Sharpening
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That’s a good video, but on the AI, I’d do the stabbing motion on all of the stones and I’d do a test on the finest, as described. Paul and I are stabbing for different reasons, though. He’s doing it because he doesn’t have access to his center plate. In other videos, I think he puts just the last inch of the blade on sandpaper glued to a plate. For the AI, I want as much of the blade on the abrasive as possible because it minimizes how much I must grind and preserves the arched back of the chisel.
Here is what Mr. Iles said to me in email:
My father, Ashley Iles, who was a foreman pattern maker always taught me to remove the burr by placing the blade flat on the oil stone with the left hand side of the bolster nearly touching the right hand side of the stone. This will remove the burr in a few passes. This puts as much of the blade as possible in contact with the stone. The idea of the hollow grind is that during sharpening you only touch the tip of the blade and the heel on the stone.If you use this method the hollow will never wear away as repeated sharpening shortens the blade.
Note that the AI hollow back is not like a Japanese chisel, which has a divot like depression. Instead, it is more like an arch ground into the back along the length of the blade. It’s subtle and you can grind it out if you don’t know it is there.
That’s an excellent video for normal chisels, although I’ve given up on flattening on the diamond plates. They are great for sharpening but too slow for flattening unless the back is already quite good, at least for me.
I finally saw my first bur today 🙂 The chisels are a little sharper too. I still think I’d benefit majorly from ezelap stones and a strop, but that little bur (a few on the other chisels too) feels like a little victory.
Thank you all for the advice
- This reply was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by Mark68.
I’d definitely make the strop. Get a piece of plywood or some scrap of wood and a piece of scrap leather (I got a huge bag of scrap leather at Hobby Lobby for like $5). You can make it for pennies and you can get a huge block of buffing compound that will last for years for like $10 on Amazon. I don’t know of a better way to polish a blade to a mirror finish in a matter of seconds.
[quote=549101]I’d definitely make the strop. Get a piece of plywood or some scrap of wood and a piece of scrap leather (I got a huge bag of scrap leather at Hobby Lobby for like $5). You can make it for pennies and you can get a huge block of buffing compound that will last for years for like $10 on Amazon. I don’t know of a better way to polish a blade to a mirror finish in a matter of seconds.[/quote]
I just ordered some leather of ebay (uk). Almost £5 for a 14″ x 4″ strip. Still, that’ll tide me over until I get a better deal for leather in the future.
Just to clarify, the stropping is also going to sharpen the blade, yes? It’s just that I see a good few people talking about the polish.
3 July 2018 at 6:46 pm #549104Mark, polishing is sharpening. The strop and honing compound is abrading the steel just as you do with 250 grit sandpaper, but chromium oxide honing compound (or whatever you choose) is about the equivalent of 16,000 grit abrasive so it will produce a mirror like finish. You can’t buy sandpaper that I know of greater than about 4,000 grit so we use a strop. What you’re doing is “polishing” out the scratches left on the cutting edge by the 1200 grit diamond stone which is why you hear guys talking about polishing. But yes, that is absolutely sharpening the cutting edge. You can also do that on a 16,000 grit Shapton water stone which is about $150 but you need a diamond lapping stone to go with it to keep it flat. A strop does essentially the same thing but a whole lot cheaper. There are many ways to do this and I think I discovered years ago that there are at least as many ideas about how to sharpen cutting tools as there are woodworkers. Copy what you see Paul doing in his videos for starters. As time goes on, like most of us, you’ll come up with your very own method that works best for you.
@mark68 well done. Your goal is to get a bur all the way across the edge. Bigger isn’t better, so once it is there, all the way across, you can move on to the next grit. On some steels and some really fine grits, sometimes it’s not clear to me if I can feel the bur, but for the AI steel, P220 and P2000 grit, you should definitely be able to feel the bur. Over time, you’ll benefit by sensing (and making) smaller and smaller burs.
You won’t be able to feel a bur raised the strop, but you still flip/flop between bevel and back. You can take 20 or 30 strokes to polish the bevel, then take the same on the back, and then do the flip flop a few times. That’s what I do. Don’t take 20-30 too seriously. It depends upon your compound, the steel, etc. Look at the edge and you’ll know when you’re done.
By the way, you can get sharp on the abrasive plates/paper/stones, and then destroy the edge in a stroke on the strop by using too high an angle. You want to match the angle you used on the other abrasives. You can try this- Take a dull chisel and drag the bevel across the strop at an angle that is in the middle of the bevel camber. As you drag, lift the handle. For learning purposes, lift, lift, lift. At some point, the feeling in your hands will change from slippery sliding to a scratchy feel. That’s how you know you are at the edge. Actually, you are probably just a bit steep at that point, so be careful or you could end up too steep. I said to try this on a dull chisel because for the first few times, hike that handle up there so you definitely get the feeling. You’ll spoil the edge doing this, no doubt. No matter-it’s a dull chisel you need to sharpen anyway. By the way, go really low, too. You’ll probably be able to feel the transition from the low angle part of the camber to the top of the chisel blade stock. It also makes a scratchy feeling. It can be confusing, so play around until it makes sense.
Once you have that feeling, you can use it for your stropping. Start a touch low and, in the first inch or so of the stroke, find the edge, then continue at that angle for the rest of the stroke. Pretty soon, it won’t be a conscious thing. Again, it’s possible to get too steep with this. In time, you’re just going to have a feeling for the angle and just make strokes on the strop, but this may help you learn. It helped me. Look at your work against a light before and after stropping. You should see a polished surface at the tip, bevel and back. If you see it there, you’re good…doesn’t matter if the rest of the bevel is full of scratches.
Are you working on paper now rather than the Axminster diamond plate? Was that part of the problem after all? It may be hard to tell, honestly, because you may just have needed a coarse grit like P220 to do the heavy grinding.
That’s the weird thing, I couldn’t find suitable sandpaper at B&Q yesterday evening so today I continued with the Axminster 400/1000 stone – and there it was, the bur. Far as I know I haven’t done a thing differently, so it might just be that I didn’t see the bur yesterday.
All that said, I am getting a feeling that I’ll definitely benefit from better diamond stones and the strop.
As for cheap chisels… I have bought several sets of chisels over the years but the Narex, for a cheap chisel, is about as good as they come. In fact I prefer them to some that I paid 3 times as much for. They are brittle to start with but after a few sharpenings they do sharpen and hold an edge well. I’d not only recommend them for “Cheap” but for being a pretty darn good chisel.
As for your problem of not getting yours sharp, you might want to check the hardness and temper of the chisel. You could have a bad set? Can you see stone marks on the edge you are sharpening. I tend to hold mine at an angel that produces scratches at about 30 deg angel across the edge. When I move to a finer stone I turn it in the opposite direction and hone until the opposing marks disappear. my last stroke on the stone is on the back side where I lay my chisel flat and pull back on it just one stroke to push the bur to the bevel side. And of course I strop at the end to break off the bur and get that mirror finish.
I hope that makes sense!
Happy sharpening
Was hoping someone could tell me what kind of double sided (mounting) tape to buy to affix my leather piece to a block of wood to make a strop? I heard Paul say not to get the cushioned tape, and that’s what’s just turned up at my door. It’s difficult to judge these things via online shopping.
I don’t want to use glues because that’s a little too permanent. I’m in the UK
Hi Mark,
My first reaction would be not to overthink this. All you’re doing is fixing scrap leather to a block of wood. I would say any tape would do just fineI don’t want to use glues because that’s a little too permanent. I’m in the UK
Trust me. You won’t be using that leather for anything else after you’ve used it as a strop.
Wesley
6 July 2018 at 4:47 pm #549157Mark, I’ve glued every strop I ever made and that works fine. Smear a thin layer of epoxy on the wood, plop the leather on it and sit something heavy on top until the epoxy sets up. Double sided tape works equally well I would guess as long as one side of the leather is pretty smooth. Mine never is. But these things consist of a scrap of wood and a scrap piece of leather – total value ~$2.00. They last for two or three years and burn nicely when you’re done with them. There is nothing critical about them. Just don’t make it squishy like Paul said with thick mounting tape.
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