Sharpening chisels - my (relatively) simple way

[vaddoc]

Dear all

 

I am no wood worker but I have come to appreciate what a wonderful tool a very sharp chisel can be. However, no matter how expensive or cheap a chisel is, it will need to be honed continuously and will only work as intended if it is really scary sharp.

There are many ways to hone a chisel and various types of stones and jig are available, some very expensive. Please allow me to share how I sharpen my chisels. Now, there are a few tools that are needed but are not too expensive and will last for a very long time.

 

I recently bought a new chisel, an 8 mm Narex so I thought it was a good opportunity to show how it can be turned into a useful tool. I hope that this will be of help to others.

 

I like Narex chisels very much but out f the box they are of no use at all. The tip is covered but some kind of lacquer and is not sharp. The bevel and the back of the chisel are very rough.

Now, for the chisel to be sharp, both surfaces need to be as polished as possible. So lets start honing this chisel

 

We will first concentrate on the back of the chisel. This surface will only be worked once, on purchase and will not be touched again. Until the back is flat and polished to mirror finish, we cannot proceed.

 

I will use only a cheap combination diamond stone 400/1000 grit, a slightly more expensive 1200 grit diamond stone, an old leather mouse pad turned upside down, a sheet of flat MDF and green polishing compound. I also will use a honing jig I make myself. This jig is absolutely needed unless you have a very steady hand and lots of experience, it can be made with whatever scrap material but some accuracy is needed in its construction-basically a drill press or a very steady hand.

Another thing needed is some kind of jig to make sure the bevel is grounded at roughly the same angle each time the guide is used. I just use scrap wood for this

Now, we start by positioning the chisel on the jig, finding the angle and then marking this position on the scrap wood. The little pieces of wood are glued and then screwed on.

Now we start honing. I start with the 400 grit trying to remove the machine marks. This is the starting point

And this is how it looks after a few passes

Then we move on to the 1000 grit. This is how it look afterwards

Then on to 1200 grit, this is the result

However there is a problem. The back is not flat as the next photo shows

This is a problem. The back needs to be flat or better concave, so that less material needs to be removed making the job easier. So back to 400 grit to remove enough material to make the back completely flat, so the tip touches the stones. The diamond stones are very aggressive, they do not need any pressure, just to move the chisel back and forth. 

 

This is how it looks now at 400 grit...

at 1000 grit...

and at 1200 grit.

The chisel is already very sharp but we have a long way to go. Next comes the strop. This is how it looks after a few minutes of stropping.

I have found that the fastest way at this point is using MDF. I charged some MDF with the green stuff and starting polishing like crazy moving the chisels in all directions. After just two minutes the results are impressive.

30 sec later

and after 30 more seconds of polishing, we are there. These are my fingers holding the phone shown on the surface, it is like mirror.

Good, now we move on to the bevel. This is our starting point.

Using the jig we made earlier, the chisel is positioned on the guide. However although close, the positioning is not accurate so we actually need to create our own bevel. So we start with the 400 grit. This is how the new bevel is progressively formed.

Then on to 1000 grit...

and to 1200 grit.

Then we move on to the strop. The bevel takes much less time to polish than the back and actually the leather works better than the MDF. This is the result.

We now need to do a few passes on the back to remove the excess material hanging of the edge.

 

The chisel is now very sharp, sharp enough for what I needed for. It can of course be further polished, the green stuff I think is something like 25,000 grit but it is enough for now. During use, every few cuts, I make a few passes over the strop. With some use, it will get further polished.

 

I hope this has been helpful for some, a video follows showing the surfaces of the chisel

 

 

Regards

Vaddoc

 

 

 

Edited January 23, 2021 by vaddoc

[Moab]

Vaddoc; GREAT POST!! Thank you. Using the MDF is a great tip...Moab

[vaddoc]

Pleasure Moab!