Sharpening tools

MySharpening station comprises a small water cooled Tormek grindstone. Frequent sharpening of chisels etc, plus renovating old planes, needs cool grinding to restore primary bevels. The wheel runs in water. The leather wheel at the other end is for honing and polishing edges. The wooden rim of the stand has two rare earth magnets set in to support a steel diamond plate by Eze-Lap.

Sharpening an old plane blade

Grinding.

Plane blades and chisels are sharpened identically.
There's a good chance with a second hand plane that the blade has been poorly sharpened or even ground too hot. Look for any blue marks. You will have to cool-grind the blade back until the blue metal has been removed as it will most likely be soft. If you can use a water cooled grinder like this Tormek. Grind to 25 degrees.

Flatten the backs

Hone the back of the blade on a diamond plate like this one. Oil stones will do the job but diamond stones work on all steels. You will have to take some time to flatten the blade to a point where the blade has been honed all the way across for a length of about half an inch.
Some water wheels like the Tormek allow you to flatten blades on the side of the wheel - I have not found that very effective after the first few times, and it's very difficult to re-dress the side of a wheel effectively.



This one still needs work to get it flat, as it is only honed at the extreme edges. In some severe cases you may have to bend the blade flat with a blow from a hammer over a gap in a block of wood or across open engineers vice jaws. This takes some skill, so if in doubt just keep honing - it will be worth it.

Honing angle

Set up the blade in a honing guide to 30 degrees for most timbers on plane blades. On chisels used for hardwood I use a hone angle of 35 degrees. This honong guide is the Veritas Mk1 gauge by Lee Valley of Canada. Once set you can repeat the setting by means of a simple marking of the protruding length of blade on a piece of wood or the bench top.

Honing the edge.

Hone the bevel to a secondary bevel of the desired angle (as described above). In this case I use clear lamp oil (deodorised paraffin/kerosene) from a Garden store, on a steel diamond plate by Eze-Lap of America. I choose to hold the blade "backwards" like in the picture. There is never a "correct" way of doing anything, just a traditional way, but if you find a different way is easier for you and not dangerous, then go for it. I protect my injured thumb band-aid from the oil with a piece cut from a rubber glove. It lasts long enough before going soft. Rub the blade about 10 strokes, until a small burr is felt on the back of the edge.....


....then turn onto its back and flatten off the burr. Then you alternately hone bevel and back one stroke each side, lighter and lighter, until no burr exists. You have a sharp edge if you can see no brightness on the edge when held in a light, or the blade digs into your thumbnail with the slightest pressure.


You should finish up with a secondary bevel evenly across the ground bevel.

Veritas Modification.

This is a late modification I made to the Veritas guide. I had the roller turned down at the ends, leaving a "wheel" of 9mm wide in place of the wide roller. The face of the wheel is slightly rounded to give a spherical form which allows rocking side to side. I always use the eccentric so the wheel is at its lowest (I don't use the micro-hone facility which I think is just an unnecessary gimmick). The narrow rounded wheel prevents the guide from taking control of the sideways angle, thus preventing lop-sided honing if the blade is not exactly square, and also allowing a camber to be applied to jack blades if necessary. The honing angle is the only important angle, and that is maintained by the roller position.

Stanley Honing Guide

This little fellow is a vintage Stanley plane honing guide which fits in the slot in Bailey type plane blades. It is very quick to set up, has a narrow wheel to avoid sharpening one side more than the other, but alas is no longer made. Otherwise the process is the same as for the block plane blade above.

Items to be added to the page later:-

Scary Sharp
Veritas Scraper sharpening tool