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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
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    Townsville, Nth Qld
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    Default Honing chisels on MDF

    Hello, I have tried to hone chisels with the green cutting / polishing compound rubbed on to MDF. The compound is like hard crayon, but leaves a bumpy and uneven distribution when rubbed on the MDF. What is the best way to apply this to the board? I should imaging the end result should be dead smooth coating and embedded into the MDF surface a bit.

    Also, the green turns black fairly quickly after being rubbed by chisels and plane blades. Does anyone know the cause of this, and how to avoid it please?

    All ideas and suggestions are most welcome
    regards,

    Dengy

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  3. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    blue mountains
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    It will smooth out with use. The black is the steel coming off the blade you do not avoid it. You are not doing anything wrong thats just how it works.
    Regards
    John
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  4. #3
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Location
    Townsville. Tropical Nth Qld.
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    1,243

    Default

    Or you could come around to my place and have a look at my home made leather strop on my Tormek, using red cutting compound.
    Rgds,
    Crocy.

  5. #4
    Join Date
    Apr 2001
    Location
    Perth
    Posts
    10,810

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Dengue View Post
    Hello, I have tried to hone chisels with the green cutting / polishing compound rubbed on to MDF. The compound is like hard crayon, but leaves a bumpy and uneven distribution when rubbed on the MDF. What is the best way to apply this to the board? I should imaging the end result should be dead smooth coating and embedded into the MDF surface a bit.

    Also, the green turns black fairly quickly after being rubbed by chisels and plane blades. Does anyone know the cause of this, and how to avoid it please?

    All ideas and suggestions are most welcome
    Add a few drops of baby oil (= mineral oil). This will dissolve the compound and spread it.

    See: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Woodwor...mondpaste.html

    By the way, I prefer planed hardwood instead of MDF.

    Regards from Perth

    Derek
    Visit www.inthewoodshop.com for tutorials on constructing handtools, handtool reviews, and my trials and tribulations with furniture builds.

  6. #5
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    McBride BC Canada
    Posts
    3,543

    Default

    >The green of the Chromium Oxide turns black with the finely divided metal particles that are scratched off your tool.
    Just because it's black does not mean that the honing compound is exhausted quite yet.
    > Don't scribble so much on that it goes crusty. Not necessary. The vehicle in the stick is some sort of waxy substance.
    Therefore, warm the stick up in your shirt pocket (or arm pit in my winter shop) and it will spread more easily.
    I would not use any sort of a lubricant as friction and cutting power are the needed concepts.
    > I've never used MDF for a strop. Plate glass, laminate flooring, stone kitchen counter-top off-cuts, those kinds of rubbish.
    Next, I use masking tape to secure a strip of cereal box card, file folder, etc as my strop.
    I scribble CrOx all over that = good enough. Simple. Economical. Easily replaced in a matter of seconds.
    = = =
    I carve with the crooked knives and adzes which are the common carving tools up here in the Pacific Northwest.
    Most of my strops are dowels or pipe with file cards wrapped around them, loaded with CrOx/AlOx.

    The full sized Stubai wood carver's adze is a 7/75 sweep (#7 sweep and 3" wide). Cupped.
    My strop is a tennis ball scrubbed with CrOx. Really no choice.
    If you are beginning to imagine that I do all the sharpening free-hand, you're right, I do.

    Hindsight tells me that you spend a long time in the shop, putzing around with strops and compounds until you arrive
    at a set-up that is fast and effective to give you an edge you are happy with.

  7. #6
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Location
    Kew, Vic
    Posts
    1,064

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    Hi Dengue,

    Just been rewatching a Youtube video of Paul Sellers sharpening chisels. For the final honing he puts his honing compound on an old piece of pallet wood!

    Keep safe,

    Brian

  8. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2016
    Location
    Canberra
    Posts
    5,124

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Robson Valley View Post
    The vehicle in the stick is some sort of waxy substance.
    Therefore, warm the stick up in your shirt pocket (or arm pit in my winter shop)
    and it will spread more easily.
    Mandatory HHGTTG quote!

    Vogon Poetry! Ode to a lump of green putty I found in my armpit one fine summer morning....

    YouTube

  9. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2016
    Location
    Canberra
    Posts
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    Quote Originally Posted by derekcohen View Post
    Add a few drops of baby oil (= mineral oil). This will dissolve the compound and spread it.

    See: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Woodwor...mondpaste.html
    I'm wondering, with the strop and green stick, can one leave the blade IN the plane and simply draw it backward, body and all, over the strop? .... not removing it and giving the blade a bit of a touch up between work?

  10. #9
    Join Date
    Apr 2001
    Location
    Perth
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    10,810

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    Quote Originally Posted by woodPixel View Post
    I'm wondering, with the strop and green stick, can one leave the blade IN the plane and simply draw it backward, body and all, over the strop? .... not removing it and giving the blade a bit of a touch up between work?
    Evan, you try that and tell us how it works out for you

    Regards from Perth

    Derek
    Visit www.inthewoodshop.com for tutorials on constructing handtools, handtool reviews, and my trials and tribulations with furniture builds.

  11. #10
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    McBride BC Canada
    Posts
    3,543

    Default

    I'll say take the blades out to sharpen/hone them. The only long straight edges that I use very much are spoke shaves and a draw knife.
    I need to repeat the total included bevel angle and that means a naked blade.
    I have a wooden paint stick with a bolt as a handle for the little spoke shave blades. Simplifies the accuracy.
    There isn't enough of the blade sticking out, even in a Stanley Bailey #5, to work on the bevel.

    Strops. Sure, just about anything flat and hard will do.
    In medieval times, the only common substance that was flat was leather. So they used it. We can move on.

  12. #11
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    SE Melb
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    64
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    1,277

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by woodPixel View Post
    I'm wondering, with the strop and green stick, can one leave the blade IN the plane and simply draw it backward, body and all, over the strop? .... not removing it and giving the blade a bit of a touch up between work?
    The relief angle of the plane will be effectively zero. The plane wouldn't be much good for planing as it will just glide along and not cut into the timber, but will probably be suitable for flush trimming protruding dowels.

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