Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Don Thompson on December 27, 2010 at 11:35am

Scotty, Whenever possible I'm a believer in jigs, even if homemade they will make the task of sharpening and keeping sharp edges easier. Insert quote here:" Well, I've been free hand sharpening for years and my steel is so sharp it will....(perform some extraordinary task), blah,blah,blah" Good for them. For the rest of us mere mortals sites such as

http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpen/station.html#jig

can aid in getting a repeatable honed edge. There are many more on sharpening on the web. And yes, the investment in decent stones are worth it. A bit of time building some jigs will also be a worthwhile investment.

Don 

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Permalink Reply by Mister Scott on December 27, 2010 at 12:10pm

Thanks Don!

Don Thompson said:

Scotty, Whenever possible I'm a believer in jigs, even if homemade they will make the task of sharpening and keeping sharp edges easier. Insert quote here:" Well, I've been free hand sharpening for years and my steel is so sharp it will....(perform some extraordinary task), blah,blah,blah" Good for them. For the rest of us mere mortals sites such as

http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpen/station.html#jig

can aid in getting a repeatable honed edge. There are many more on sharpening on the web. And yes, the investment in decent stones are worth it. A bit of time building some jigs will also be a worthwhile investment.

Don 

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Permalink Reply by Roadkill a.k.a. John Maw on December 27, 2010 at 12:38pm

Hi Scotty.

 

I rather like slate water stones. They are often relatively inexpensive and will get a very good edge. They are not as hard as stones such as the Arkansas stones (the slate ones are much cheaper though), so you need to be a bit more careful of them or they will need redressing.

 

At some stage you are likely to need to do more than can be achieved with a water or oil stone. Might be worth keeping a lookout for a double ended bench grinder at a good price. I have one with an extra wide white aluminium oxide wheel on one end. The wheel is very resistant to glazing and is ultra-fine, yet removes metal quicker than most fine wheels.

 

Hope this helps a bit.

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Permalink Reply by Mister Scott on December 27, 2010 at 3:07pm

Anyone have any success with store bought/premade jigs?

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Permalink Reply by Mark Bliss on December 27, 2010 at 8:09pm

Heres another article on chisel sharpening, it has some good tips and another idea for building your own sharpening guide like this. (Similar to the ones in the very good article Don provided a link to above.)

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Don Thompson on December 28, 2010 at 1:37am

Mark, Also a great site for sharpening. Thanks for sharing.

Don

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Permalink Reply by Bob Harrison on December 28, 2010 at 3:56am

I agree with all that has been said here. I use fixtures to sharpen all my tools even drill bits.
The only thing I can add is I strop my tools like the old Barber does. I take a piece of thick hard leather and glue it to a board or disc to use in my drill press. Then add a little oil and red buffing compound. Buy stropping it takes the feather edge off that the stone produces and leaves a razor sharp cutting edge.

Cheers

Bob

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Permalink Reply by Josh Gayou (SmokehouseGuitars) on December 28, 2010 at 2:14pm

I sharpen all my blades on wet/dry by hand.  Take them all the way up to 2000 grit.  I can shave the hair off the back of my hand when I'm done.

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Permalink Reply by Chuck Dubman on January 15, 2011 at 1:47pm

Silicon carbide (wet dry paper) has sharper crystals than diamond, so while it's 1 step

down in hardness, it cuts a lot faster.  Diamond is just slightly more convenient --

cuts dry, no need to hunt down and stick the right paper on your surface plate / plate

glass.  Stay with the wet-dry paper.  To speed up honing, use a skate type jig such as an

Eclipse (less than $20), and only hone the edge, not the entire bevel.  Grind to 25 degrees

and hone to 30.  Stropping with a buffing wheel charged with red rouge or chrome green

compound takes off the burr and leaves a long lasting, glass smooth razor edge. 

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Permalink Reply by MichaelS Country Boy Guitars on January 15, 2011 at 2:43pm

Don, I've been sharpening freehand for years and I can cut well... thanks for the web posts. I haven't bought a jig because I'm, well too cheap but I think I can make one of those and my blades may really cut wood. Nice idea.

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