub plane. It has a radiused bevel and it is not worth the effort to buy a jig to sharpen it. I don't use it much anyway and I don't have to fiddle about sharpening it all that often.


But there is is a more fundamental issue here. Many woodworkers are, like me, part time hobbyists who get into the shed whenever we can.

Don't tell me they sell jigs for a radiused bevel as well Chook .


There is plenty more planes that need a radius on many peoples benches other than a scrub .

And yes I get the part time hobbyist bit . Your right there . and you can spend your time however you like of course, and if it's getting what you can from a jig then that's good.

I just think there are many ways the hobbyist can be led and milked for a buck and that's one of them .

Were all learning forever though, I have made choices that cost me .
21 years ago I bought a leigh dovetail jig , used it twice and then shelved it .
And the electric blade measuring thing I got bagged for here Im still trying to figure a use for it , its a bit of fun though , I wast time with it .

I was shown this, Some jigs and other gizmos would fit nicely into a verse in this song we could all sing along to .
Thanks Pete

Rob

[derekcohen]

As for plane blades the bevel is so narrow that it is just easier to set the angle with a jig.

Hi Chook

Narrow blades are pretty easy to freehand if (1) you first hollow grind, and (2) use a side-to-side honing method.

Here it is demonstrated with a thick HNT Gordon blade, but the process is no different for a skinny Stanley ...



Regards from Perth

Derek

[LanceC]

Derek, noting your comments about the hollow ground providing it's own guide, and your photos above...

Are you rubbing the "top" of the hollow grind as well as the tip? Does it not wear down with time? If my assumption is correct as to what you're doing, I will certainly give it a try, as it looks achievable for a beginner such as myself!

I'll go back and look around your web site as you may have an article explaining this that I missed. If you don't, it would be a good addition.

[derekcohen]

Derek, noting your comments about the hollow ground providing it's own guide, and your photos above...

Are you rubbing the "top" of the hollow grind as well as the tip? Does it not wear down with time? If my assumption is correct as to what you're doing, I will certainly give it a try, as it looks achievable for a beginner such as myself!

I'll go back and look around your web site as you may have an article explaining this that I missed. If you don't, it would be a good addition.

Yes, the bevel is balanced on the two sides of the hollow. This is like sliding the edge along a track. Both sides wear.

I do extreme hollows (because I have the equipment to do so), but most will hollow to about 2 or 3mm from the bevel to avoid heat build up at the thin edge. The advantage I have is that there is less steel to hone (= quicker and less critical of the honing media) and the hollow will last a longer time (much, much longer). Here is a 1" wide chisel hollow ground at 30 degrees using a CBM wheel, then honed on a Medium and Ultra Fine Spyderco ...



What you are looking for here is the glint of the polished steel at either side of the hollow, which is where the bevel balanced on the stones.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[LanceC]

Ta Derek.
The breakthrough for me was realizing how you balance on both edges and hone sideways.

[Twisted Tenon]

Firstly speed is never a requirement for me in the shed. If I want timelines and speed I can go to work.

But there is is a more fundamental issue here. Many woodworkers are, like me, part time hobbyists who get into the shed whenever we can. We would like to be able to spend time every day playing with the tools but until somebody starts paying our bills for us we have to work. Some weeks I am am lucky to get into the shed at all. Other times I have long uninterrupted days. I once heard Peter Sellers say that all we had to do was spend two hours a day developing our skills and we could be craftsmen. Two hours a day! Dream on. My woodworking is always a compromise between the time I have, the skills I possess and the goals and standards I aim for. If a jig or a shortcut helps me then I will use it. I get boundless pleasure from my hobby and I am well pleased with the skills I have developed. But I will not ruin this by comparing my work with either the naturally gifted or the full time proffessionals. I respect what they do and I try to learn from it, but that is all. For people like me, the bit of a leg up that the use of some tricks and jigs give is very welcome.

Hear hear!!!

TT

[Godfrey]

This has been a very interesting thread. I think that the only thing that matters is whether you are happy to use the method you choose. I started with a honing guide which I still use, but I also use some of Derek's freehand methods. I think you should strive to get the best results you can using your chosen method.

[derekcohen]

Originally Posted by chook

Firstly speed is never a requirement for me in the shed. If I want timelines and speed I can go to work.

But there is is a more fundamental issue here. Many woodworkers are, like me, part time hobbyists who get into the shed whenever we can. We would like to be able to spend time every day playing with the tools but until somebody starts paying our bills for us we have to work. Some weeks I am am lucky to get into the shed at all. Other times I have long uninterrupted days. I once heard Peter Sellers say that all we had to do was spend two hours a day developing our skills and we could be craftsmen. Two hours a day! Dream on. My woodworking is always a compromise between the time I have, the skills I possess and the goals and standards I aim for. If a jig or a shortcut helps me then I will use it. I get boundless pleasure from my hobby and I am well pleased with the skills I have developed. But I will not ruin this by comparing my work with either the naturally gifted or the full time proffessionals. I respect what they do and I try to learn from it, but that is all. For people like me, the bit of a leg up that the use of some tricks and jigs give is very welcome.

This is no different for most of us. I run a full time practice, somewhere around 80 hours each week. I get into the shed on weekends only. And then the amount of time there depends on whether "arrangements" have been made for me or not

Getting good at something is not just about how much time you spend on practicing. It is a mind set. You have to be ready to cock it up. You have to push yourself. Playing safe, and using excuses to do so, will not move one on.

I do not get to saw dovetails all day long. It may be months before I need to do so. But when I do, I do a little visualisation for practice, and then saw to the line as though that is expected. If I am "naturally gifted", it is not at being perfect in my efforts. It is for being good at correcting my cock ups. I've had plenty of practice at that!

Just go for it.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[D.W.]

I agree with derek on the time. It's not a matter of meeting Paul Sellers' bar, it's a matter of desire, and one of the things I have no desire to do is take a long time sharpening things, fiddling with jigs, finding jigs, etc, or letting them dictate what tools I'm going to use.

In every case, the tool will tell you how it likes to be sharpened, you don't need a separate set of jig instructions to sharpen a blade independent of the tool itself (as in, you get far more information from the tool and whether a blade may be cutting too heavy left or right - in a plane where that kind of thing matters -like a skew rebate. Far more information from that than you'd get from a spec sheet).

I do slightly different than derek, but the result is probably the same time wise. I grind the primary and I lift the handle a little from that when honing. When I'm working too big of an area, I regrind. using that method makes it very easy to adjust an edge left or right, or to do a light bit of honing on a narrow blade without threatening its squareness.

When I started, I used a jig because I had to, but purely because of the limited time, I wanted to get away from them - looking for them, cleaning rust off of a wheel, flattening stones because the jig didn't make it convenient to use the whole surface, etc.

Lastly, in all things, sink or swim is a good way to do it if you just can't get it with an incremental method. If you ban yourself from using jigs, you'll learn to sharpen acceptably freehand pretty quickly, even if shop time is limited. You won't have a choice to do anything else.