Thread: Is this adequate for sharpening

Hi Jay. Is the diamond plate 50mm wide or 75mm? 50mm is fine for chisels but will be harder to use for plane blades. Dont buy a strop, make one. I used a piece of 16mm mdf and some scrap leather I got from Ebay (less than $10) and some Veritas green buffing compound (cheaper stuff is available at Bunnings). Paul Sellars has a good video on making them

I use wet dry black sandpaper on a granite surface plate. Razor sharp tools sharpening this way. If light reflects from the "sharpened edge" it is dull.

I was thinking of getting the 50mm wide plate as the extra 25mm in width raises the price by $60. In saying that, I have a number 4 plane and the blade is basically right on 50mm wide so I might have to get the wider plate...

Will I need a strop before I use my chisels/planes? Or are they a nice to have.

Is this what you're describing?

Looking for a link describing the process, but I might not be searching the right thing. What grits do you use?

Head to bunnings and get a small thick glass shelf. (Very flat). A few sheets of wet and dry and you can sharpen your chisels and plane blades. Depending on how rough your tools are to start with start with, get some 180, 400 and some 800 grit. Make a strop from an old belt (op shop) and some cutting compound. That will see you right to get started and for WAY less than the cost of a single diamond plate. A cheapie eclipse style guide modified with a file (look it up on youtube) will help you to keep your angles when you are starting out.

Spend the money you save on some nice timber or more tools. .

There are lots of youtube videos on this method. Search "Scary sharp".


Mick.

What they said. In the long term wet and dry is more expensive but in the short term it gets you going, is easily accessible and your skills evolve so quickly I wouldn’t lock yourself into a system too early. You can skip the glass for anything flat but the paper doesn’t stick as well. Also look up the unicorn method here and on YouTube by David Weaver. Incredible results for such a basic set up

Hi, and welcome to the forum!

I do sharpening demo's at a couple of guilds; for my cheap "out-the-box" setup I use this 400/1000 grit diamond stone from Aliexpress. It's big and solid (60mm wide by 180mm long & 8mm thick) and very slowly wears down to finer grits. I couple it with a genuine Eclipse 36 jig; these come up for fairly regularly but don't pay more than $25 for one. The one you linked to is a modern copy; these are also available from Bunnings under the Trojan brand; Trade Tools under the Renegade brand and Ebay under Generic Made In China brands. Their QA can be hit or miss; but if you understand how they work even the most atrocious Chines abomination can be fixed with judicious filing.

So; that stone and a shop bought jig will have you sharpening for about $60; straight out of the box. It will give you working edges on all your blades but you can further improve on them by moving on to fine emery paper and then stropping on a piece of MDF loaded with a metal polish like Solvol Autosol. Thick float glass plate for the emery is good... but you can achieve good short-term results on ordinary plate glass, glossy floor tiles and melamine coated chipboard. The trick is to hold them under light and look for a reflected images; if the reflection remains clear and undistorted no matter how you angle and turn the piece it'll likely be flat enough.

If you have a granite benchtop supplier in your area pop round and see if they'll give you an offcut from a kitchen sink cut-out or a broken piece of bench. They usually have to pay to have these taken away so they'll likely thank you for taking them. You can cut them with a diamond saw if you need to (observing precautions against silica dust inhalation!).

This is just the start... sharp is a moving target. Start simple as above and learn how to use the gear to it's best advantage. Afterwards you may move onto more expensive jigs like the Veritas Mk II (a beauty; I own 3 set ups), powered setups like Sorby Pro-Edge, Worksharp or Tormek; or simply a bench grinder and premium waterstones for freehand sharpening. There are many ways to skin a cat...

There's no good reason to need to use leather for a strop.
A thousand years ago, it was the only smooth and flat surface there was.

Now, an offcut of float glass or a bit of polished stone counter top is fine.
Tape a FLAT piece of cereal box/crisp box/etc to this ground and scribble CrOx/AlOx all over it.
Ready to go. Inexpensive and easily replaced.
I run from 800 up to 1500 silicon carbide grits if a wood carving edge really does need work (draw knife, adzes and so on).

1/2 or even 1/3 of a sheet will give you lots of elbow room for wide edges like plane blades.

You can get those EZE-LAP plates a fair bit cheaper (about $90) on Amazon.com.au - they will take a while to arrive as they come from the US.
Sign up for Amazon prime to get the free shipping (and then cancel the prime membership later if you don't want it).

I have the 250/600 and the 400/1200 and they've been good, slow but they work.

Hope this helps, Jeff

Originally Posted by Chief Tiff

There are many ways to skin a cat...

And, more than one type of cat to skin...

The above is all sound advice, but also keep in mind while deciding on a starting point for sharpening your workshop hand tools that there are other blades/edges that many of us also sharpen. Some methods that are very good for sharpening some hand tools/edges may not be quite as good, or impossible, for sharpening other blades/cutting edges, and there is no one method that works well (or at all) for all of them.

I do lot of sharpening and here is a quick list (to labour the point) of the blades/edges that I regularly work on and a few less frequently...

• Woodturning tool - almost every day
• Kitchen knives - regularly, most are top end hand forged J-knives
• Circular/bandsaw/thicknesser blades - a constant task for local Men's Shed
• Chain saws - 6 chainsaws with a dozen chains
• Router bits - occasionally for local Men's Shed
• Hand saws - micro through to 2-person - quite a regular task
• Drill bits - from time to time
• Axes/Adz - occasionally
• Secateurs/loppers/digging tools - occasionally
• Plane blades - rarely nowadays
• Chisel blades - rarely nowadays
• Hand carving tools - It's been quite awhile
• Scissors - yes, Dear, I'll do that for you when I can

No one or two sharpening methods can do all of that, but the setup for some purposes can be used for other sharpening tasks. So, keep in mind your other sharpening tasks when making decisions about kitting yourself up for a particular sharpening tasks or you might end up like me with almost more sharpening gear than tools...

For example...

The CBN & diamond wheels I use for sharpening my woodturning tools can also be used for rehabbing badly treated kitchen knives that are returned to me to 'fix' (before going onto waterstones) and also for sharpening various other household and garden tools, as well as drill bits, thicknesser blades and setting chisel and plane blade angles. The rag wheel on my bench grinder can be used to buff various blades (as in the unicorn method).

The waterstones that I sharpen my plane and chisel blades on can also sharpen my kitchen knives (actually it's the other way round for me), but they are of no value in my woodturning workshop.

The grinder that I sharpen TC circular saw blades with does that job well but nothing else!

But, the thin diamond plates that I find good for: sharpening router bits, touching up the edges on some woodturning tools at the lathe between re-sharpenings, and having in my pocket to resharpening my firewood handsaws while I'm out using them, are also quite satisfactory for putting an initial edge on many other workshop tools and household implements. The grits go up to at least #3,000 and, unlike some thick diamond plates, the thin Chinese ones are a relatively cheap entry point to sharpening. Some comments on these from one of our sharpening gurus, Derek Cohen, here.

Anyway, you get the drift of what I'm on about.

Thanks all,

Some really good advice here. I'm going down the sandpaper road - really appreciate the advice in this thread

Jay

Hi Jay,

I have been sharpening hand tools for about 65 years, as a practicing carpenter and joiner. My experience has been that a bench grinder, 150mm or 200mm is satisfactory, with a 60# white aluminium oxide wheel for high speed steel or the normal blue stone for carbon steel tools. That is used for shaping and removing nicks in the cutting edges.
For sharpening I use a Japanese water stone about 800# for general use. I prefer waters stones to oil stones because oil stains wood rather badly. I am essentially a no frills person that doesn't like spending too much time and money unnecessarily.
As NeilS said, sharpening methods will vary according to you needs and aspirations. Some people make a science out of the sharpening tools, to each his own.

Jim

Originally Posted by jaymcguinness

Thanks all,

Some really good advice here. I'm going down the sandpaper road - really appreciate the advice in this thread

Jay

Inspect new or used cutters.
A few new cutters have machining rough and grinding marks. I flatten and polish the back of chisels and plane irons first. These machining marks may if deep enough become the toothy edge as the bevel is sharpened. Next hone the bevel.
If the magnified cutting edge of the chisel or plane iron looks and feels like very tiny fine hacksaw teeth or is damaged from rough use. Joint the cutting edge smooth and accurate with an extra fine hand file or inexpensive diamond stone. Don't be too aggressive it usually takes one or two strokes to remove the toothy edge.
Depending on the cutting edge damage or roughness removed you will now see 1/64", 1/32" sometimes 1/16" strip of reflected light after jointing the edge.
Next hone and establish the bevel angle using wet dry sandpaper grits until the bevel angle reaches the corrected jointed cutting edge. The little strip of light will be eventually gone as it becomes razor sharp.
Discover your favorite grits.
My most used grits are 600, 800, 1000 and 2000 grit to reach a mirror finish.
Note. Not corrected cutters with mini teeth will grab most wood grain and fiber this generally stops the cutter in its tracks making the cutter perform poor and undesirable to use.

Originally Posted by jaymcguinness

Thanks all,

Some really good advice here. I'm going down the sandpaper road - really appreciate the advice in this thread

Jay

Hi Jay,
The sandpaper road is a good move! Simple and inexpensive. It will also give you a sort of tactile feeling for the grits you'll be using!
It started me on the free-hand sharpening path

Just give it a good try and stick with this method for a while. Your first tool won't be the sharpest but you will soon figure out what sharp is.
And another thing, stop reading about sharpening! It will only confuse and distract you and while practicing. The light will soon appear!!

Cheers,
Yvan