kman-oz
29th October 2008, 10:18 PM
It's been a couple of years since I started woodworking for fun, well, if initial frustration followed by varying degrees of success if fun :) Anyway, I thought I'd put my experience out there for any other beginners looking for sharpening info.
I started sharpening my first plane and chisels using a fairly agricultural honing guide and a Coarse/Fine oil stone. This was enough to get tools sharp enough to work, but the edge didn't last and I couldn't fathom why the results were inconsistent.
Moving along, I though that sanding paper stuck to a section of an old kitchen bench top would make a good sharpening system, with the advantage of being cheap and offering a virtually limitless range of grits. I later learned that this was old hat, and it even had a name :D Still the results weren't consistent, even when I moved to a nice piece of float glass.
I eventually invested in a Veritas MkII Honing Guide and some King water stones, 300, 1200, 4000 and 6000. This was a revolution; fast, sharp and consistent. However, the softness of these stones meant they needed flattening every time they were used. Not a big deal I thought, so I built a sharpening station to make the job easily.... if no less messy. Now we're getting somewhere! I also managed to pick up a cheap 6" grinder and a Norton 80 Grit white wheel, this made chisel sharpening a *lot* quicker.
Following the acquisition of some lovely D2 plane irons I found myself becoming increasingly irritated at the length of time required to sharpen them. Looking for a cheap option I decided to investigate diamond pastes. Surprisingly, though capable of a better edge that I had previously experienced, these didn't offer a solution for removing material quickly. The diamond pastes excelled at extremely fine edge honing, not fast mass removal of material.
Up to this point I'd probably spent perhaps $400 on sharpening gear. Of this I was only 100% happy with the Veritas guide and the grinder, the rest represented various degrees of compromise. The fine diamond pastes will stay, but the coarse grits weren't much use and the stones were getting a bit irritating.
To the present: I decided I had the money to get serious about this and find the *best* solutions to the two big problems I now faced;
1) Removing material in a hurry without hollow grinding
2) a repeatable, predictable honing solution that that wasn't so messy and didn't require lots of time spent on maintenance (like flattening water stones)
Research told me that the answer was either DMT diamond plates, or Shapton Pro series water stones. I'd seen the x-coarse diamond plate in action and was confident that it could remove the bulk I wanted in a hurry, this was a given, but the Shapton's I wasn't sure about. A friend had a 1000 grit Shapton which I tried out, to my surprise this had all the qualities of a water stone without the shortcomings I'd come to expect. It cut fast, didn't required flattening every time and the only mess it produced was water infused with steel particles. No clay muck to be found! OK, now what?
Well, of course, the solution is to get both! So I purchased a DMT 10" DuoSharp (325/600 grit) followed by 2000 and 5000 grit Shapton stones. I knew the DMT's would be good for bulk removal, but there were some reports that the 8000 grit diamond plates weren't much chop. On the other hand, my experience with lower grit water stones showed that they wear out considerably faster and dish more easily. I thought I was on a winner with this combo, and I wasn't wrong. Last of all I found a bit of Granite bench top cut-out and bought some 100 and 220 grit Silicone Carbide powders which I now use for flattening the Shapton's.
End result? I know a lot more about sharpening hand tools than I thought I'd need to, and I now have a sharpening system far superior to anything I'd used before it. Maybe you could go for an x-fine DMT plate, or an x-coarse for flattening your stones, but the only thing I'd add to this now is a higher grit Shapton. Nothing else is really necessary. In fact, anything higher than a 5000 grit seems a bit excessive to be honest.
My advice to a novice looking to get setup with the right sharpening gear the first time would be this:
- DMT coarse/fine 10" DuoSharp
- 2000 and 5000 grit Shapton Pro series water stones
- Veritas MkII honing guide
- flat granite plate (float glass works at a pinch)
- 100 and 220 grit Silicone carbide powders
- 6" grinder with a Norton white wheel in either 46 or 60 grit (80 grit is a little too high I think)
- home made tool rest for the grinder
- small sharpening station dedicated to the purpose (it's so easy to wander over and give a tool a quick once over)
All said and done this lot probably cost me ~$500 (not including the stuff I no longer use), but you can't put a price on sharp tools. The DMT and Shapton gear is fast and not messy at all compared to conventional water stones. The grinder is indispensable for hollow grinding chisels and big plane irons. The Veritas is an absolute must for reproducing a consistent edge, every time. Anything else, in my opinion, is second rate.
If anyone has any better solutions, I'm all ears. For me, this lot is the absolute best. Thus endeth my 2c.
Dave.
I started sharpening my first plane and chisels using a fairly agricultural honing guide and a Coarse/Fine oil stone. This was enough to get tools sharp enough to work, but the edge didn't last and I couldn't fathom why the results were inconsistent.
Moving along, I though that sanding paper stuck to a section of an old kitchen bench top would make a good sharpening system, with the advantage of being cheap and offering a virtually limitless range of grits. I later learned that this was old hat, and it even had a name :D Still the results weren't consistent, even when I moved to a nice piece of float glass.
I eventually invested in a Veritas MkII Honing Guide and some King water stones, 300, 1200, 4000 and 6000. This was a revolution; fast, sharp and consistent. However, the softness of these stones meant they needed flattening every time they were used. Not a big deal I thought, so I built a sharpening station to make the job easily.... if no less messy. Now we're getting somewhere! I also managed to pick up a cheap 6" grinder and a Norton 80 Grit white wheel, this made chisel sharpening a *lot* quicker.
Following the acquisition of some lovely D2 plane irons I found myself becoming increasingly irritated at the length of time required to sharpen them. Looking for a cheap option I decided to investigate diamond pastes. Surprisingly, though capable of a better edge that I had previously experienced, these didn't offer a solution for removing material quickly. The diamond pastes excelled at extremely fine edge honing, not fast mass removal of material.
Up to this point I'd probably spent perhaps $400 on sharpening gear. Of this I was only 100% happy with the Veritas guide and the grinder, the rest represented various degrees of compromise. The fine diamond pastes will stay, but the coarse grits weren't much use and the stones were getting a bit irritating.
To the present: I decided I had the money to get serious about this and find the *best* solutions to the two big problems I now faced;
1) Removing material in a hurry without hollow grinding
2) a repeatable, predictable honing solution that that wasn't so messy and didn't require lots of time spent on maintenance (like flattening water stones)
Research told me that the answer was either DMT diamond plates, or Shapton Pro series water stones. I'd seen the x-coarse diamond plate in action and was confident that it could remove the bulk I wanted in a hurry, this was a given, but the Shapton's I wasn't sure about. A friend had a 1000 grit Shapton which I tried out, to my surprise this had all the qualities of a water stone without the shortcomings I'd come to expect. It cut fast, didn't required flattening every time and the only mess it produced was water infused with steel particles. No clay muck to be found! OK, now what?
Well, of course, the solution is to get both! So I purchased a DMT 10" DuoSharp (325/600 grit) followed by 2000 and 5000 grit Shapton stones. I knew the DMT's would be good for bulk removal, but there were some reports that the 8000 grit diamond plates weren't much chop. On the other hand, my experience with lower grit water stones showed that they wear out considerably faster and dish more easily. I thought I was on a winner with this combo, and I wasn't wrong. Last of all I found a bit of Granite bench top cut-out and bought some 100 and 220 grit Silicone Carbide powders which I now use for flattening the Shapton's.
End result? I know a lot more about sharpening hand tools than I thought I'd need to, and I now have a sharpening system far superior to anything I'd used before it. Maybe you could go for an x-fine DMT plate, or an x-coarse for flattening your stones, but the only thing I'd add to this now is a higher grit Shapton. Nothing else is really necessary. In fact, anything higher than a 5000 grit seems a bit excessive to be honest.
My advice to a novice looking to get setup with the right sharpening gear the first time would be this:
- DMT coarse/fine 10" DuoSharp
- 2000 and 5000 grit Shapton Pro series water stones
- Veritas MkII honing guide
- flat granite plate (float glass works at a pinch)
- 100 and 220 grit Silicone carbide powders
- 6" grinder with a Norton white wheel in either 46 or 60 grit (80 grit is a little too high I think)
- home made tool rest for the grinder
- small sharpening station dedicated to the purpose (it's so easy to wander over and give a tool a quick once over)
All said and done this lot probably cost me ~$500 (not including the stuff I no longer use), but you can't put a price on sharp tools. The DMT and Shapton gear is fast and not messy at all compared to conventional water stones. The grinder is indispensable for hollow grinding chisels and big plane irons. The Veritas is an absolute must for reproducing a consistent edge, every time. Anything else, in my opinion, is second rate.
If anyone has any better solutions, I'm all ears. For me, this lot is the absolute best. Thus endeth my 2c.
Dave.