Sharpening question

With a 6” wheel you should have a dramtic hollow grind. If you are using any kind of jig to hold your iron in place then there is little way that you can bot get a hollow grind on your 6” stone, no matter how heavy of a hand you have…

-- Never board, always knotty, lots of growth rings

I just set the tool rest at the proper angle. There was a hollow when I finished grinding, but it didn’t seem to take much to hone it off!

-- "some old things are lovely, warm still with life ... of the forgotten men who made them." - D.H. Lawrence Wake Up America!! Please read; http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/26-0

My grandpa taught me how to sharpen things by honing on the sidewalks, the rich folks had the smoothest of the area so we got kicked out of there regularly. But for now I use my belt sander to set up a hollow ground. It’s wide enough to sharpen a plane too. If you have the nerve or touch, grind with the belt traveling toward you. That will reduce the burr on the back of the blade. But the kickback can be scary, the blade can be sent to you in a flash! Most of the time it will just tear the belt & make you mad tho. I tend to grind away from the rotation now & then use a diamond stone to touch up the final edge & back, makes for a quick sharp edge. ALWAYS use a water can to cool the blade as you don’t want to loose the temper. (but you knew that) Go get a Tormek system so we can have a sharpening party!

-- $tudie

I don’t have any problem getting it sharp with my water stones. Just surprised I honed away the hollow :-)) It was to keep me from honing so much, right ?!!

-- "some old things are lovely, warm still with life ... of the forgotten men who made them." - D.H. Lawrence Wake Up America!! Please read; http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/26-0

Bob, I just bought two water stones and a jig to hold the the iron. I have never sharpen before so If you want to show off your skills on the stone let me know. I think I could arrange a Sat lunch in the deal.

-- John at Sugarloft Mountain........Don't argue with an idiot; people watching may not be able to tell the difference.

Maybe next weekend, sorta busy now. I have always done it by hand like T-Chisel, Tommy MacDonald. Maybe that is teh problem, I need to use a jig to keep it perfectly on angle, PS. shnould be on the puter now, just checking email, ;-)

-- "some old things are lovely, warm still with life ... of the forgotten men who made them." - D.H. Lawrence Wake Up America!! Please read; http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/26-0

I find that honing the hollow away on plane irons fairly easy to do. Since they are but 1/16” thick, the hollow does not get very deep, even with a 6” grinding wheel. With thicker cutting edges, like chisels, the hollow gets much deeper. If my calculations are correct (assuming a 30 degree bevel and a 6” wheel) the hollow on a 1/4” thick iron/chisel is about 16 times deeper than on a 1/16” iron. (.0003” vs. .0052” ).

Hope that helps.

-- Brian Havens, Woodworker http://brianhavens.com

Brian calculated that the hollow is about .0003’’ that is not very mutch.

-- wchips

hollow is as hollow does Bob

-- W James Brokenbourgh Custom furniture maker http://artisticwoodstudio.com/

.003 isn’t much :>)) No wonder it doesn’t last long. I never thought about calculating to see how deep it would be. I haven’t hollow ground any chisels yet. I’ll see how they come out one of these days, thanks.

-- "some old things are lovely, warm still with life ... of the forgotten men who made them." - D.H. Lawrence Wake Up America!! Please read; http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/26-0

My plane irons are both hollow ground and flat. I’ve used a 10” slow speed wet grinder on a couple and by Norton stones 25 degree bevel. I use a honing jig 30 degrees than a micro bevel and have found no noticeable difference in honing or the time between sharpening.

I too have over done the honing, now after the primary bevel is established 6-10 stokes down the middle and on each corner with a 4000 stone is all it takes then the same with a 8000 stone finished. A couple minutes at best and the cutting/polished surface is a couple 32”and there is plenty left for re-honing.

-- Marc

Like everything else I do, I have always over done it ;-))

-- "some old things are lovely, warm still with life ... of the forgotten men who made them." - D.H. Lawrence Wake Up America!! Please read; http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/26-0

Bob, it sounds to me like you are using the same honing angle as the grinding angle. It is normal to hone a secondary bevel on the tip of the blade between 1/16” and 1/32” wide. I normally grind at 25 degrees and hone at 30 degrees. That leaves almost all of the hollow grind intact.

Personally I wouldn’t try hand grinding a primary bevel, but I do hone on my diamond stone by hand. This is more or less a repeat of the advice above, so please just consider it a reinforcement.

-- Mike, American in Norway

Thanks Mike, I usually just hone the primary angle. I should try the secondary system. I don’t use planes a lot, but plan to be doing more higher grade work. I think the hollow being so shallow is why it ws gone so quick.

-- "some old things are lovely, warm still with life ... of the forgotten men who made them." - D.H. Lawrence Wake Up America!! Please read; http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/26-0

Okay, Okay, I’ll be the first to ask; why a hollow grind on such a small blade? It’s my understanding (hoo boy) a hollow grind is for easier and quicker maintenance sharpening as sharpening is needed during the use of the tool. A large surface, such as that of a chisel, could take a while to sharpen up, hence the hollow grind; a small surface like that of a planer blade would only take a small effort…right? No rotton-tomato throwing, please!

-- Power tools put us ahead of the monkeys