Hello everyone. I have been sharpening my new Stanley Sweetheart chisels and I would like to get everyone's opinion on how they sharpen their chisels and plane irons.
On my Sweethearts I have been establishing the primary bevel on a 600 grit diamond stone and then going to my 1000 grit ceramic stone before kicking up the angle to polish a secondary bevel on my higher grit stones. I am wondering if I am wasting my time going to 1000 grit on the primary bevel. Is 600 grit good enough for the primary bevel because I am going to finely sharpen and polish a secondary or is it worth it to get the entire primary bevel polished to 1000 grit. Do you have a different practice for your plane irons vs. your chisels? Thank you!
I think your sharpening schedule is just fine.
There's no such thing as wasting time sharpening since the more you do it the better you get.
All sharpening is a attempt at the infinite
600 waste of time IMO, I do a hollow grind, start with 1000 W.S. then finish with 8000 - 10000 W.S. nothing in between. Mirror finish and can resharpen many times on the 8000 W.S. Or just hone on flat board with a little green compound. Same process chisels and plane irons.
All you're doing with the primary bevel is defining a place to put the secondary. Your 600 grit primary is fine because it isn't cutting anything. The back and secondary bevel make up the cutting edge. I flatten the backs of my plane irons and chisels and polish them to 1500 grit, so they become fairly reflective, using 3M Wet-or-Dry on granite. I go to finer grits on the secondary but the polish on the back is stropped to a mirror finish. The Scary Sharp abrasives from TayTools go to 60,000 grit but I'm not sure I'm accomplishing anything past 8,000 grit. The edge MIGHT get sharper but I doubt the difference lasts more than a cut or two. My chisels are all old English Marples (prior to Irwin buying Marples) made with Sheffield steel- not high end but good steel so they sharpen well.
If you aren't hollow grinding (highly recommended) yes go to 1000 on the primary. Reason being the more polished it is, the faster the secondary will go.
1000 not far enough. Go to 8000 (at least). I go to 16K on plane irons. You can go straight to 8K or do 4K in between. I generally go straight from my 1250 to 8000 on a touch up.
Always check for burr before advancing to next grit.
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