Sharpening System


ben_r_

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4 hours ago, Chestnut said:

Can't help but think that one could save them selves a lot of money by just using the guide this product was designed off of?

https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Larson-800-1800-Honing-Guide/dp/B000CFNCKS

Or practice free hand sharpening 99.999% of the time the angle doesn't matter.

 

Come over some time and compare this to my Lie Nielsen guide and you'll see the difference immediately. Now if your good with free handing so be it but I suspect the new WP guide will be closer to the LN then the amazon one. 

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41 minutes ago, pkinneb said:

Come over some time and compare this to my Lie Nielsen guide and you'll see the difference immediately. Now if your good with free handing so be it but I suspect the new WP guide will be closer to the LN then the amazon one. 

The LN one is leaps and bounds ahead of the WP one. You can attach plates to sharpen short irons as well as skew irons. Also  SS > Aluminum.

The amazon one does suck, sucks alot, but it works good enough for the once every 3 years when i need to reset an angle on a plane iron.

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Here's my angle setting jigs.  I stuck these together one morning, intending on making some good ones out of Corian later, but we've been still using these for several years now.

The trouble with ones like that Woodpecker one, or the many homemade ones that use the same method, is that the angle is not the same when the cutter (iron, or chisel) is a different thickness-edited to add:  I was mistaken about this, and explained in my next post in this thread, thanks to JohnG for calling attention to it.  What determines the angle is the distance from the cutting edge to the contact point of the wheel.  That changes with the cutter thickness, but is plenty close enough if you are using only one jig.  I don't see any excitement with spending a bunch of money to get close, whether it matters, or not.  If I tell someone I'm using a 20 degree bevel, it's 20 degrees.

These are always exact, regardless of either thickness of cutter, or type of guide, including even the MKII.  Lee Valley sells a setting jig for $45 that will do the same, but you have to fumble with it to get to the angle you want.  Mine are easy for anyone to use, and always repeat the exact same angle.  We couldn't do full bevel sharpening with jigs, and always return to the exact same angle without them.

The first picture below shows checking a plane iron, that we didn't know what the bevel angle was, by the 20 degree jig.

I would never sharpen a 1/4" chisel with that red Record guide, but it's just used as an example to show that it works with anything.

You just stick the blade all the way in, slide any jig in place until it stops, tighten, and you'll always get the exact same angle.

I've even had some of my clients (who normally never do any such manual work) use them, with my sharpening system, and they are always amazed that it's so easy to get something so sharp.

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The design of this and the Veritas mkii will give the same angle regardless of iron/chisel thickness. 

I have used guides similar to Tom’s (shop made and the original veritas guide) and personally can’t stand them. The shop made ones like Tom’s are much better than the old veritas one, but I still much prefer the veritas mkii. 

Can’t imagine forking out the cash for the WP over the veritas, but its does have a nice design. 

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I was mistaken about the angle being different with this one.  I was assuming it was simply like the many similar, homemade versions of setting jigs you see for the Eclipse clones.  I looked at the video. The reason this one does keep the angle constant, regardless of the cutter thickness, is the way the cutter fits into the guide.  It keys off the cutter's back going under the guide, rather than sitting on top of the jig as it does in the Eclipse types.  That's actually a good design for that reason.

That's a MKII in the 20 degree jig in my picture.  We keep the cambered roller on it all the time, but really the only time it gets used is when we are off on a small job, and use oil stones.  The MKII works great for my helpers to be able to use micro-bevels, and the only time we use micro-bevels is when we're using oil stones, just because they cut so much slower than our waterstones.  We use full bevel when using water stones.

I can see where the fumbly thing that mounts to the MKII would be better if the straight roller is used, and the whole thing needs to be set up for square, but I eliminated that as a possible problem for my helpers.  Since the cambered roller stays on it all the time, it's much faster not to have to bother with mounting the thing on the front of the MKII.

Other than price, the one thing that would keep me from buying this is no provision for cambered edges.

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