Here is one more thing to add to a manufactured device for sharpening. The previous post explains the issue: for sharpening plane irons that have a slightly curved edge, which is most of them, a subtle curve needs to be added to the roller. (This does not apply to nearly all chisels.)

I have two Woodcraft rollers. One is used as is – for sharpening straight edges. (Photo is below.) The other roller is very slightly curved across its width. (Carefully note the photo above.) It was not manufactured that way but was easily done in the shop.

The roller itself is 1/2” wide. Working out the math and using it in practice, reveals that the roller needs to be ground just about .003” on each 1/4” half of the wheel. In other words, from zero at the center point to a maximum curve of .003” shorter at each far side edge. 

An electric motor-rotating wheel can do this. Be careful and keep fingers away from the wheel! (The safety decision is solely up to you.)

Note that you are making a curved angle on each side, not a straight-edge angle. It is easy to do.

This adds a comfortably controllable ability for angling the plane edge on the flat stone. This is far better than trying to alternately angle onto just the outside corners of a regular flat wheel guide. 

This subtly angled wheel will work for almost all of the plane blades. As I have mentioned in the previous post: nearly all manufacturers neglect this important factor. They could simply supply two replaceable wheels or two frame-wheel combinations. (Again, Lee Valley/Veritas is the only manufacturer that I know of that builds in the curvature in one of their wheels. I do not care for their expensive system but I do suggest taking a look online for your choice.)

With all of this said now, I will still say that I do the vast majority of sharpening by the total hand-holding method discussed three posts ago. But now you have options!

Sharpening is a must for good woodworking but not hard to do with the right equipment and skills!

Perhaps you use, or have at least tried, the sharpening method by hand discussed in the previous two posts. In any case, here is another approach that involves a straightforward angle holder. 

The woodworking tool (plane iron, chisel, etc.) is inserted into the holding guide. The pair is placed onto the angle gage, the tool is slid to match the angle number line or face, say 32°, and the holding bolt is tightened. Position the holder’s wheel on the sharpening stone and, back and forth, off you go sharpening. Easy overall. 

Notice my own lines for 27.5° and 32.5°.

There are several different designs for the holding guide. The one I use is from Woodcraft. It has a single, central, 1/2” wide wheel and can accommodate tools from 1/8” to 2 3/4” wide. Simple as can be.

Play with Amazon and you can find many varieties. Some are like Woodcraft’s. One has a wheel more than 3” wide. Some use pairs of wheels, and some include two pairs of different widths. Some use a single pair of wheels which can be set on the inside or outside width of the tool griper. Woodpecker’s model is like this. Lie-Nielsen and Lee Valley make varieties that include sharpening angled blades. There is quite a creative selection. 

For chisels, these work well for their straight edges. However, for most plane blades, the edge is importantly, slightly curved. This is most of our sharpening work. I easily manage this with the practical system described in the previous two posts.

Can managing the slightly curved edges be done with the tool systems described here? With a 1/2” single, central wheel as on the Woodcraft model, you can very slightly tilt and role on the right corner (then left) to varying degrees. With subtle, variable tilting and rolling, you can produce a decent curve. Not my choice, but it can be done.

It would be helpful if manufacturers simply made an extra, replaceable wheel with a subtle curve built into it. Even better: two extra wheels with slightly different curves.

Credit to Lee Valley/Veritas for the curved edge roller in their system, though I do not prefer it in some other respects, mostly based on complication.

Well, I hope this and the previous two articles help with your direction on hand sharpening. And you know that you cannot do excellent woodworking without really sharp tools!

When we hand sharpen a tool, such as a chisel or plane blade, it must be accurately and consistently held at the desired angle to the stone. Most woodworkers and most teachings use an angle holder.

With some exceptions such as tiny or odd blades, I generally do not. I do have a metal gauge that I use sometimes, and that will be covered in a future post here. I have also tried others in the past, and wrote about some, but I do not use those anymore. 

Let me explain what I do. Perhaps you want to give it a try if you do not do it already. 

The steps:

1. Use a very flat stone with just a little water – not a big puddle.

2. The wooden angle gauge is placed on the stone with the left hand. With the right hand, the tool edge is angled firmly into the slot. (See below.)

3. The left hand puts aside the gauge and then works with the right hand to hold the tool angle to the stone. Lock the angle in your hands! (See the picture at the top of this post.) You will be surprised how accurate and consistent you can be after just a little practice. Test yourself.

4. Now cut back and forth for small distances. I usually go only about a couple inches, even less, on the fine stones, while more on the medium and course stones. You must hold the angle steadily over the distance. With some tools, longer feels better.

Most of the cutting occurs on the push rather than the pull.

Some folks like going in a circular back and forth motion. That works too.

Here is what you can sense:

Feel the angle with your hands with balanced, steady legs and body.

Hear the sound of cutting, especially forward. 

Sense the edge on the blade on the cutting stone. 

With all of these, you can sense slight differences with the correct angle compared with a decrease or increase. I do find all of these a bit easier with the finest stones compared with the coarser stones. If you think you may have changed the angle, recheck it with the wooden gauge. 

For practice, try intentionally increasing and decreasing the angle incorrectly. You can quite readily detect the differences in all those senses. Check yourself with the wooden angle gauge.  

All of these skills also apply to sharpening curved edges – done for almost all hand planes. Get used to working across through the curve. This is easier and steadier than using a griped-on, wheeled angle tool.

The most common angle I use is 32.5°. Why .5? For no good reason! I made the wooden gauges long ago and never changed them. It does not matter. Consistency does! 32 would be just fine.

I suggest giving this a try. It is faster than working with metal screw-on gauges. You might like it!

In the next post, I will show the wooden gauges. They are easy to make.

Have my techniques in dovetailing changed? Yes, of course. Many of my shop techniques do indeed change over time. I like to refine, alter, and upgrade most skills.  

For dovetails, I adopted important techniques from the outstanding David Barron. He has 51 videos on YouTube at David Barron Furniture. Many are directly for dovetail skills. His skill and precision are welcoming and enjoyable.

I have used some of his techniques in the past half-year for drawers and boxes. This mainly involves his magnetic saw guide. It makes sawing dovetails easier and more reliable than anything else I have tried. They are available online at Highland Woodworking and at Classic Hand Tools (England). Options available are 1:4 through 1:8, as well as 90° and 45° guides.

With the saw guide, and with some of the steps he recommends, I can dovetail in a more controlled and relaxed manner than ever before. Thank you, David!

By the way, please check the link “Dovetail Guide” at Series Topics on this website for a 44-page mini-book written entirely by me several years ago for the former version of Craftsy. Naturally, as usual, I have changed some of the techniques along the way, but there remains lots of worthwhile material for you. 

So, here is my point: as skilled as you may be, or as much difficulty as you may have, go ahead and be persistent, brave, and joyful in the wood shop. Life deserves it. 

Here are a few more optional refinements that you can use with the regular sharpening system as described in the previous post.

Method #1

After finishing on the stones, I spend less than a minute with diamond compounds. I use 1/2µ, 1/4µ, and finally, 1/8µ. The diamond compound is from Beta Diamond Products, Inc. in the Medium Concentration, Oil Soluble.

The diamond concentration has simply been applied to leather fabric that has been lightly glued to flat wood. The stroke with the tool is pulling back at the correct angle (as discussed in the last post, most commonly 32.5°) just a few times.

I also add just a bit of back/diagonal pull on the back layer of the tool using the finer micron diamond surfaces. That is the same way as done with the final stone. (See the series “Ruler Trick” parts 1 – 5 for all the details. For this diamond procedure, I use the 0.015″ strip to make 1/2° (see Part 4) to accommodate for the width of the material.)

This “optional” bit of quick extra work refines the final edge.

Method #2

For some tools with  just mildly dulled edges such as in the middle of dovetail work using the great Japanese chisels, I very quickly resharpen by skipping the stones altogether and quickly using pull strokes on aluminum oxide films. These have been applied to a flat 3/4″ plywood base.

I use the same finishing angles as with stones, though only pull strokes for the angled side of the tool. I find it too easy to cut the paper by pushing.

I use the aluminum sheets of 1.0µ, then 0.3µ, which is even finer than the finest stone. I finish with back/diagonal strokes. (0.020″ strip. Again, see the “Ruler Trick, parts 1-5″ series.)

There are diamond sheets available down to 0.1µ but are many times more expensive than aluminum. The aluminum oxide 8 1/2 x 11 sheets by 3M are about 1/20 the cost of the equivalent area of diamond sheet. I have not found a great advantage of the diamond sheet.

You can also use an aluminum oxide sheet of 3µ in a stone-replacement routine. I do not do this but instead, I go back to the stones.

Method #3

This is the simplest, least expensive, easiest refinement of sharpening!

Use the 0.3µ aluminum sheet just to finish off your routine stone sharpening, instead of finishing it off with the fine diamond compound as described above in Method #1. It is a cheap, simple, and quick way to take a step beyond the stones!

Well, maybe I should have described this last method first, but I wanted to generate the understanding of my sharpening methods.

These are all very easy and fast refinements to your sharpening work that can increase the performance of your tools AND help your fine hand tool woodworking!

We cannot do fine hand tool woodworking without very well sharpened tools. Yet, we want sharpening done in high quality and without great effort. 

So let us look at logical efficiency.

Now for most tools, I work with a 27.5° main bevel, and a 32.5° edge bevel. Use your choices in angles. (Forget my decimal numbers. I just established them long ago with equipment and nerdiness.)

If the working edge has deteriorated a lot from use, particularly with edge breaks from rough work, or if there has been a large series of sharpening done that greatly expanded the second, steeper bevel (32.5°), you need to regrind. Most of the time, you don’t need to do this but it is easiest to do with a machine.

The first step is to grind the lower (27.5°) edge on a wheel. The expensive Tormek machine is a basic approach. I have had one for about 25 years but now I suggest a similar machine at about one-fourth the cost. I also suggest a CBN wheel (cubic boron nitride), 10 or 8-inch diameter (8 is cheaper and easier), and ideally 2 inches wide, but spend less for a narrower wheel if you need to.

Grind away the bulk of the edge. If the edge tip is not broken up much, then barely avoid cutting the very tip (and usually the corner at the top). If the edge is broken up a lot, then just barely cut it away too.

It is not necessary to be exact about the angle. Here, we are working efficiently without a high-speed wheel. I like a 200 grit wheel. 

Now to the stones. Or directly to them if the edge is not too bad.

If the blade has been machined fully or just short of a rough edge, start with a course stone at the low angle (27.5°).

If this is one of the majority of sharpening times without machining, go right to the intact higher angle (32.5°) 

Now let us look at how we will use the hand-work stones.        

Here, organize your approach based on the micron levels. The micro numbers guide the fineness of the cuts. I work with these:

45µ  Most coarse.

9µ  I use a two-sided 9µ-45µ combo DuoSharp E/C. It is fast.

2µ  The step from the 9µ.

0.5µ  The final step.

I use the 45µ on a more dulled edge, especially with breaks, and if it has been machined to the edge.  

However, most of the time I start with the 9µ. That is because I try not to delay to resharpen. In a really minimally imperfect edge, I go right to the 2µ. Use your judgement. Sense and see the response you are getting from the stones. 

Note that the step interval is about 1/4 to 1/5 degree of fineness. That is the key to making sense of the stone progression. You could use smaller micron steps but you will need more stones, more setup, and probably take more time.

From the DuoSharp 9µ I go to a Shapton Kuromaku 8,000 (~2µ), then finish with the 0.5µ. Regarding the finest stone, after many years I continue to use the Suehiro 20,000 0.5µ as the final stone. It is a great stone leaving a great edge. It is now about $265! The Shapton Kuromaku 30,000, also 0.5µ, is even more at about $345, and their 30,000 Glass Stone, also 0.5µ, is about $290! 

But I notice online, the Proyan 15,000, which is 0.64µ, is only $46! I have never tried it but it sounds like a nice deal to finish off with.

Another way, but not quite as good, is to use a 3 or 4µ instead of a 2µ, and finish with a 1µ, such as a the much less expensive Shapton Kuromaku 12,000. Finishing off with a mere 3µ, such as a DMT 8000, will not give the same quality edge as the finer stones.

That is a rational plan for managing your tools. I will later go on to discuss  some ultra-fine very quick applications to do after the stoned edge.

Ironically, I do not use a ruler for the Ruler Trick. As I described in a post about five years ago, I like a 0.020″ strip of plastic cut from shim stock and roughened on the bottom for a better grip on the stone. This is about the same thickness as a 1/2mm ruler.

One advantage of using shim stock is for short blades. In the photo above, I am using a 0.015″ shim to raise the spokeshave blade to approximately the same angle as a 0.020″ shim raises a full size blade that fully straddles the stone. Perhaps this adjustment matters little but it helps keep my sharpening technique consistent and it is simple to do.

Many specialty and joinery planes have short blades, and many are bedded bevel up. Some of the bevel-up blades, such as side rabbet planes, have quite a low clearance angle. The Ruler Trick is especially helpful on these.

The blade of the wonderful Veritas router plane is detachable from its vertical stem for convenient sharpening. The clearance angle of the blade as installed in the plane is only about 5°. For this little blade, only about 1 inch long, a 0.005″ shim gives about same 1/2° back bevel as a ruler or 0.020″ shim under a full size blade.

Regarding the direction of Ruler Trick honing as discussed in the previous post, the spokeshave blade above is about the shortest I can practically use the across-the-edge motion. For very short blades like the router and for short skew-edged blades, the along-the-edge motion is more practical.

Woodworkers are indebted to the late David Charlesworth for the Ruler Trick and for the abundance of his other insightful teaching.

Should your honing motion for the tiny Ruler Trick bevel on the back of the blade be parallel to the edge of the blade or perpendicular to it? Does it matter?

The late David Charlesworth demonstrates the technique in his You Tube video moving the blade perpendicular to its edge, i.e., across the edge. He starts with the blade edge beyond the long edge of the stone and pulls it back “two or three times.” He states that he does not “like to trap a wire edge underneath the blade.” He then moves the blade back and forth – barely over the edge of the stone and no more than 10mm onto the stone, which is a very short motion.

In the video, he previously honed the microbevel on the front of the blade using a guide, moving the blade perpendicular to its edge. Thus, the final minute scratches on the back of the blade meet up parallel with those created on the microbevel.

Others, in fact most, as far as I can tell, execute the Ruler Trick differently by moving the blade edge parallel along the length of the stone. This seems quicker and easier. It does mean that the final scratches on the back of the blade will be perpendicular, or at least at a large angle to, those on the bevel.

Another example of technique is from the outstanding teacher, Rob Cosman, who thinks through woodworking techniques so well. He hones the bevel in a vigorous circular/oval motion with the blade edge angled to the length of the stone. He then executes the Ruler Trick moving the edge parallel to the stone.

I used David’s original method for a long time and then drifted to using the parallel method because it is indeed easier. I began to wonder if the opposite directions of the final scratches on the front and back of the blade might weaken the durability of the edge. I lately have switched back to David’s method.

Does it matter? I cannot scientifically measure it but my shop experience is telling me that, yes, the pristine edge seems more durable using the Ruler Trick in the same direction as David demonstrated.

My only real point here is that you may want to try for yourself the different methods and consider the effects.

Another question: Should you go back and forth from honing the bevel to the back? In his video, David very gently hones the microbevel, and then does the Ruler Trick, and that’s all. He does not return to the bevel.

For me, that works well if I am cleaning up an edge that is not too worn, which requires just gentle brief honing and is easy to get right. More often, especially if I want a really nice edge such as on a smoothing plane, I find myself returning to the bevel and then repeating the RT. This means having to unclamp and reclamp the blade from a honing guide, if that is what I’m using.

Again, my point is to suggest we should be aware of just what we are doing, observe the effects, and decide from there.

Next: suggestions for managing the Ruler Trick with small blades.