What grit where you using before this search?

I use 60 or 80 depending on what I've got available. If none available, I use a 100 (?) Atoma diamond plate. But then I also have the cheaper Amazon sharpening guides where I don't mind too much about any wear that might happen on the rollers.

 

I generally don't go below 220. But I generally don't do major work on big pieces like this and the 220 is pretty darn slow. I got it where it is right now by freehanding on a 1 inch belt grinder but now that its close I am not going to risk messing my bevel jig up on the grinder. I seem to remember having trouble doing plane irons on heavy grit paper when I first got the jig years ago but I am not sure. If I remember the irons tended to dig into the heavier grit and cut the paper a lot more than lighter grits and the heavier grit wore extremely fast. But as I say that was a long time back and I am a little too fuzzy to be confident.

 

If I remember the irons tended to dig into the heavier grit and cut the paper a lot more than lighter grits and the heavier grit wore extremely fast.

When using sandpaper, do only pull strokes with the sharpening jig. It's the push that digs and cuts the paper (unless your edge is really starting out jagged like a serrated knife.) With diamond stones push-pull works. With waterstones, I do push-pull, as well, but I've heard some say light pressure on push, and normal pressure on pull.

 

I guess I am questioning if a 120 might eat a little more metal before it wears out or gets cut up than an 80.

 

Wrong question.
The question is: How much metal thickness do you need to remove?

Using a finer grit than required; means you spend a lot more time removing required amount of metal.
Pick the grit that removes what is needed to clean up the edge. As in the end, if you need 60-80 grit removal; you will then need 120 grit to clean up the scratches in preparation for next grit. Skipping grit levels is how you wear out paper faster, and takes more time to clean up the edge.

FWIW:
First stop for rehab of damaged edge chisels in my shop is 8" slow speed grinder. Nothing (paper, diamonds, or stones) works as well; nor does the work as quickly. Especially when sharpening high carbon or modern tough HSS varieties.

Once the edge is cleaned up, switch to a 240grit Sigma wet stone to set the bevel angle. Another good choice for setting initial bevel is Shapton 120 grit stone.
These coarse wet stones cut faster and leave a nicer edge, than coarse diamond stone; resulting in less time spent on next 400-1000 grit step.

If you like to spend extra time sharpening edges, by rubbing metal on abrasive paper for long periods of time; you have significantly more patience than I do.
I want to spend as little time on sharpening as possible. Own/Use: paper, diamonds, wet stones, grinders, leather hone, etc. Even use a WS3000 for most of my chisel sharpening.
I.E. Sharpening method is personal choice, and your YMMV.

 

If you are doing chisel rehab, I would suggest the Taytools drill press jig if you are in a rush. It has 80 Cubitron on the heavy working side, and then 220 on the touch-up side, as well as leather disk as strop.

If you are not in a rush, then carry on with the sand paper.

 

I travel for a living and my wife asked me to stay home for a few months so unfortunately I have a heck of a lot more time than money right now. Normally I would just buy bulk packs of both grits and see what works. That also rules out picking up any other new jigs or fixtures as well. I moved away from using consumables for sharpening a long time ago so I do have diamond stones and synthetics and naturals and whet stones and buffers and strops a plenty to do the finish work. I just don't have a good step between the belt sander and the stones right now. It looks like I can get 100 grit cheaper than either 80 or 120 so I think I am gunna go ahead and get that. If it leaves scratches a little deeper than I want to get out with the 220 I have I can worry about it later. Sadly I honestly may never use this timber framing chisel anyways I am just trying to tune up all of my old yardsale finds and get my shop in order while I have time.

 

731 Woodworks and Rex Kreuger suggest buying the Harbor Freight sanding belts (and cutting them) instead of the rectangular paper. Longer life and better value as I recall in addition to having a longer surface. I vaguely recall Paul Sellers also suggesting the sanding belts but I think that was when he was teaching how to prepare and tune planes.

 

As others have said, the grit to start at depends on how bad the edge is. But without experience, how do you know which damage requires which grit, right?

If the edge has deep nicks, like 1/16" or so, I go straight to the low grits, 60 or 80. For smaller nicks, I'll go to 120 for 5 minutes. If I'm no where near grinding out the nick by then, I go down to 60 or 80.

Five minutes is long enough to give you a good estimate on how fast you're cutting through the steel and how much work it will be to remove any damage to the edge or set the bevel.

So pick a grit that is on the higher end of your estimate and try it for 5 minutes and then determine if you need to go lower or not.

Of course, you could ALWAYS start at 60 and move up through the grits, but that will remove a lot more steel than needed for minor issues and it will wear the chisel/iron down faster.

Also as mentioned above, the sanding belts - cut at the seam - are much more durable than equivalent sandpaper. You'll probably find that a sanding belt costs about the same as a pack of sandpaper, but the belt will last longer than the entire pack of paper.

 

Sorry, I’m a little confused. Are you trying to flatten the back or are you trying to hone a re-ground bevel? I’m a timberframer and I teach timberframing so I‘m always picking up and rehabbing large framing chisels for people to use. Flattening the back can be an enormous task if there’s much pitting and I do that on a 3 foot long float-glass plate with a strip of belt sander paper adhered to it. I start with 60 grit for flattening the worst ones. But, once the back is flat and honed, I’ve never needed to use coarse paper (or stones) on the bevel side. I first rough grind the bevel. I hollow grind by hand on a very coarse grinding wheel to a few degrees shallower than the final bevel angle (I’ll usually grind to 25ish degrees and hone to 30 for soft-woods—or 30 degrees and 35 for hard woods). The reason for the very coarse wheel is because it carries away larger bits of metal faster and therefore does not build up excess heat in the edge. And since the initial grind angle will never be a cutting surface it doesn’t matter how rough or smooth it is. I don’t even measure the rough grind angle because it doesn’t matter what it is, I just do it by eye to a few degrees less than the final angle will be. Once it‘s rough ground the actual sharpening is done only at the vey edge and it can be sharpened very quickly and easily on fine grits—I never use coarser than 150 and that only takes maybe 25-50 strokes to shape the cutting edge before I move up in grit. Yes, this is a huge, imposing chisel but at the cutting edge it’s no more material to sharpen than a medium sized plane iron. The entire honing process on a newly ground framing chisel doesn’t take me more than 10 minutes up to 1000 grit including tightening and removing the jig and final stropping.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding the question but if you need coarse grits on the bevel edge you haven’t ground to a low enough angle. FWIW, I use the Veritas jig too and years ago when I first got it I ruined the bronze roller trying to use it on 80grit paper. It took me a while to realize that I never needed to do that in the first place.

Jack

 

I use 80 grit as my means of really removing metal. The Veritas honing guide is my tool, and it works just fine on 80 grit. After that I move up through grits and then finish off with stones.

 

I just walk into WalMart, to the Automotive section...pick up a "Variety Pack" of Wet-or-Dry" Sandpaper,( 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500 grits)...and a pack of 3000 grit....usually just place a sheet on top of an oil stone, in a puddle of oil to hold the paper still..

KISS....

 

I can see the thousands for getting to final honing, but for rehab?

I remember when the coarsest thing I had was a DMT 300, and I had to fix a 1/16" nick on a 1" chisel. I think I was at it for over an hour. I probably would be at it for the whole night with a 1000.

 

“I can see the thousands for getting to final honing, but for rehab?”

This is what I was trying to get at in my above post. No, you wouldn’t start in the thousands for rehab or for a nick, but there’s never any need to hone with very coarse grits either.

A long time ago I heard Roy Underhill say words to the effect of “if you’re spending a lot of time honing, or if you think you need very coarse grits to speed honing up, you shouldn’t be honing, you should stop and regrind your bevel”. This advice changed the way I sharpen and surely saved me countless hours of effort over the years. Before that I was also slogging away at honing and wishing I could remove material faster. But if you do what Roy said, especially on a newly acquired and possibly mistreated old tool edge, honing takes very little time and can be done starting at reasonable grits like 120-150. Grind to just a few degrees below the final hone angle you‘ll want, and when you move to the honing step nothing but the very point touches your honing stone or paper. The first few honing strokes square up and establish the shape of the honed surface (bevel). As soon as the first stone turns a burr on the flat side, stop and move up to the next grit. Keep doing this through the grits (just turn that burr and move up) and you’ll have a beautiful edge in minutes. After that, every time you stop work and re-hone the edge, that honed surface will get a tiny bit wider of course, but after many, many sharpenings when it gets to the point where honing is taking too long (or if you have a nick) stop and regrind.

As I said, I sharpen a lot of big framing chisels and this honing problem is very pronounced on them because the good ones are thick old laminated blades. If you never reground one of these and just kept honing to sharpen, the beveled edge on some of them could be an inch long or more because of that thickness. Honing that whole surface would be very daunting. But, the minute you regrind, nothing but the very point touches your sharpening stone and honing takes only minutes again.

Jack

 

That chisel I posted...after GRINDING the edge back to get rid of the 1/8" of pits...then used my 6" sanding disc on my Belt/disc sander to get almost to the edge of a new bevel....Disc was 100 grit ( or, used to be, was a wee bit worn at the time, and a lot of dunking in a cup of water)
Oil stone under the paper was a 600 grit Medium India....then to the sandpaper...up to 1500 grit...
Did the entire "Process" in about the same time as a load of clothes in the clothes washer did..

1st stone was an old Coarse "Whetstone" about 200 grit, maybe...then the 600.

OP was asking about sandpaper.......I think the Variety Pack I bought at WalMart was around $5-$6 + Tax

Have gone over to water stones, lately...mainly for the irons in my planes..
They start at 280 and go to 6000 in four stages (splash & Go)

Seems to work well enough on a Home Depot/ Great Neck No.4 ($21 for the plane)

YMMV, of course...

 

Depends on the "nicks". I may start free-handing with a grinder, then switch to 200 grit metal sandpaper, then the two sided (coarse/fine) sharpening stone, then go to the leather strop. I don't always use the chisel sharpening jig, mostly free hand.

You mentioned it takes too long with 220 grit. And thinking 80 grit. Why not get a packet of several grits. Then switch grits up as you sharpen. 80, 120, 180, 220, 400, 600 then strope to final out.

I you're using the framing chisel, just for framing, then that changes things.