Diamond Honing Strips, Sharpening chisels, router bits, forstner bits

I purchased from Lee valley/Veritas a couple of packages of what are called Sanding Strips They are made to put PSA abrasive on instead of Popsicle sticks etc. They are 3/4 X 6” and .035” thick. they are spring steel so they will bend if needed.

I ordered 2 packages qty10 per package.

I purchased on eBay some 3M diamond Lapping File. 3” X 4” in size.

There are qty 50 in a package. I paid $25.00 per package. I have no idea what the retail cost is per package. I bought 3 grits 3 Mic, 1 Mic and 0.5 Mic. The 3 Mic is about 8,000 grit, 1 Mic is 14,000 grit and the 0.5 Mic is around 60,000 grit. The Chart

The 3M product is a PSA. It is a bear to strip the backing plastic off the plastic that the diamond is bonded to.
My hope was to get 4 strips 3/4” wide. And for the most part it worked.

I’m sure it could also be used to true up a saw blade if necessary.

I covered both sides of one strip with each grit. making 3 different hones. I then made two sets One for home and one for the Toy Workshop. I will use them to touch up Forstner bits, router bits etc. After drilling 4,000 holes with 1 Forstner bit they get a little dull. You also get fuzzing on the surface. So the sharper it is the less fuzz needs to be sanded off.

The little air bubbles seem to come out when you heat it up with a hot air gun and then use the back of a chisel and drag it down the plastic. Most seem to disappear.

I’ve also put some of this diamond film on a piece of marble floor tile and use that to hone my chisels as I am trimming up mortises and tenons.

I have also used the marble block with the Pinnacle Honing guide to touch up plane irons for my hand planes.

One pass of a chisel blade leaves a trail of gray metal on this honing file.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com