Using Paul’s sharpening method, screwed up?
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16 November 2017 at 12:31 am #368214
Hi all,
I’m totally new to woodworking and following all Paul’s tips. I’ve been trying his freehand sharpening method but I think my angle was too steep or I rounded it over or something because my plane seems to glide over the wood without doing much. Now that I’ve lowered my blade angle I can’t get a burr started. (I’m sure I could if I stood there for a while.)
Regardless, Should I use a honing guide and get the bevel back to 25 degrees?
Thanks – Seth
16 November 2017 at 1:20 am #368274Take a sharpie, colour the bevel and take a few passes on your more coarse grit and you’ll see just where it’s taking it from and how far until you reach the tip.
If all else fails a honing guide to 25 will do of course.
Probably have a mix of to many tries at to steep an angle and the blade was probably rather dull to start. Try to getting the proper angle on a very dull or miss sharpened edge it can take a while to get the burr. The reason is you have to take off all that metal in the way of getting the proper angle, so once you finally do get it sharp it pays to keep after the edge and not let it get dull or you have to start all over again.
I would not bother with guide unless you happen to have one already. Freehand or with guide it will take you a while to get the bevel back to were it needs to be and turn a burr. You can make a reference block to help with freehanding that you can set near the hones to be sure you are close to the right angle. I think Paul mentions this approach in either a video or his blog, as a way to help train your hands to feel the right angle.
17 November 2017 at 1:01 am #369316There’s nothin wrong with using a honing jig to get your initially bevel.
You can practice your freehanding once you have a true bevel to start with.
With practice, you’ll need the jig less often.
I know this post is kind of old, but I’m also a relative beginner, and can relate to your problem. I think Larry’s comment was spot on.
For all of my tools (chisels and planes), I use a guide to set the initial bevel. It took me a couple tries to get the feel, but I no longer use the guide for maintenance sharpening. It is so much quicker.
Don’t get discouraged by the freehand method. If you do screw up badly, you can still fall back to the guide to resolve the problem and try again.
You could regard Honing-Guides as tools, Geoff. Some people use them all the time. They’re not training-wheels on a kid’s trike, or ‘If all else fails’ ‘Fallback options’ for failures. They produce square, keen, lasting edges that you can repeat time and again. Do you want to say “I can do that blindfolded” or just get on with woodworking?
You’ll read a lot about 16000-grit Japanese water-stones mined from Mount Fuji by Monks during the full moon…
Or you can buy an Eclipse Honing-Guide for £9 – Does what it says on the box.[quote quote=480321]You could regard Honing-Guides as tools, Geoff. Some people use them all the time. They’re not training-wheels on a kid’s trike, or ‘If all else fails’ ‘Fallback options’ for failures. They produce square, keen, lasting edges that you can repeat time and again. Do you want to say “I can do that blindfolded” or just get on with woodworking?
You’ll read a lot about 16000-grit Japanese water-stones mined from Mount Fuji by Monks during the full moon…
Or you can buy an Eclipse Honing-Guide for £9 – Does what it says on the box.[/quote]
The OP was having difficulty sharpening freehand, and was asking about using a guide to reset the angle. I was just supporting his query, as I was there once.I certainly didn’t mean to insinuate that using a guide as a long-term tool was a bad thing. Yes, a guide is a tool, but it’s called a guide. I also didn’t mention “doing it blindfolded”, or that the cost of a tool was a factor. Not sure where all that came from.
23 February 2018 at 10:46 pm #482370Recently, I used a honing guide on a scraper blade (Stanley #80) and I found it very useful for honing the 45 degree bevel. For some reason, that bevel angle was tough for me to achieve on such a thin blade.
I wasn’t quoting or rebuffing you @awsomepossum, just grinding (or rather honing) my own axe.
I’m challenging the whole 16000-Grit, Japanese, Freehand thing – ‘cos I still don’t get it.
SO MANY beginners have issues with Out-of-square, Crumbling edges, Edges rolling over, Back-bevel, No-back-bevel, Tertiary-bevel, Honing fluids, Magnetic guides… It’s endless. I too had to sort the wheat from the chaff. No-one is debunking any of this.
These problems (and remedies) are repeated frequently on Rob Cosman’s site, YouTube, other specialist woodworking sites, and here.
We’re sharpening a few chisels, some plane irons, and once in a while – a router. Perhaps a teenager starting a career in cabinet-making will find a benefit with the freehand methods and have fifty years to recoup that. I’m suggesting that if you’re a middle-aged part-time hobbyist woodworker with a few weekends here & there when the weather’s right, use a guide. There’s nothing wrong with that.I know that Paul has a 30 degree bevel on his chisels when they come from the factory, and then he creates the micro camber. Anyone know the angle of the plane irons? I’ve been using a honing guide for the past few months after having dismal results at hand sharpening, but now that I’ve got a bench, I’d like to try freehand sharpening again.
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