Thread: A Sharpening simplicity breakthrough?? Comments from the wise heads please

PLANE SOLE FLATTENING:
Armed with my newly acquired SiC grits, plastic covers and granite block I thought I was going to eat the sole, albeit slowly. Well I was right about that – it is SLOOOOWWWWwww. All I got to eat was my hat. I had a pretty good rhythm going and was able to build some quite accurate high speed figure 8s. But keee-rist it’s so slow! Even with 46 grit (which tended to tear the plastics sheets anyway). Of course, all the time I had the memory of using abrasives strips on granite bobbing around in my head, and how much quicker I remembered that to be.:thinks: I also had some of the worst abrasive paper I have ever purchased (the yellow Norton roll which I think is for Painters – 80g is “Medium”, and 120g is “Fine”!!). I had previously found that it couldn’t be bent without cracking, and wore out in no time at all.

RIGHT! Bugger the grits, let’s go back to the memory and see what happens. So I stuck down a strip of this useless yellow crap, and damn me if it didn’t take off more cast iron in the first few strokes (back and forth only) than all of the previous hour’s worth of grits combined. This was not a revelation, but a vindication of what I remembered to be the case. The paper did still wear out very quickly, but at least it gave me the opportunity to use it up on a task that it was actually capable of.

When I’d exhausted the supply of yellow 80g I then switched over to 300 x 500mm sheets of 80g Colour Coded Grit, and as expected this was much more durable, although it still loses it’s initial edge pretty quickly (esp under the sole of a 70mm wide plane body such as the Stanley #4½). I didn’t keep track, but I would estimate that the sole took about an hour or so to flatten with this method (remembering that it was way out). I also did the sides of the plane body, and this was much easier because of the smaller surface area, and even when the abrasive sheet was apparently “spent” for the sole there was still plenty of grunt left in it for the sides, and also the next sole I tackled – a Record #3 which was in much better condition and didn’t take more than about 15-20 minutes.

It is imperative to wear a face mask during this process if you wish to avoid black snot. I also used a cordless vac (best invention ever) to remove the swarf periodically from the abrasive sheet. This also allows for the remaining cutting power of the sheet to be gauged upon resumption – if you’re getting more swarf then there’s still life in the abrasive.



When I was about half way through the #4½ sole I took it to the Sydney Show to get Jim Davey’s opinion. When I’ve done as much as I can to the plane I intend to send it to Jim with a new Harold & Saxon HSS M2 blade and let him perform whatever magic he can. I fully expect to have increased backlash problems (4-5- revolutions already) because of the increased blade thickness (2.6mm) which will lead to depth adjuster problems. Anyway, Jim was of the opinion that I was on the right track with the flattening (but I didn’t venture my technique to him at that stage), and to “keep going”. Ern (rsser) also raised a potential concern about compression of the cloth leading to false flatness, but I believe that this is not the case (it passes the “light through the crack” test with a 1/1000” calibrated straightedge).

After I was satisfied that the sole was flat I went up to 120, 180, 400g CCG on granite and the surface was starting to look pretty damn good. I had been marking it out with a very thick blue permanent marker at various intervals. I suppose that most would say that my next step was overkill, but (because I could) I clamped the plane body in the vise and then using a Rotex 90 sander I went through 800, 1600, 2500 grits.

This product was Jost Abrasives (German) “SuperPad SG2” which has a 2mm sponge backing, and is known to be ridiculously durable. The sponge backing for flatness is not a concern at all because this is now only polishing and there is very little material removed, and so flatness won’t be affected in the least. Care was needed when traversing over the mouth as the abrasive pad can catch (a slight lift to step over and onto it so the middle of the disc was over the mouth). The finish is excellent, especially considering that this plane has quite obviously been very badly rusted sometime between after 1910 (the patent date) and now, as there is pitting all over the sole and elsewhere. I have not had the fortitude to remove all this pitting, but I may do that at some stage (I’m fresh out of course abrasive cloth now).



Pretty happy with that. This has been redone for the photo after a fair bit of use, and you can see a blemish (the start of rusty?) in the middle of the sole, but it has no effect. O’course the very first stroke on wood produced a nice scratch didn’t it? Upon advice from NCArcher & Pac Man (thanks Tony & Paul) who saw the plane at the show, I flattened the blade bed and the Chip Breaker (where it meets the blade) so as to get the best possible mating of the surfaces. A bit of G15 sprayed over the raw parts to prevent rust, re-assembled the plane, and ready for…..

I was almost done with the flattening when the shipment of HSS M2 blades from Harold & Saxon arrived. I particularly wanted to try these blades “out of the box” (i.e. with nil extra polishing or sharpening by me – literally unscrewed from its packaging, and dropped straight into the plane). I set the CB back about 0.5 – 1mm from the bevel edge, adjusted the blade straightness and depth and with some anticipation took my first swipe at a piece of Douglas Fir about 70mm wide.

WOW! I mean, just WOW!!! A full width shaving (60mm) and pretty bloody thin too (minor depth adjustment required). The surface left behind was immaculate. All good, so onto the dreaded Spotted Gum. Same result! YEEHAA! I’ve done it! I did get a little bit of tearout in one spot after a while, but that’s because of the inherent bevel/bed angle with Stanleys, and the fact that they weren’t particularly designed for Nasty Aussie Hardwoods (NAHs).







The only thing left for this plane now is to send it down to Jim and let him do his thing with it. I’m particularly keen to see what he can do about the (as I thought) increased backlash which is now a ridiculous 6-7 revs. This (I think) has been exacerbated by the increased blade thickness from the standard 2.2mm to Trent’s chatterless 2.6mm. There is still plenty of mouth (what else would you expect from me?), and the mouth appears to be straight and perpendicular (unlike me) but may need vertical shaping with a file and an expert hand – i.e. not mine.

I couldn’t wait to get on the blower to Trent and give him an earful of superlatives about his blade, He’s such a modest chap, and a fountain of information. He’s well aware of my recent entry to wwking and so knows that there is nil experience behind the comments, thoughts and theories, but is still quite chuffed all the same. For me this is one of the fantastic by-products of organising the things that I/we do – talking and conversing with the great toolmakers of the world is a major enlightenment and I am very fortunate indeed to experience it (we don’t always stick to business). Actually I have to say that it’s a blast!

I then emailed my results to Ern (which is when he queried the potential compression of the cloth). Also, he enquired after the flatness of the blade “as manufactured”, to which I responded that it passed the light crack & feeler gauge test, and furthermore, who gives a toss with shavings like these – it must be bloody close to perfect already! I was loathe to change the visual uniformity of the surface finish, but I convinced myself that I was just being an obsessive PITA, and that I should indeed find out just how flat it was. The only way to do that was to start polishing a surface that I would say is 40-50% polished already (and that’s not a criticism – by “polished” I do actually mean mirror, and to me that means a sharp reflection of my face or the lamp head, not a slightly out-of-focus one – it’s the photographer in me.

A THOUGHT ON FLATNESS: Seems to me that most would agree that you only need about 2mm of genuine flatness behind the edge, and past that it can be not so flat, as it doesn’t affect the edge sharpness. That’s all good and I have no disagreement with the theory, but when it comes to applying theory to practice, it is in fact rather difficult to get decent registration when trying to flatten only 2-5mm. I therefore elect to flatten around 20mm or so, as I reckon it’s probably less work and quicker (although more resource hungry) than trying to fool around doing the minimum distance required. Accuracy is the prize here, not saving consumables (second priority).

BACK TO THE H&S BLADE: From “out of the box” condition I started high up the polishing scale at either 3000g or 8000g diamond paste on MDF, so as to see how the land was lying, without leaving scratches deeper than I may not have wanted (at that point, and that I would then have to remove). And so I moved backwards down the grit scale to find a good starting point with the minimum polishing path. This resulted in starting with the 600 DMT plate. From the starting paste I could see that there was a small area of the blade that was dished a tiny bit. I can’t measure the dishing but it’s extremely shallow (less than half a thou??). The important point is that out-of-the-box, right across the blade edge is flat back to a minimum of 3mm, and up to said 20mm. From the 600 diamond plate I went back up through 1200, 3000, 8000, 14000 diamond paste on MDF to achieve my best version of a mirror finish. This whole matter of blade flatness / bevel honing / mirror finish was resolved in a matter if 5-10 minutes.

How did I go? I can quite clearly see the pores of my skin in the reflection. This photograph (which unfortunately appears as poor quality when posted on here) was taken after redoing the process just now for the purposes of taking the photograph itself (after using the blade for a while), and I don’t think I did quite as good a job on the polishing this time, and I think I need a diamond paste grit of 1800 as well.






The reflection is of an old Pepsi sign on the roof of the Barn.





To be honest, whilst there was an improvement in sharpness and performance, it was nowhere near as significant as the change from the old OEM blade to the H&S blade. I mean, the blade was already taking very nice shavings from Spotted Gum before I did any work on it, so there wasn’t a whole lot of head room left.

I have an HNT Gordon A55 Trying plane with HSS blade (also recent) and I have been giving it a fair old work out, especially in scraping mode, so it was well due for some honing. The back had been flattened (as manufactured) but there appeared to be some dubbing on one corner of the back and the surface grinding marks are much more significant than on the Harold & Saxon blades. No need to test how far up the chain I can start with this one – straight to the DMT 220 Extra Coarse.

I do not recall reading anywhere, or being advised, that a DMT diamond plate is to be treated with an absolute gossamer touch, and that even medium pressure would wear the stupid bloody thing out within a week! I now get more swarf from the 600 than the 220. This is an electro-plated diamond coating process, and finally I read on the Tools From Japan website that this type of bonding is not so durable as sintered plates. Perhaps Ern has mentioned this to me before, but it got drowned out. In short, the extra coarse plate was a total waste of $65, when purchased for the purposes of flattening. It’s not that I was brutal with it (at first) – it just wasn’t producing much swarf (using water as lube, as DMT recommends) with light pressure. It was a bit like the SiC grits. If it’s not producing much swarf then it’s not cutting much steel.

Anyway, I followed the same routine up through to 14000, reset the blade (with Terry’s remarkably simple Blade Setting Block technique). I went for the Spotty again in normal (non-scraping) mode. After some minor depth adjustment I went for the first full length stroke, and to my utter astonishment a straight, uncurled, full width shaving rocketed up vertically out of the plane and floated to the floor, and I just cracked up laughing in amazement. “How good is that?” my neighbours would have heard from a distance. I was just flabbergasted at the sight of it. It doesn’t happen with every pass, and I suppose that is something to do with the variables of timber, but it happens regularly, 2 or 3 out of 5 or 6 passes results in a tissue thin, straight, flat shaving flying out of the plane at speed. If I had a big boy’s camera (with no hideous shutter delay) I could capture an action shot of this phenomenon, but this jimmy up (below) will have to satisfy you (and the shavings tend to re-curl a little in the low humidity of my heated shed:









The surface, straight off the plane





and then with 2500 grit only:

BACK TO THE KIT:
The point of the previous digression was to illustrate what was not mentioned: the Lobster Waterstones. Oh yeah, I’ve used them enough to know that they cut HSS quite well (bevels), and I’ve used them enough to know that they are exactly what I thought they would be: messy, fiddly, slow to prepare PITAs that require far too much maintenance themselves to stay effective.

I’ll stand corrected by those that know far more than I, but at the moment I can’t see a place for Waterstones of any kind in my kit. Without reflecting on the 3M Micro Abrasive or Diamond Film (as I haven’t used either of them yet), it looks at this stage that the complete kit for flattening and sharpening needs to be the following, which is much simpler, and less costly to set up, and not too costly to maintain either:

• Tormek T7 ($600 second hand)
• DMT Diamond plates 220 extra coarse and 600 fine ($65 each from Lee Valley including freight - LV i.f.) but the brand and type need to be changed to a sintered version, probably iWood from Tools From Japan
• Veritas Honing Guide ($77.77 from LV i.f.)
• Set of Feeler Gauges ($20.17 from LV i.f.) Thinnest is 0.0015”, so one and a half thou
• 5 grams each Diamond Paste syringes 1200, 3000, 8000, 14000 from Gemcuts ($12.95 each)
• Sheet of MDF for the diamond pastes (free, at any shed near you)
• Sheet of Granite 600 x 500 (free – been carrying the bludgers (6) through eight house moves over the last 20 years, waiting for a use to present itself)
• Colour Coded Grit – importantly cloth backed
• Can of Spray PSA
• Several metres of 600mm wide “Butchers Paper” from LV packaging filler for using when spraying

I think there may be a benefit in following the 600 Diamond plate with a 600 diamond paste (but seeing is believing). I’m quite sure there would be a benefit in inserting 1800 grit after the 1200. Following 14000 with 50000 would be just being obsessive, and so I’ll prolly get that, but going to 100,000 is just a waste.

What has been deleted is:

• Worksharp 2000 (the no frills version) $175 on special at the Sydney Show
• Lobster Wetstones 1000 & 6000 ($38.25 & $76.50 in the recent Hand Tools Group Buy)
• DMT Diamond plates 220 extra coarse and 600 fine ($65 each from Lee Valley including freight - LV i.f.)
• 100 grams each of 9 SiC grits (46 to 1200) from Gemcuts ($15 approx)
• Packet of Overhead Transparency Sheets (actually “Covers” for Spiral Binding as they are thicker)

The Worksharp will not have been a waste of money at all, as it will have other applications (such as polishing the ends of rods – I don’t have a spark grinder)

And the jury is out on (only because they are untried by me):

• 3M Diamond Film in four grits ($22.70 from LV i.f.)
• 3M Micro Abrasives PSA backed sheets in 15 & 5 micron (full size, $3.45 each from LV i.f.)

So, for ongoing sharpening, the kit can be reduced to:

• Sintered Diamond plate 600 fine (not much water required – bugger all mess)
• Veritas Honing Guide
• 5 grams each Diamond Paste syringes 600, 1200, 1800, 3000, 8000, 14000
• Sheet of MDF for the diamond pastes. I’ll make this into a proper gizmo, with individual pieces for the different grits

Alright then, over to you wise fellas for your assessment, and thanks for reading.

That was quite a read Brett.
Glad you're having fun I'm really enjoying the HNT planes as well. They work beautifully. I only have the TS blades but I find them pretty durable so far.
I've trimmed my plane blade routine down lately.
Flatten back on water stones, 220, 1000 and 4000. Doesn't take too long and I have a sink in the shed which contains the mess nicely. I flatten around 20 - 30mm so shouldn't have to do it again for a while. I have a 220 grit diamond plate for flattening the stones.
Tormek coarse and fine for the bevel then switch to the leather honing wheel with some honing compound.
Mirror polish on the back and bevel that shaves the hair off my arm effortlessly. (my left arm is pretty bald) Only takes a few minutes.
Like you, I haven't found the DMT plates to last very long. The 220 I bought for flattening the stones is only used on the stones so is holding up a bit better. I will look at a sintered coarse plate for the next purchase.(thanks for pointing that out) I want to try some ceramic stones as well which will be when the water stones wear down.

Cheers Tony. And what thoughts have you on my aim to eliminate waterstones altogether in favour of Diamond paste?

Sintered Diamond plates from Schtoo. Bugger it - the coarsest is 1000.

Simplicity ?

Brett my friend, you have been busy! And, Good Lord, you have accumulated a lot of Stuff!!

You asked me to comment. Well, Good Lord, you have accumulated a lot of Stuff!!

OK. I could say that the items you ended up with would not be not my choice. All this would demonstrate is that sharpening is a personal path and that I would expect us to differ. The best method is the one you are comfortable with, that works for you, and the hell what anyone else thinks.

Does it work efficiently?

Is it affordable?

A few suggestions: MDF is a poor substrate for diamond paste. The diamonds sink under the surface, which is not how they work. You need to use a cast iron plate (I made mine out of old planes) or mild steel (LV sell excellent plates). These hold the diamond captive on the surface.

As a good rule of thumb, follow the LV choice of diamond mesh when choosing diamond pastes. These were decided after a lot of testing, where the aim was to find the best spread of grits that reduced unnecessary effort. 15 micron is good starter, which is equivalent to 1000/1200, then 3 microns or 8000 grit, 0.5 micron or 14000 grit, and 0.1 micron or 100000 grit. Does the 0.1 micron make a difference? It certainly gets sharper, and for paring chisels and smoothers this is magic.

The diamond mesh from LV form my travelling kit. See here: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Woodwor...amondFilm.html

Choose a grinder. You only need one. I use the Tormek, and I appreciate that it can grind to the edge of a blade. There is less steel to hone to create a bevel, and this makes sharpening faster.

Hang onto everything you have. You have only just started down this path, and you will want to try other methods as you progress. What seems like a poor method now may turn around and surprise you with its efficiency because your skills have improved enough to use it correctly. Trust me, waterstones are fantastic and still #1 in my book. One day you may say the same.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Hi Derek, glad you chimed in. Yes quite right about individual choices, but mine were made from nil real sharpening experience, so yes I would expect my choices to evolve.

"MDF is a poor substrate for diamond paste. The diamonds sink under the surface"... Ah I see, that explains a lot, although the patches did seem to stay charged for a reasonable time. The only problem with the LV plates is they cost more than $15 per kilo to freight over by their cheapest air method. Perhaps an old #6 plane body.... or what about float glass with a mild acid etch to prevent the paste just being wiped off (as it probably would be from a polished glass surface)?

"... follow the LV choice of diamond mesh when choosing diamond pastes..." Actually, this is perzackly what I tried to do - match the microns from the LV range to what was available here from a lapidary supplier. Gemcuts pastes are USA made, and you get 5 grams for the same price as 2 grams from LV, so I thought - worth a shot, and am not disappointed (again, nothing to reference to though).

"The diamond mesh from LV form my travelling kit." Yes, it'll be the next thing I try. You probably saw that I have some here, but unused as yet. I have a feeling that they may be more costly to run than the pastes, but I guess I'll find that out eh?

"Choose a grinder. You only need one. I use the Tormek" Ern's Tormek is now at home here. I found it quite ok for hollow grinding HSS M2. Which reminds me: I am setting this kit up aimed fairly and squarely at HSS capability. Seven of my eight planes are HSS blades, and I have a set of H&S chisels coming. I know HSS is not what everyone would choose, but I do like the no (or super-low) rusty factor, and I'm certainly not disappointed with it's sharpening qualities.

"Hang onto everything you have." Oh yes.

"You have only just started down this path, and you will want to try other methods as you progress. What seems like a poor method now may turn around and surprise you with its efficiency because your skills have improved enough to use it correctly." Too right, that's exactly my thinking, and what I'm naturally prone to doing.

"Trust me, waterstones are fantastic and still #1 in my book." Ok, no worries, and I believe you, but why are they so good incomparison to the various diamond bits and pieces? Essentially I need a really strong argument in favour of them, to counteract their PITAness (I don't have a sink, or running water in the Barn - got a 20 litre container on hand though.). I can certainly take steps to contain the mess they make, but I have to say that diamond plates & pastes are
a) efficient to hell
b) quick to setup and down
c) a minor cleanup
d) not particularly expensive to set up or run.

Cheers, Brett

EDIT: forgot to say that I had another look at your Tas Oak "straighties" (not curlies) - very nice indeed. Yours stay straight. They look gas when they fly up don't they?

Hi Brett

The downside of diamond?

This must be seen against waterstones. As a waterstone wears, so it exposes fresh, sharp grit. A diamond stone/paste does not do this. The grit simply wears out. As the waterstone wear, the grit breaks down into finer particles, and so you end up with a smoother surface. Diamond does not break down, and you end up with deep scratches on the coarser grits. These can be removed with finer and finer grits.

You cannot use glass as a substratum. Essentially, you will create loose diamonds, which will roll around. This will abrade both the steel and the glass, and the glass with end out-of-flat ... and then so will the steel.

There are waterstones ... actually "ceramic" stones (the Shaptons are an example) ... that use little water and stay flat for a decent time. I have a sink in my workshop, and work on the draining board. So it is a lot easier for me. As I said earlier, there is no perfect system. And one man's meat ....

Regards from Perth

Derek

In the terms of a quotation (Dr Johnson I think) you are a genius FF. He reckoned it was an infinite capacity for taking pains.
You've found your own way and it works so
Cheers,
Jim

As Ron Hock said in his recent interview podcast by the Modern Woodworkers Association : what you use doesn't matter much, you just need to get good at whatever you use. So get good at what you've got. If you've got nothing choose something that appeals and handles all your sharpening tasks.

Personally, I use a dry grinder with a diamond wheel to grind, oilstones for sharpening& diamond paste on a strop for honing. Why? Because it works for me. And it's cheap.


Screwing up in new ways every day

Hi Brett - well, you've left little to add, and I think Derek has already made the useful points.

As he (Derek) said, you are on a journey, and the way is as long as you wish to make it, & the end wherever you decide it is. While I don't doubt tools can be sharpened & polished more than mine, the effort/result ratio would not be positive, for me, if I were to strive for anything more than I achieve now. The condition I take them to is sufficient unto the tasks they are expected to perform, and that varies a bit from tool to tool - smoothing planes & paring chisels usually get more TLC than a jack plane blade, for e.g. I want my tools to cut without excess effort & leave an acceptable surface. That is, acceptable to the job itself or the stage it's at. My finest stone is a hard white Arkansas, which is not quite as fine as a black hard. I have no idea of the micron equivalent, but it must be a good deal finer than 1200 grit W&D, judging by the surface it leaves.

Sharpening is such a personal thing, it's not just about getting two planes to meet in a reasonable line, it's a real test of virility, for some. Not only do we vary in what we will accept as a reasonable return for effort, we all develop our own 'best' ways to get there. Even such a basic process as initial grinding has widely different options. There are those who love their Tormeks (or clones thereof) but I don't like them at all. They are just too damn slow , for many of the jobs I want to do (like sharpening 10mm thick mulcher blades ), but of course that's what makes them safe & suited to your purposes. I don't have room for both a wet and a dry grinder, so I settle for a dry grinder with one white & one grey wheel, which covers a wide range of other jobs as well as woodworking tools. It does take a while to learn to use a dry grinder safely, & for me it was worth the effort, but if you are only, or mostly, preparing woodworking tools, wet grinders are probbly a safer & surer option.

It will be interesting to read your thoughts on sharpening 5, and again 10 years from now, & see where the journey has taken you......

So go at it, but don't get so involved in sharpening you forget to make things...

Cheers,

FF, I've used diamond paste for awhile (am quite happy with it overall) and received 2 LV honing plates yesterday. First impression is that they're incredibly heavy ! Because LV advises against running a honing guide over the paste covered plate I'm thinking I'll build a box to house each plate with a timber platform each end. The platforms will be the same level as the plate to run a honing guide wheel on allowing me to work in from each end. Thus only requiring two plates for four grits. I think Brent Beach has done something similar.

Alternatively the plates look like they could take the figure 8 motion freehand sharpening method (without gougeing) I was taught on an oilstone.

I'll do a 'review' after i've used the plates.

Sam