{"id":152,"date":"2008-10-28T01:13:41","date_gmt":"2008-10-28T05:13:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/?p=152"},"modified":"2008-11-12T22:02:55","modified_gmt":"2008-11-13T02:02:55","slug":"honing-guides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/28\/honing-guides\/","title":{"rendered":"Honing guides?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sharpening<\/strong> is, of course, a huge topic in woodworking where it should never be forgotten that there are many effective ways<\/strong> to achieve excellent results. As such, I will not stir up the debate as to whether one should use manufactured honing guides but simply state that, with rare exceptions, I do not.<\/p>\n

For preparing a new edge, after flattening the back of a chisel or plane blade, I grind a primary bevel on the Tormek<\/strong> machine using one of Tormek\u2019s handy jigs. I use the resultant concave bevel to feel the contact angle on the stone\u2019s surface as I clean up, but still preserve, the grind. I use Shapton stones<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I refer you to Joel Moskowitz\u2019 excellent discussion of sharpening<\/a>, which, as you would expect from Joel, includes some interesting historical information. I almost always\u00a0<\/strong>use a small secondary bevel <\/strong>on\u00a0my tools. Joel discusses\u00a0microbevels <\/a>and here is where I will add my approach.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say I grind a chisel at 27 degrees,\u00a0and use\u00a0a\u00a032 degree secondary bevel. The chisel is held freehand, yet consistently, against the stone at the\u00a0secondary angle. I “set” this angle with a simple block of wood <\/strong>as shown above. I hold the block on the stone, slide in the chisel, lock one hand, remove the block, bring the other hand on the tool, and hone. I can precisely return to this angle <\/strong>as needed after flipping the tool and backing off on a finishing stone.\u00a0Usually my hands remember the angle after a flip or two, but I can always return to the block to remind my hands.<\/p>\n

When I resharpen the\u00a0tool I hone just the small secondary bevel, sometimes first on a 5000 before going to my finest stone. Here\u2019s the important point: I can reproduce the secondary bevel angle very easily with the block guide<\/strong>, a day later or a month later. I\u2019m honing a very small area of metal that meets the stone precisely. Depending on the use of the tool, the secondary\u00a0bevel lasts for several resharpenings <\/strong>before I regrind on\u00a0the Tormek. I am careful to rinse the blocks to avoid contaminating my finest stones.<\/p>\n

The blocks, about 4 \u00bd” x 1 \u00bd” x \u00bd” are easy to make. They are also useful for creating a primary bevel using coarse stones for certain tools that I don\u2019t grind on the Tormek. Most of these blocks have seen many years of use. Very simple, very effective<\/strong> – that\u2019s the way I like things<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sharpening is, of course, a huge topic in woodworking where it should never be forgotten that there are many effective ways to achieve excellent results. As such, I will not stir up the debate as to whether one should use manufactured honing guides but simply state that, with rare exceptions, I do not. For preparing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-techniques"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions\/199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}