Chisel Sharpening 

Eric Johnson Well said. Buy a tool once.

Pure jealousy.

+Andrew Whitburn You can make any brand of chisel very sharp but for how long going to stay sharp??. You pay for performance.... Carpenters need both cheap and expensive tools for them work. I'm happy with my sharpening water stone and my LN or Veritas and my vintage Stanley wood tools its just fun to work with.

yeah I can understand what you mean about the performance. What I find though is that if you can't afford really good tools that hold a good edge longer, a compromise that seems to work on cheaper chisels is to just strop more often. That takes not much time to do and saves time having to go back and totally re-sharpen.

Paul Sellers has more than 50 years experience and is highly skilled. He paid nine pounds for a set of Aldi chisels and said they retained their edge very well although they did take a fair bit of work to prepare.

+Joshua Rosen Paul Sellers use Ashley Iles chisels and Veritas saw most of his videos both of this tools pretty expensive. you can make any steel super sharp. You can buy old Corolla or new BMW both will make you go home my friend, but how you drive it well that's another story. you got what you pay for

AS you mentioned him this was Paul Sellers thoughts on the matter "Interesting point and comment. Here are some thoughts though. Tools can look beautiful and very tempting, but I worry that my readers might think expensive chisels are the only way to go, or, worse still, that they are necessary for fine work and that’s not true at all. I cut dovetails just as well with $2 chisels as I do with $90 ones. Only a few of my blog readers could afford expensive chisels regardless of who the maker is and I feel compelled to offer practical and inexpensive solutions as practical alternatives for the everyday guys. This is in no way some kind of moral high ground. I often worry that woodworking often tilts more toward an elitist group with very expensive tools that create an illusional fantasy based on looks and impressional collectivity alone rather than an enjoyable way of working with your hands. I do however appreciate your sharing your thoughts and suggestions though. We are a global entity and advisory resource now, with a following in every corner of the world and my worry as always will be what can people get their hands on to make wood work? Just my concerns that’s all. Please keep commenting." (Paul Sellers)

Hehe

@Pat Mahon Not as good as his! LOL....

Hey, great instructions thanks! Though when I use an 1/8” slat for secondary bevel on a 1/“4” it basically becomes the primary. This is using 35 degree as primary (using lower jaw on the faux eclipse) and then adding the 1/4” for secondary. Am I doing this correct?

Did u?

LOL. Best Comment I've read today. So true...for all of us.

Did that for years. I even polished mine with an air tool used for auto body use. I have some REALLY expensive chisels and sharpening them often takes longer than the project. But they stay sharp longer and give MUCH better results.

LOL I’m going out on a limb and say it likely is a factor.

Hilarious!

@@joshjenkinson1929 Too Funny, we're all in that boat at the beginning!

Well,yes in a way......however if one was to carefully defend those pristine edges and just touch them up occasionally, all that initial stuff could be forgotten. My main concern is just how much one could end up spending for the whole works you mention here.! Several hundred easily I would think. ( Even if purchased at other than Lie-Nielsen.)

crillside Well sure, if you have thousands and thousands of dollars to spend on an all-Lie-Nielsen tool selection.

crillside Read the comment I was replying to. "Beginning" woodworkers. Unless you want to make woodworking into an elitist hobby only for the rich. In any case, no matter how good or expensive your tools are, you will eventually have to do the sharpening and maintenance. And that demands a lot of accessories and time and effort. My original post was just a joke. If you get tired from sharpening just go relax a bit. No need to work yourself so much that you drop all the irons and chisels.

Seth T Do you enjoy commenting without reading the message and understanding the context? Well then, gay dolphins jump through hoops to fly into space! 20 dollar chisels notwithstanding, if you buy a full suite of Lie Nielsen tools it will set you back several thousand dollars (saws, chisels, planes, routers, work tables, clamps, and accessories). Also good luck sharpening those chisels on thin air. Pretending Lie Nielsen tools are just as cheap as 20 dollar chisels is just silly. Not every beginning woodworking wants to drop several grand for a hobby they might not know much about.

Seth T And if you read my comment you'll realise I was addressing another commenter that suggested buying only Lie Nielsen tools due to the quality. I replied that woodworking is not only a hobby for the rich so that might not be the best option. Then you jumped in and decided your opinion is important regardless of context or preceding scenario. And I wrote something about dolphins. You happy now?

+David Clink I spend time sharpening my chisels for wood carving...and it really is worth the effort to get a razor edge...just makes the whole carving process easier, more precise and more enjoyable. But I agree that chisels for carpentry don't need to be quite as sharp as they aren't really used in a precision manner

What!!!! Are you for real? Not used in a "precision manner"... I suggest you go and look at some well made furniture and check out the joints.

+Andrew Whitburn Keep in mind that there are paring chisels, which should be kept very sharp so that they can scrape material from dovetails and the sides of mortises, and then there are the chisels which you hit with a mallet to chop out thicker cuts on your projects. There are reasons for that level of sharpening care.

I think it is just carved into the window

the stop block distance depends on each particular guide. my suggestion would be to make a wood chisel with a 45 degree angle and place it into the guide and see where the stop block would have to be for 45 degrees. then do a 30 degree angle wooden chisel and again put that into the guide and see where the stop block would need to be placed to make the chisel fit flush to the table. I don't know how you would measure the in between angles but you could probably guess close enough. on the other hand I'm sure there are marks on the guide for the various angles. once a chisel is sharp, and while it's still in the guide, you can use it to set the stop block for the next time you want that angle. I'm sure that's all he did...just to save the trouble of lining things up by eye.

Does your honing guide have an angle jig, like the Veritas MkIi?

FrankEdavidson No. It has markings on the side which relate to angles when you clamp your chisel in place. Hadn't noticed them before. However, I did the mods as per the video to improve the clamping and it now works a treat. Gives consistent angle and sharpens chisels and plane blades perfectly. I used carborundum grit paper (wet and dry) on a flat surface - now an excellent tool. Hope this helps.

Depending on the clamping mechanism, the stop block distance can also depend on the thickness of the blade. If you clamp the non-edge part to the jig, the thickness matters. If you clamp the edge part (i.e. back) up against a bar, that problem goes away. And if being a perfectionist, you really need to adjust the jig to the finishing angle, not the starting angle. As the sharpening removes some of the tip, it shortens the blade, which changes the angle. Aggressive sharpening using a single-roller jig thus always creates a rounded bevel, not a truly straight one. You need a dual roller with a spring loaded cart to get a truly flat bevel. Or a decade of experience of doing it by hand.

H20

Dave Hart chuckle

You are not alone Dave,.....

Ok if u like

If you have to ask, you can't afford it.

any polished piece of granite. the one i have, came from a throw out bin at a countertop store.

Ye

If it helpz

Did you miss the part where he pulled it out of the wrapping paper.....as in the damn thing WAS NEW!!!

They're "factory flat", and "factory sharp" which is to say neither very flat nor very sharp. Because most woodworkers will want to bevel and hone any new tool to preference anyhow, it doesn't seem like a good move to employ skilled workers to spend a lot of time on every chisel, increasing the cost of manufacture and thus the cost of sale. For lower priced chisels than this, most new ones also have a thin layer of some lacquer or protectant on the surface, so they can hang unsold on the wall for some time without corroding. Store clerks aren't going to go oil every individual tool every so often. But that also means you're expected to at the very least hone them before use, to remove that protection and expose the metal.

+Art Heen. I have several LN planes and chisels, and all of them were razor sharp and ready for use when they arrived. No doubt the experienced user will touch them up before using, but for my purposes, they are ready to use straight from the box. This was not the case with a four-piece mortise chisel set I bought from my local hardware store for €30. They were nearly exactly as you described and would cut only because of the mechanical advantage of being mostly wedge shaped at one end. After an hour of cleaning, sharpening, and honing, they were ready for action. After a few hours of cutting pine, the 10mm chisel was dull again and needed sharpening. Fortunately, this only took about five minutes since it now had a nice bevel. For a hobbyist, the €30 set will work as long as expectations are under control and I'm willing to cut, cut, cut, sharpen, cut, cut, cut, sharpen...and so on. At my age, time is one resource I have less of and I prefer to put more cuts between the sharpening.

@Pat Mahon Thank you for your reply. I do not have a grinder but I did do a lot of honing on my diamond stones. Not perfect but a bit better. I think I need to give it another go.

it's a lapping plate. about 220-325 depending who u get it from.

Water

When you do things like mortising, the edges of the back being flat is very important. But even if you never use the flat side, you still need to flatten the area near the edge, because that's one of the two surfaces that makes the edge. If either one of them isn't flat, the edge won't be flat either. I'd even go one step further than this video, and strop the back.

any lower grit. just clean after

+Tech Tins, it is a diamond lapping plate. They are dead flat. The one I have is flat within 0.0005 across the entire length/width.

They start out dead flat, but they don't always stay that way. The diamond is just a dusting on the surface, but the frame itself can bend and warp a tiny bit with time, use and abuse, just like any other surface. There are methods for truing a diamond lapping plate, but you need extra equipment costing far more than a new plate. Most diamond lapping plates should stay true enough for quite a few years, so it's not something worth doing for most of us.

I think it's a picture of plane floats

a lapping plate. diamond plate.

Jacob Mortensen Ok, thanks.

Google it

The distances are provided with the honing guide. For the old style inexpensive guide in use here the number are stamped on the guide. For the yet to be produced LN guide the distances of the stop from the edge of the board for each bevel angle is provided in accompanying literature.

+JL999k yeah you can use the shittiest chisels in the world and they will work just as good as any expensive ones and will last a lifetime.

Not true!!... I have so called shiitty cheap chisels for my outdoor garden landscape projects and fine chisels for workshop work... They are NOT equal, that is a fact!

Sure, there are differences: The steel used matters. With a too soft steel, you'll spend a lot of time sharpening. But with a too hard steel, you'll easily chip the edge, and while sharpening it less often, it takes far longer when you have to. I'd go with a softer steel myself. Then there's the flat side of the chisel. Many of us want this to be ever so slightly concave, because as long as the edges are flat, it won't affect the chiseling, and it takes a lot less time to hone the back. And, you never get a sticktion effect. The Lie-Nielsen chisel demonstrated here does not have have a concave back, but a slightly convex one based on it polishing in the middle before the edges. That makes it a poor chisel in my opinion, because you have to spend so much time lapping it every time you sharpen. And the thickness of the chisel matters. Thicker is sturdier, but it takes far longer to create a new primary bevel. Most of the time, you only need to recreate the secondary bevel, so that's not always a concern. Then there's the handle. Many like to turn or carve their own handles to fit their hands better, and add a soft metal strike plate at the end for use with a mallet or chisel hammer. If you can't do either, it's a negative. I've seen great chisels at $10, and bad ones costing more than $150. Unlike most other tools, the price is not a reliable indicator for chisels (and plane blades, for much the same reasons).

Re price is not a reliable indicator for chisels... what about age?

Milk Manson No, there are good and crappy chisels made today, and there were good and crappy chisels made in the past. If buying old chisels, the risk is higher that you may have to regrind the entire bevel, and not just sharpen it, but at least you won't get non-replaceable and uncomfortable plastic handles.

I've heard it being done that way because it is easier than trying to remove 220 scratches all at once. They can get too deep and take even more time to remove with 400 grit if you spend too much time on 220 grit.

First of all, a Japanese 10,000 grit is nothing near a Western 10,000 grit. Two different scales, much like 10 centimeters is not like 10 inches. Secondly, with traditional Japanese water stones, you need a secondary stone called a "Nagura stone", which you rub against your water stone to create a slurry. This slurry comes from the water stone itself, and not the Nagura stone, and it's this slurry that does the polishing. Thirdly, you cannot go directly to a 10,000 grit. You have to go through several lower grits first, or else you'll just be polishing the "mountain tops" on your metal. You'll get a very shiny finish at around 800 grit, a reflective chrome-like finish at around 2,000 grit, a mirror-like finish at around 4,000-6,000 grit. Which is comparable to your 10,000 Japnese water stone. If the metal is rough, you may want to start even lower, like 400 grit or even 220. But working your way up is key. Don't switch to the next higher grit until it's as good as it gets on the lower grit..

Yeah, the Japanese grit is in metric...