Reply To: Stanley No. 4 – what am I doing wrong?
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Hi again Kirsty. Mounting the paper to your tile in a different way would be a good idea and there are several ways. I’ve tried them all and you’ll find one you like. I’ve got one of those guaranteed flat stones and I have good luck just spraying the stone with fluid and plopping the paper down on the wet surface. It sticks for me but that doesn’t seem to work for everyone. Tape is OK but if you tape the paper at both ends, no mater how tight you try to pull it, it wants to gather up on the push stroke. You can tape only one end but then you have to hone in one direction. Spray adhesive is the most reliable bond and also the biggest pain in the neck when you need to replace the paper for all the obvious reasons. Get some Goo Off – that helps. It seems that there are almost as many woodworkers as there are opinions about how to sharpen stuff so try as many of these suggestions as you like and over time you’ll develop methods that suit you best.
I’ve always used a strop and they’re easy to make. Leather is readily available but you need some honing (polishing) compound to charge the strop with and it’s a little harder to find in local stores. You can find it on Amazon and usually, the cheap little sets of buffing wheels for use with an electric drill come with a small bar of the stuff. You might find one of those at the B&Q (Home Depot for me). If you noticed in Paul’s video, he put honing compound directly on a block of wood at first and that will actually do about 90% of what a leather strop will do as long as the block is flat. As far as guides go, I like my Veritas Mark II (others say it’s to complicated) but it’s definitely expensive and the one you have will work. From watching you, I think if you put some silicone shelf liner under the tile to stop it from slipping and fix the paper a better way the only other thing to do will be to eventually get some diamond stones. Keep us posted on the bench. You’ll be a mortise expert by the time you finish that project😃