Hello,

I bought a wood chisels for fitting hinges to doors. Having hung doors
in every room in the house, the chisel is now looking worse for wear.
How do I sharpen it?

I have got an angle grinder, so I presume I could use a metal grinding
disc but is this possible? Would I have to clamp the grinder to a work
bench?

Would you recommend that I buy a desk-top grinder instead? Or since
this was a cheap and cheerful chisel, are they supposed to be
considered disposable?

How many times can a chisel be re sharpened? I presume they get
slightly shorter each time you grind them?

Are there any web pages explaining sharpening technique? Do you have
to grind a particular angle?

Thanks,
Stephen.

In message ,
writes
Hello,

I bought a wood chisels for fitting hinges to doors. Having hung doors
in every room in the house, the chisel is now looking worse for wear.
How do I sharpen it?

I have got an angle grinder, so I presume I could use a metal grinding
disc but is this possible? Would I have to clamp the grinder to a work
bench?

Would you recommend that I buy a desk-top grinder instead? Or since
this was a cheap and cheerful chisel, are they supposed to be
considered disposable?

How many times can a chisel be re sharpened? I presume they get
slightly shorter each time you grind them?

Are there any web pages explaining sharpening technique? Do you have
to grind a particular angle?

Thanks,
Stephen.


An angle grinder is an interesting idea :-)

Take a read of

http://www.diyfaq.org.uk/sharptools.html

http://www.axminster.co.uk/product-S...tone-Sharpenin
g-Kit-31764.htm


The only time I nearly saw my dad cry was when my mother said " you were
wrong you can use a chisel as a screwdriver, I just have". He remained
remarkably calm!
--
Bill

"Bill" wrote in message


An angle grinder is an interesting idea :-)


I do it all the time on the "finer disk",bearing in mind I cannot for the
life of me get a razor sharp edge using an oil stone.

:-)

On 11 Dec, 17:26, wrote:
Hello,

I bought a wood chisels for fitting hinges to doors. Having hung doors
in every room in the house, the chisel is now looking worse for wear.
How do I sharpen it?

I have got an angle grinder, so I presume I could use a metal grinding
disc but is this possible? Would I have to clamp the grinder to a work
bench?

Would you recommend that I buy a desk-top grinder instead? Or since
this was a cheap and cheerful chisel, are they supposed to be
considered disposable?

How many times can a chisel be re sharpened? I presume they get
slightly shorter each time you grind them?

Are there any web pages explaining sharpening technique? Do you have
to grind a particular angle?

Thanks,
Stephen.

I inherited one of my Grandad's chisels via my Dad. Bevel edge, 1"
wide. Blade length is about 1" ! Still good for chopping out old putty
from window frames etc.

Pete

In message ,
wrote
Hello,

I bought a wood chisels for fitting hinges to doors. Having hung doors
in every room in the house, the chisel is now looking worse for wear.
How do I sharpen it?


Search for 'Scary Sharp' or 'Scary Sharp(TM)'

--
Alan
news2006 {at} amac {dot} f2s {dot} com

On 11 Dec, 17:26, wrote:

How do I sharpen it?

Many ways: various stones, or Scary Sharp (wet & dry stuck to glass,
web search for it) is probably your best bet.

I have got an angle grinder,

Don't use any sort of powered metalworking grinder to sharpen a chisel
- you'll overheat it and destroy the temper. If you were in a position
to do this, you'd have other and better options available to you.
Powered chisel grinders are too expensive, so go with the Scary Sharp.

Andy Dingley wrote:
On 11 Dec, 17:26, wrote:

How do I sharpen it?

Many ways: various stones, or Scary Sharp (wet & dry stuck to glass,
web search for it) is probably your best bet.

I have got an angle grinder,

Don't use any sort of powered metalworking grinder to sharpen a chisel
- you'll overheat it and destroy the temper. If you were in a position
to do this, you'd have other and better options available to you.
Powered chisel grinders are too expensive, so go with the Scary Sharp.

What about nicks in the edge? Can wet & dry paper remove enough metal?
What grit?


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257

On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 20:41:40 +0000, The Medway Handyman wrote:

Andy Dingley wrote:
On 11 Dec, 17:26, wrote:

How do I sharpen it?

Many ways: various stones, or Scary Sharp (wet & dry stuck to glass, web
search for it) is probably your best bet.

I have got an angle grinder,

Don't use any sort of powered metalworking grinder to sharpen a chisel -
you'll overheat it and destroy the temper. If you were in a position to
do this, you'd have other and better options available to you. Powered
chisel grinders are too expensive, so go with the Scary Sharp.

What about nicks in the edge? Can wet & dry paper remove enough metal?
What grit?

==================================
Start with emery cloth on a flat surface. Hold the chisel vertically as if
holding a pen and work it until the nicks are gone. Continue with the
emery cloth at the normal sharpening angle until you've got a basic
cutting edge and finish with wet & dry or standard oil stone. The emery
cloth is a bit drastic but it does get rid of nicks and doesn't carry the
risk of angle grinder treatment.

Cic.

--
===================================
Using Ubuntu Linux
Windows shown the door
===================================

"Andy Dingley" wrote in message
...
On 11 Dec, 17:26, wrote:

How do I sharpen it?

Many ways: various stones, or Scary Sharp (wet & dry stuck to glass,
web search for it) is probably your best bet.

I have got an angle grinder,

Don't use any sort of powered metalworking grinder to sharpen a chisel
- you'll overheat it and destroy the temper. If you were in a position
to do this, you'd have other and better options available to you.
Powered chisel grinders are too expensive, so go with the Scary Sharp.

Hmmm! my chisels havn't lost their tempred factor in the past three years of
sharpening them on a grinder wheel but then again if you remember your
school metalwork classes you always used a cooling process inbetween heated
metal.

Cicero wrote:
On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 20:41:40 +0000, The Medway Handyman wrote:

Andy Dingley wrote:
On 11 Dec, 17:26, wrote:

How do I sharpen it?

Many ways: various stones, or Scary Sharp (wet & dry stuck to
glass, web search for it) is probably your best bet.

I have got an angle grinder,

Don't use any sort of powered metalworking grinder to sharpen a
chisel - you'll overheat it and destroy the temper. If you were in
a position to do this, you'd have other and better options
available to you. Powered chisel grinders are too expensive, so go
with the Scary Sharp.

What about nicks in the edge? Can wet & dry paper remove enough
metal? What grit?

==================================
Start with emery cloth on a flat surface. Hold the chisel vertically
as if holding a pen and work it until the nicks are gone. Continue
with the emery cloth at the normal sharpening angle until you've got
a basic cutting edge and finish with wet & dry or standard oil stone.
The emery cloth is a bit drastic but it does get rid of nicks and
doesn't carry the risk of angle grinder treatment.


Cheers - what grit emery cloth?


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257

On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:36:47 +0000, The Medway Handyman wrote:

Cicero wrote:
On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 20:41:40 +0000, The Medway Handyman wrote:

Andy Dingley wrote:
On 11 Dec, 17:26, wrote:

How do I sharpen it?

Many ways: various stones, or Scary Sharp (wet & dry stuck to glass,
web search for it) is probably your best bet.

I have got an angle grinder,

Don't use any sort of powered metalworking grinder to sharpen a chisel
- you'll overheat it and destroy the temper. If you were in a position
to do this, you'd have other and better options available to you.
Powered chisel grinders are too expensive, so go with the Scary Sharp.

What about nicks in the edge? Can wet & dry paper remove enough metal?
What grit?

==================================
Start with emery cloth on a flat surface. Hold the chisel vertically as
if holding a pen and work it until the nicks are gone. Continue with the
emery cloth at the normal sharpening angle until you've got a basic
cutting edge and finish with wet & dry or standard oil stone. The emery
cloth is a bit drastic but it does get rid of nicks and doesn't carry
the risk of angle grinder treatment.


Cheers - what grit emery cloth?

==================================
I use 'medium' emery cloth - no idea what grit that is. If it's too coarse
you'll simply rip the grit off the paper without doing much work on the
chisel.

Cic.

--
===================================
Using Ubuntu Linux
Windows shown the door
===================================

On 11 Dec, 21:03, Cicero wrote:

Start with emery cloth on a flat surface.

I'd suggest black wet & dry (silicon carbide grit) rather than emery
cloth. Emery cloth has rather a stiff backing and is hard to stick
down flat. For sharp edges you need flatness, otherwise the edge gets
rounded off.

On 11 Dec, 21:11, "George" wrote:

Hmmm! my chisels havn't lost their tempred factor in the past three years of
sharpening them on a grinder wheel

How do you know? Have you measured their hardness?

but then again if you remember your
school metalwork classes you always used a cooling process inbetween heated
metal.

Which will cause cracking (too small to be visible) in high-carbon
steels, such as chisels. This hasn't been a recommended practice for
decades. When it was, back then "powered grinders" meant bench wheels
rather than high speed angle grinders, and even then it was dubious
(especially for woodworking tools). Bahco might survive (because of
their alloy) but cheap Chinese from Lidl won't, even though these will
take a better edge (those £4 sets are actually pretty good).

Wood chisels (and plane irons) are _really_ sensitive to overheating
during grinding, because of the narrow angles at the edge (minimal
conduction cooling) and the high carbon content. Techniques that work
fine on a Swiss Army Knife in 440 stainless will ruin even a simple
chisel in short order.

Of course it's possible to use a powered grinder to sharpen chisels. A
slow water-cooled grinder (and I've seen these for £20) will do it
fine. If you change the alloy away from a simple carbon steel then you
can also make it resilient against heating and do it on a dry wheel.
That's why so many modern plane irons trumpet that they're "tungsten
vandium steel". This is a poor alloy for a plane iron and never takes
a good edge, but it makes manufacturing quicker and cheaper on simple
machines.

wrote:
Hello,

I bought a wood chisels for fitting hinges to doors. Having hung doors
in every room in the house, the chisel is now looking worse for wear.
How do I sharpen it?

I have got an angle grinder, so I presume I could use a metal grinding
disc but is this possible? Would I have to clamp the grinder to a work
bench?

Would you recommend that I buy a desk-top grinder instead? Or since
this was a cheap and cheerful chisel, are they supposed to be
considered disposable?

How many times can a chisel be re sharpened? I presume they get
slightly shorter each time you grind them?

Are there any web pages explaining sharpening technique? Do you have
to grind a particular angle?

Thanks,
Stephen.
If you think you'll need to sharpen edged tools frequently it's worth
looking at a wetstone grinder. I have one made by Tormek - it's great
but pricey, there are probably cheaper versions around if you search for
"wetstone grinder" in Google.

Dave

On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:26:02 GMT,
wrote:

Hello,

I bought a wood chisels for fitting hinges to doors. Having hung doors
in every room in the house, the chisel is now looking worse for wear.
How do I sharpen it?

I have got an angle grinder, so I presume I could use a metal grinding
disc but is this possible? Would I have to clamp the grinder to a work
bench?

Would you recommend that I buy a desk-top grinder instead? Or since
this was a cheap and cheerful chisel, are they supposed to be
considered disposable?

How many times can a chisel be re sharpened? I presume they get
slightly shorter each time you grind them?

Are there any web pages explaining sharpening technique? Do you have
to grind a particular angle?

Thanks,
Stephen.

You could search around locally for tool sharpening places .One near
me in Glasgow does chisels and plane bllades for £2 a time . You still
need to hone them tho'

On 11 Dec, 17:26, wrote:
Hello,

I bought a wood chisels for fitting hinges to doors. Having hung doors
in every room in the house, the chisel is now looking worse for wear.
How do I sharpen it?

I have got an angle grinder, so I presume I could use a metal grinding
disc but is this possible? Would I have to clamp the grinder to a work
bench?

Would you recommend that I buy a desk-top grinder instead? Or since
this was a cheap and cheerful chisel, are they supposed to be
considered disposable?

How many times can a chisel be re sharpened? I presume they get
slightly shorter each time you grind them?

Are there any web pages explaining sharpening technique? Do you have
to grind a particular angle?

Thanks,
Stephen.

Stephen
Buy yourself a cheap offer two stone (coarse and fine) bench grinding
wheel. Not an angle grinder!
fill an old container with water and put nearby
grind the blunt chisel first with the coarse then with the fine until
it has a hollow concave profile between the tip (cutting edge) and the
full sized part. Use the water every few seconds to keep the chisel
cool. When you have a nice little hollow bit from the fine wheel and
the cutting edge is straight and clean (no black burnt bits) transfer
it to a diamond stone in water
Old big ice cream carton or the like so that the stone is wet and
clean. use a figure of 8 pattern on the diamond stone - cleanign it
often in the water. Altnernate between the face which is resting on
the two "points" resulting from the curved grind to turning it 180 and
KEEP IT FLAT on the other non ground side. As you do this you will see
a little rim of steel "filing" form where you are sharpening
alternately on both sides of the chisel. Keep alternating until it
just breaks off and then STOP. It should cut a piece of newspaper held
in hand without effort
Use the stone until the U has largely been ground away and then back
to the grinding wheel and start again. The chisel will wear away with
time but you would have to be pretty hard working if this is done
properly to grind it all away in several years if not a lifetime!
Chris

On Wed, 12 Dec 2007 02:18:25 -0800, Andy Dingley wrote:

On 11 Dec, 21:03, Cicero wrote:

Start with emery cloth on a flat surface.

I'd suggest black wet & dry (silicon carbide grit) rather than emery
cloth. Emery cloth has rather a stiff backing and is hard to stick down
flat. For sharp edges you need flatness, otherwise the edge gets rounded
off.

==================================
I suggested emery cloth (and also use it) for removing nicks before
proceeding to more refined techniques and a final cutting edge. Any method
that doesn't involve heating the blade will do and medium emery cloth is
a cheap alternative for the DIYer without access to a wet grinding wheel.

Cic.

--
===================================
Using Ubuntu Linux
Windows shown the door
===================================

Andy Dingley wrote in message

Bahco might survive (because of
their alloy) but cheap Chinese from Lidl won't, even though these will
take a better edge (those £4 sets are actually pretty good).

The same ones was being sold in Poundland last year, I bought a set to use
as scrapers and then went back and bought another two sets when I realised
how good they were. ( for the price)




-

Mark wrote:
Andy Dingley wrote in message

Bahco might survive (because of
their alloy) but cheap Chinese from Lidl won't, even though these will
take a better edge (those £4 sets are actually pretty good).

The same ones was being sold in Poundland last year, I bought a set to use
as scrapers and then went back and bought another two sets when I realised
how good they were. ( for the price)

There's a lot to be said for soft steel that sharpens easily on whatever
happens to be lying around at the time

On 13 Dec, 15:04, Stuart Noble
wrote:

The same ones was being sold in Poundland last year, I bought a set to use
as scrapers and then went back and bought another two sets when I realised
how good they were. ( for the price)

There's a lot to be said for soft steel that sharpens easily on whatever
happens to be lying around at the time

These are actually quite a hard steel, albeit somewhat brittle. They
appear to be the same sort of low-alloy high-carbon steels that are so
celebrated if they're pre-war and stamped with a Marples' cloverleaf
(although not laminated).

The funny thing is that they're not desperately good at the use for
which they're sold. I bought a set to hammer through plaster when
sinking electrics (because I need _something_ for this sort of abuse).
If correctly sharpened they're a useful bench chisel, but they're a
bit on the brittle side for toolbag hackery.

Stuart Noble wrote in message
...
Mark wrote:
Andy Dingley wrote in message

Bahco might survive (because of
their alloy) but cheap Chinese from Lidl won't, even though these will
take a better edge (those £4 sets are actually pretty good).

The same ones was being sold in Poundland last year, I bought a set to
use
as scrapers and then went back and bought another two sets when I
realised
how good they were. ( for the price)

There's a lot to be said for soft steel that sharpens easily on whatever
happens to be lying around at the time

For a £1 that's exactly what I was looking for and expecting.
They turned out to be quite the opposite.


-

On Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:59:07 -0800 (PST), wrote:

Buy yourself a cheap offer two stone (coarse and fine) bench grinding
wheel. Not an angle grinder!

Hello. Sorry for the late reply. I'm a bit embarrassed that I
mentioned angle grinders. I had not appreciated that a bench grinder
and angle grinder rotated at different speeds.

I knew an angle grinder was not the way to go because it seems you
would need three hands to do the job: two to hold the angle grinder
and one to hold the chisel. Clamping the angle grinder is dangerous
but so too would be clamping a chisel with the pointy bit (however
blunt) sticking up. I knew there had to be a better way, hence my
post.

Some people seem to be for doing it all by hand, others suggest a
bench grinder. I'm not sure if there's a clear majority one way or the
other.

Some posts were concerned that the grinder would overheat the chisel.
Is this only the case if it is a dry grind? Does a wet grind prevent
this?

Merry Christmas.

wrote:
On Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:59:07 -0800 (PST), wrote:

Buy yourself a cheap offer two stone (coarse and fine) bench grinding
wheel. Not an angle grinder!

Hello. Sorry for the late reply. I'm a bit embarrassed that I
mentioned angle grinders. I had not appreciated that a bench grinder
and angle grinder rotated at different speeds.

I knew an angle grinder was not the way to go because it seems you
would need three hands to do the job: two to hold the angle grinder
and one to hold the chisel. Clamping the angle grinder is dangerous
but so too would be clamping a chisel with the pointy bit (however
blunt) sticking up. I knew there had to be a better way, hence my
post.

Some people seem to be for doing it all by hand, others suggest a
bench grinder. I'm not sure if there's a clear majority one way or the
other.

Some posts were concerned that the grinder would overheat the chisel.
Is this only the case if it is a dry grind? Does a wet grind prevent
this?

You can grind dry & just dunk the chisel in water every now & then to keep
it cool.


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257