Hi everybody,

I had posted a few days ago about sharpening chisels with sandpaper and
having trouble with the sandpaper loosing it's grit too quickly.
Yesterday, I recieved my order from Lee Valley for their sharpening
combo ($35) that has a white grinding wheel, a felt wheel and a stick
of green compound.

After using the white wheel to establish an angle, I was able to move
from 220 to 2000 grit paper with only 8 - 10 stokes per paper. I think
that my problem before was that I was using the sandpaper to try to
establish the angle.

After running through the sandpaper grits, I moved back to the grinder
and used the felt wheel/green compound. I was very impressed with the
results - I've never used a chisel that was so sharp.

I was able to take a really beat up 1" chisel, put a razor sharp edge
on it in under 10 minutes. I can now get shavings that you can almost
see through from cross grain cuts in ash.

Anyway, for anyone that wants to get started in sharpening, I've spent
about $45 on the LV kit, a can of spray adhesive and a few packs of
sandpaper - WELL worth the money to get such great results.

Mike

Also, after hollow grinding on the wheel, you only need to sharpen the
"outsides" of the hollow. Meaning: Don't worry about getting the whole
face of the chisel flat, but just the leading edge and tail. Even
quicker. Tom
Mike wrote:
Hi everybody,

I had posted a few days ago about sharpening chisels with sandpaper and
having trouble with the sandpaper loosing it's grit too quickly.
Yesterday, I recieved my order from Lee Valley for their sharpening
combo ($35) that has a white grinding wheel, a felt wheel and a stick
of green compound.

After using the white wheel to establish an angle, I was able to move
from 220 to 2000 grit paper with only 8 - 10 stokes per paper. I think
that my problem before was that I was using the sandpaper to try to
establish the angle.

After running through the sandpaper grits, I moved back to the grinder
and used the felt wheel/green compound. I was very impressed with the
results - I've never used a chisel that was so sharp.

I was able to take a really beat up 1" chisel, put a razor sharp edge
on it in under 10 minutes. I can now get shavings that you can almost
see through from cross grain cuts in ash.

Anyway, for anyone that wants to get started in sharpening, I've spent
about $45 on the LV kit, a can of spray adhesive and a few packs of
sandpaper - WELL worth the money to get such great results.

Mike

"Mike" wrote in message
ps.com...
Hi everybody,

I had posted a few days ago about sharpening chisels with sandpaper and
having trouble with the sandpaper loosing it's grit too quickly.
Yesterday, I recieved my order from Lee Valley for their sharpening
combo ($35) that has a white grinding wheel, a felt wheel and a stick
of green compound.

After using the white wheel to establish an angle, I was able to move
from 220 to 2000 grit paper with only 8 - 10 stokes per paper. I think
that my problem before was that I was using the sandpaper to try to
establish the angle.

After running through the sandpaper grits, I moved back to the grinder
and used the felt wheel/green compound. I was very impressed with the
results - I've never used a chisel that was so sharp.

I was able to take a really beat up 1" chisel, put a razor sharp edge
on it in under 10 minutes. I can now get shavings that you can almost
see through from cross grain cuts in ash.

Anyway, for anyone that wants to get started in sharpening, I've spent
about $45 on the LV kit, a can of spray adhesive and a few packs of
sandpaper - WELL worth the money to get such great results.

That's great. Everybody has their own quirky method of sharpening.
Personally I like to use a cheapy diamond faced 'stone' . The set of three
grits is very cheap, then I have an extra fine for when I want an extra fine
edge. I couldn't be doing with a lot of sheets of paper and glass and
adhesive.

What I miss is that in the old days my oilstones were always slightly
hollowed out so I could always easily put a slightly convex edge on a plane
blade so that there were never corners to make visible marks on a face.

Tim w