Lets talk sharpening...

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14
Location
Los Angeles, CA
So it is going to be soon that I will need to sharpen these new tools of mine. I have looked at purchasing Arkansas stones for my pocket knives and camp hatchet in the past, read about Japanese wet stones and have used diamond sharpeners and a grinder when I was younger doing some turning. As I no longer have access to a bench grinder and I never bought those Arkansas wet stones. I now find myself in the market for a sharpening method. What is your alls prefer method, brands, etc. of sharpening your carving tools?
 
:lurk:

I'm not much good at sharpening, but I do like to collect things that make other things sharp. Can't wait to see how this goes.
 
Spyderco bench stone fine followed by a hard piece of leather with a little compound on it for flat tools (and most out canel gouges). MDF or maple shaped and hen loaded with compound for some gouges to be used as slips.

The spyderco will likely also require a 200-400 grit diamond stone to flatten it, the 400 will take a while, the 200 will need you to use the spyderco for a bit afterwards to get it to settle back in as "fine". The one I got was pretty not-flat and that's apparently common. Don't press down to hard when doing this and use some water to clear the swarf or you'll wreck the diamond stone in a big hurry.

Reasoning is that I can use the spydco completely dry so I don't need any oil or water at the bench. It will sharpen any kind of steel (although most carving tools are high carbon so the arkansas work fine as well). Its also a bit faster than an arkansas (not as fast as my japanese stones though). I can also get close to a mirror edge with it and still remove a fair bit of material if need be pretty fast so its a nice single stone.

My japanese stones are really nice and fast (ok they're simply awesome), but the water is a bit of a hassle to deal with.

I've gone through most of the other methods.
  • Sandpaper - it has its place for flattening large things but it never appealed to me all that much although lots of folks love it.
  • arkansas - yes they're nice and work well at least on most carving tools/high carbon steel, I still use them sometimes but the spyderco is faster and makes just as nice of an edge with less fuss. I could see maybe one translucent as a finish stone maybe.. I don't have a translucent - just a black (actually a soft, medium and black) but have looked at them some :D
  • japanese (specifically the sigma select II's although I've tried some other lesser stones as well) - super fast, puts on a great edge if you work through ~3 grits and I do use them when shaping a profile but the water mess makes them less desirable in my setup as day-to-day users. The sigma's are also a bit on the high dollar side for a complete set.
  • diamond stones - fine for shaping an edge, but imho it leaves the edge a bit ragged even at higher grits because the diamonds have really sharp edges so they tend to leave deeper grooves at a given grit. Honing on mdf or leather can remove most of that though.

I haven't tried the diamond paste on cast iron (kaneban) or mdf although some folks say it works really well. You can get a lifetime supply of diamond paste in various grits on ebay for not all that much. It looks like a somewhat attractive method if you want a lot of grits to cleanup old or messed up tools.
 
I should also add that after having gone through all of these its worth noting that pretty much all of them are mostly within the margin of error, especially when it comes to sharpening carving tools. Mostly you should be going to the honing compound on the MDF/Maple/leather and only occasionally back to the stone so the amount of stone time spent is mostly irrelevant as long as the stone isn't to coarse its fine.

So pick one fairly fine stone (or a couple of fine grits of sandpaper like 6k and 15k automotive paper on glass) of some sort and stick with it until you learn to sharpen on it well enough.

I was starting from scratch today I'd probably get one combo diamond stone (maybe an EZE-LAP DD8M/C - medium/coarse combo - or a couple of DMT stones perhaps D8X, and D8F) and the spyderco and a bar of honing compound (I've been using the green stuff from leevalley, although some folks claim its a bit coarse maybe). I don't think there's much you couldn't sharpen with that.
 
For my carving gouges I use oil stones, either india or cristolon medium grit and traslucent hard Arkansas for the final honing. For my plane blades , chisels or any other flat blade type I have a set of shaptons that work great althouhg even with the coarse grit one it takes time to redo a bevel. One thing that I don't like about water stones is the mess that make and that they wear fast and even faster because one has to keep on flatenning them every now and then.

Sharpening is something that I find very personal, some people love oil stones, other would swear for water ones, at the end I think it is a mix of technique and personal preferences.

Also it will depend on what sort of blades do you have, some years ago I bought four different spokeshaves from Harris Tools, that their blades were made out of HSS and they were almost imposible to sharpen on water stones.
 
I rarely use a stone of any kind on my carving tools. I do not do the big stuff with mallets and chisels just hand carving caricatures mostly . If the knife/gouge is sharp just using a strop from time to time when they feel like they are not cutting as easy as they should. I only use a stone or in my case sandpaper on flat surface to tune up the edge, usually from dropping on hard floor or chipped for some reason. You can do things on the cheap by doing the "Scary Sharp" method. Can find about it on Internet. But that method uses sandpaper of various grits in place of stones for the grinding. I have a Harbor Freight 1 x 30 inch belt sander with a leather belt for honing and have reversed the motor so the belt runs up instead of down.
--bill
 
What Tony said is right on point, he knows. Arkansas stones will do whatever anyone wants for sharpening needs. But it cannot be denied that diamond 'stones' have a real place in your shop. Right now, Grizzly has a four sided set for about $20.00. You can't go wrong trying that. When I was carving I first sharpened then honed on leather with red rouge. You really do not understand what 'sharp' means until you try woodcarving.
 
The leather honing belt sounds interesting, I do see a lot of carvers move to power honing, either wheels or a belt.

One I liked the looks of in some ways was my Facebook friend Ingo's setup

I've been thinking about a more portable treadle based version of that that would clamp into the bench.
 
A leather wheel can be an excellent honer. I made one from four layers of thick leather. The pieces were only sorta cut into a circle the bolted together and powered in any chuck. As the wheel is used it self trues into a more perfect wheel but perfection is not needed for honing. Big. advisory when using one of these. I mean BIG :eek: Only lightly touch the blade to the edge of the wheel. Any pressure and it will, not might, will catch and probably cause an ugly injury to yer fingers. Otherwise, a good, and cheap shop tool.
 
I rarely use a stone of any kind on my carving tools. I do not do the big stuff with mallets and chisels just hand carving caricatures mostly . If the knife/gouge is sharp just using a strop from time to time when they feel like they are not cutting as easy as they should. I only use a stone or in my case sandpaper on flat surface to tune up the edge, usually from dropping on hard floor or chipped for some reason. You can do things on the cheap by doing the "Scary Sharp" method. Can find about it on Internet. But that method uses sandpaper of various grits in place of stones for the grinding. I have a Harbor Freight 1 x 30 inch belt sander with a leather belt for honing and have reversed the motor so the belt runs up instead of down.
--bill

Hi Bill.
The way I see it is that Scary Sharp is a great method but only for straight edge blades such as planes, carving knives or kitchen ones and so forth. I've tried it with gouges and the paper only lasts a few strokes, as the gouge is lying on a very small part of the surface of the paper, and it is very easy to "catch" or cut on the paper. Having said so, I insist, each one of us has different tools, techniques and preferences and what works for me may not work or be of the liking of someone else and in sharpening as in most things there is no a universal truth .;):)
 
Hi Bill.
The way I see it is that Scary Sharp is a great method but only for straight edge blades such as planes, carving knives or kitchen ones and so forth. I've tried it with gouges and the paper only lasts a few strokes, as the gouge is lying on a very small part of the surface of the paper, and it is very easy to "catch" or cut on the paper. Having said so, I insist, each one of us has different tools, techniques and preferences and what works for me may not work or be of the liking of someone else and in sharpening as in most things there is no a universal truth .;):)

I had similar problems with some of my water stones, if I was REALLY careful it was fine, but they're so soft I managed to take a bit of a divot out of the middle of my fancy high grit stone :doh: The trick seemed to be to pretty much only have the edge contact the abrasive on the draw stroke (and then pulling the burr off of the inside with a honing stick).

Speaking of honing the inside I also picked up a set of small "ceramic files", the retailer I got them from doesn't have this set anymore but other folks appear to sell them. I like these a heck of a lot better than the tapered slip stones for handling the insides of curved things if you (rarely) need to do more than hone the inside a bit.
 
I had similar problems with some of my water stones, if I was REALLY careful it was fine, but they're so soft I managed to take a bit of a divot out of the middle of my fancy high grit stone :doh: The trick seemed to be to pretty much only have the edge contact the abrasive on the draw stroke (and then pulling the burr off of the inside with a honing stick).

Fully agree, that's why I use oil stones for my gouges, water stones do dish out too easyly, even when sharpening plane blades, one has to flatten them often if a proper edge is to be attained.
 
This is for sharpening a knife and if it's is really dull...Get a 1" x 30" belt sander...[Harbor Freight has an inexpensive one].....Use 220 grit and keep the same angle and work your way up to 400 grit...Then put a 30" Surgi-Sharp Leather Strap on....You can get that at this Link: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_...field-keywords=30"+Surgi-Sharp+Leather+Strap+ You will need to get some buffing compound but it may come with it...I can't remember....And....you may need to soak the Leather Strap in hot water and then stretch it between 2 small post before it dries to make it fit.....This will sharpen that blade to where you can shave with it......or if you don't want to use the Leather Strap....Go to the junk yard and get a front side car window and clamp it with a wood clamp and then put it in a vise or if it doesn't bother you, just use your own car window and then run that knife over the edge curve of that glass window and you'll get the same results.
 
I ahve generally sharpened axes with a second-cut file. I find this does a good enough job to allow chopping for a while, but does not sharpen the axe to the point the edge gets fragile. For knives I use a carborundum type stone of about 600 grit. To get the correct angle for the blade, wipe the blade forward along the edge of the stone as if the stone were made of wood, and you were trying to take a thin slice off it. When a wire edge develops, turn the knife over, and take a few swipes on the other side. Repeat this on a 1000 grit stone. I ahve used a washita stone and a medium Arkansas stone in the past, but somebody pinched them. You may use a ceramic or diamond sharpener to keep it in fine fettle after you have done this. Only use the stones if the knife becomes seriously dull.
 
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