I gave up on guides for the most part and this article reinforced my
decision: http://www.antiquetools.com/sharp/index.html. With a little
practice, it is arguably faster and easier to to it by hand, and if you
use water stones like I do, you can spread the wear better. I just
sharpened all of my massive collection of eight chisels this way to hair
shaving satisfaction. I think a very slight rounding of the bevel is
more or less unavoidable doing it by hand, but that it isn't a problem
because it takes the place of the micro-bevel most people recommend. It
should be easy to avoid rounding the back side of the edge. If you are
seeing that, then it may be because of the softness of the paper backing
of the sandpaper. This has occurred to me before and is one reason I'm
not sold on scary sharp. The few times I used scary sharp, I did all
the motion in a backwards direction so that I wouldn't be chiseling up
the abrasive. There may be a reason not to do this that I'm not aware
of, but I thought the result I got was good. I still think guides are
useful for redefining the angle of the bevel once in a great while since
honing by hand will probably result in the angle drifting over time.


Hax, you have some very good offerings with experience and common sense.
I am accurate enough to do it by hand as well but I must use the guide because
of my nerve condition, builds up a lot of pain in my hands.

but a couple strong points, the reason for going forwards is to avoid the burs
that build up, all the abrasive remains anyway, while breaking down and filling
with steel powder.

Another point, about flattening and mirroring the back using SS is that papers
like 1200 and 1500 are so hard, thin and flat once properly glued down on
glass it won't round the back's cutting edge, you just have to be carefull enough
to totally hold down the blade *flat* while doing it, that can be hard while
getting it to finished. Thick glass is paramount for stability, mine is 3/4", junk
shop.

The final perfection is using leather. I bought horse butt online, and I use the
two grits of rougher blue/gray emery and then Veritas green which a very fine
0.5 micron, quite awesome stuff! On that package it (Mr. Lee no doubt)
suggests to use tallow or any kind of hard fat in the leather, doesn't take much
and then less than that, before applying the compounds. I have come to
realize, the thickest toughest strapping and tooling leather would be best. the
result is great and creates that rounded micro bevel, hand done.

--
Alex - newbie_neander in woodworking
cravdraa_at-yahoo_dot-com
not my site: http://www.e-sword.net/