Any woodworkers?

The thing I need to address most is to make it a regular thing. Rob Cosman has a pull-out tray he uses for his sharpening and he never puts the stones away. If part of using the chisels is a few laps on a stone each time you use them then sharpening is never a chore and they're never dull. That's what I need to work on: finding a dedicated spot to just leave it out.

 

Tormek Buy once, Cry once. If you're getting into sharpening and start with whetstones, they'll need to be flattened occasionally. You'll jump from 300 grit up to 8000 grit moving through each different stones which starts to add up. I bought a few combination stones on higher grits to save a little cost but all in, I'd ballpark that I'm about 450$ in just stones. Jigs will add to that cost. The Veritas system is a nice add on which I need to purchase but that'll add more $$ onto my initial purchase. All of this is getting me closer to the initial cost of buying that Tormek. You can get away with diamond plate stones linked above to take up some of the lower grit whetstone costs and then go with a 4000/6000 to 8000/10000 grit stones to end off your hone but you still need to fiddle with the sharpening system if you cant hold the blade at the correct angle. If you're getting on in years and your hands dont want to behave like hands anymore, a sharpening machine might help you out. I have the Pride Abrasives stones, single 220, single 400, combo 1000/6000, combo 3000/8000 all in 8x3 and the 120 grit flattening stone in 10x6. All those stones grow mold since they are wet so I have to treat with bleach or leave them submerged in water. They need to be kept from freezing otherwise they will crack and split. If I was to do it all over again from scratch, I'd go with the Tormek. There's plenty of videos on the internet to show you what you'd get. I'm a big fan of time is money and cleaning and setting up the whetstones then sharpening all take time, a lot of time but I do get razor sharp edges that can shave hair. Bottom line, if I were you, I'd get Diamond stones for your lower grit as they will stay flat then get a combo 3000/8000 whetstone (no real need to go to 10000 unless you're sharpening surgical equipment) and get a veritas jig to hold your chisels and ensure you microbevel 5 degrees to keep your edge clean. I love and hate sharpening, hate the process but love the result.

-J

 

I'm not sure what would be the bigger waste, the burned down shop, or the half gallon of rubio monocoat he poured into the trash. Yikes. Nonetheless it's a good PSA.

 

About the only thing I have to add to this is I bought my stones from Lie-Nielsen. These stone only need a small spritz of water to use, so they don't have the mold issue. My old immersion stones never got moldy either, maybe I was lucky.
Every so often I think of the Tormek, but damn is that ever a huge check to write all at once. I've bought my stuff over time in far smaller chunks of money, and I think the total cost will end up being half what a decently equipped Tormek T8 goes for. If I used my lathe a bunch more, then the Tormek would make more sense. idk. How is the Tormek for the initial flattening of the back of the chisels?

 

I store my stones in their wooden (bamboo?) boxes they came in up in a cabinet in my kitchen so maybe that's the culprit in the formation of mold. The stones do need to be water loaded until all the bubbles stop flowing out to properly use the stone. When properly loaded with water, you only need a few drops of water on the top of the stone to build the slurry. The slurry mix is what helps the sharpen the stone, think of it as a sort of stropping compound. It's imperative that you clean the slurry mix off of the blade before transitioning to a finer grit stone. My process is to submerge all my stones in water until the bubbles stop which takes about 10 minutes per stone. These can be all submerged at the same time. I just use a folded hand towel as a base and go to town on my edges of the tool being sharpened until I built up a nice slurry, keeping the stones lubricated with water. It takes about 10 to 20 swipes per stone per side of the tool after the slurry mix has formed on top. An old T-shirt to wipe the slurry off the tool before transitioning to the next grit. Back of the tool first to keep the back edge flat, flip tool to get the bevel then repeat. I sharpened out a nick in one of my planar blades which cupped my 220 stone and it took hours to get it flat again.

-J

 

Interesting. My first stones are immersion but never had bubbles. Then again, they are over 25 years old. I bought a diamond lapping plate from LN. at almost $200, I really cringed over that purchase, but damn, it even flattened my old and severely cupped 6000 stone in just a few minutes. just a couple quick swipes keeps the other stones perfectly flat.
Here's a link to what I've picked up recently. I bought a couple of the Ohishi stones and the lapping plate. When I recover from that expense, I'll replace my old 6000 stone with one from LN. These new stones cut so fast, it almost makes sharpening easy. Almost...
https://www.lie-nielsen.com/nodes/4203/blade-sharpening

Btw, my old immersion stones work best with slurry, like yours, but the new ones cut so fast you never get the slurry.

 

Not too deep. I just want some sharp chisels. I'm not after hair splitting edges. Plus, I want to be able to resharpen them easily when needed. I'm looking for the jig/fixture, and a good combination stone. I've seen a set from Rockler that uses sandpaper, a jig, and sheets of sandpaper. It seems very simple, but if it works...

 

I used this book for years, it talks about sharpening all sorts of woodworking tools

 

Chris told me you could do this....is that true?
https://youtube.com/shorts/-3ZnLu_K0aY?feature=share

 

Walnut day in the workshop.

 

Walnut is my favorite!
I got very lucky many years ago when my neighbor had his Walnut tree removed. He gave the trunk to me and I had a guy with a portable sawmill come over... $75 for a ton of Walnut!

 

Where do you live? I have most of the 1100 lbs cargo capacity to fill!

 

what do you mean by dry it under pressure, how would i do that

 

Paid $191 for two DeWalt power max batteries and got a rotary hammer drill ($239) for free. Now to sell the drill and get my money back for the batteries! I love lowes.

 

We’ve been building townhomes and furnishing them for my program for the last two years. Furniture and decorations have been going on my personal credit card (paid by my company) and I’ve been racking up free tools from rewards points at Home Depot

 

Not to add to any taxman paranoia if you have any, don't go hog wild with that. A client of mine had a tax audit, and to be fair he wasn't organized, helpful, or polite to the auditor, but they drilled down to rewards points, and they deemed that they were actually a taxable benefit (redeemed or not) and he ended up paying a tax bill on those too. Sometimes keeping all company stuff (points included) all separate from personal is best, or at least declare it.