Sharpening Stones: A Complete Beginner's Guide

if you're doing hand-tool woodwork you need to sharpen your tools but what should you sharpen them with sandpaper lapping paste oil Stones water stones Diamond plates ceramic stones or glass stones wait a second are they actually sharpening stones made out of glass like a lot of Woodworkers I got started with an inexpensive honing guide and some wetter dry sandpaper and it worked great my tools got really sharp but this paper is expensive it wears out fast and you replace it a lot so before long I decided it was time to step up to a set of oil Stones Stones like these are durable inexpensive and they do a great job for years I was perfectly happy with this setup but then I started to see a wavy texture on the surface of a lot of my Woodwork and what I realized was that this Stone here the coarse one had dished out in the middle now a little bit of dish is actually good because that helps you get a nice gentle camber on the edge of your blades but if the dish gets too deep you can't control that curvature anymore and that starts to affect your work of course you can flatten oil Stones you can use sandpaper or even a flat piece of concrete I've done it before it's not that big a deal but I thought to myself you know what I do this for a living why should I put up with a sharpening system that requires any flattening any maintenance at all so I got rid of my oil Stone setup and treat it up to these Diamond plates and they're amazing it's industrial diamonds electroplated to a flat piece of Steel they cut fast and they never need any maintenance they can't get dished out and well they're honestly a lot different than my oil Stones because they're perfectly flat I have to pay much more attention when I'm honing to get that smooth camber that I depend on these sometimes give me too flat of an edge and for a while I was getting marks and corners for my blades digging into my work it was a big adjustment to sharpening on these and I also don't get quite as fine of an edge as I used to get with my oil Stones my finest diamond plate here is a number 1200 and that's pretty fine but nowhere near as fine as my white Arkansas Stone and I can upgrade to a number 4000 or 8 000 diamond plate but that would be another 90 bucks and I've already spent about a hundred and sixty dollars on this setup here so after all that did I really upgrade I don't know but I sure spent a lot of money there's one more type of stone that I haven't touched on yet these are called water stones and they originated in Japan but then they become popular all over the world now water stones and oil Stones really aren't that different they're both abrasive particles compressed together into a brick that's really it the difference is how those particles are bonded together in oil Stones the bond between the particles is very strong which makes the stones hard and durable but it also means the abrasive particles can get dull or get clogged up that's one of the reasons they cut slowly water stones have a very weak bond between the abrasive particles and just by sharpening you're constantly peeling off old particles and exposing new fresh sharp ones this property is called being friable and it's what makes water stones work so well they're very aggressive they're very fast and they can handle any type of Steel the downside of being friable is it makes these Stones very fragile they can break or chip if you leave them in water and they freeze that can ruin them and they go out of flat very very quickly most people who use water stones need to flatten in between every sharpening usually using something like a diamond plate and a lot of these Stones need to be kept wet all the time people just keep them in a tub of water for me that has always been a deal breaker having a big container of filthy water filled with sharpening stones that just doesn't go in my workshop and the constant flattening I don't like that either at the same time water stones are probably the most popular most people I know lean towards these because you get an excellent Edge and they can be very economical at the lower end of the spectrum these are quite cheap and they still work really well so water stones might be something that you want to consider even though they haven't worked out for me the last category of stones is the super high-tech ones these are usually called ceramic or glass stones and they're super high tech they're basically water stones but bonded together with a very special process that makes the stones harder and more durable while still being super aggressive most people I know who try these Stones really like them but I've never tried them because they're quite expensive they cost as much as Diamond plates so if I wanted to try a set of chapton or shinwa Stones I'd be spending as much as I already spent on the diamond plates and well we saw how that worked out so you might want to give these a shot but I'm going to stick with something more economical if you're just getting started in sharpening someone is going to tell you that you should try a bunch of different sharpening systems figure out which one is right for you and that is terrible advice instead you should do what Chris Schwarz suggests pick one sharpening system and stick with it learn learn the ins and outs get good at it and I agree I know a bunch of Woodworkers and none of them agree on how to sharpen but they all have sharp tools which kind of tells you that all of these systems are sort of the same at the end of the day they all sharpen tool steel so the one you pick should be based on things like what you can afford and how big your shop is and do you want a big tub of water sloshing around once you pick a system a tried and true system you know that it will work because it's worked for so many other people it's going to work for you too as long as you put in the practice let's talk about some specific products to get you going my top choice for sharpening has always been oil stones and the classic choice in oil Stones is the Norton India combination Stone this is a dual sided artificial stone it's coarse on one side and medium fine ish on the other side believe it or not this one stone will get you going in woodworking sharpen on the coarse side sharpen on the medium fine side and then use a strop which is just leather charged with buffing compound and that'll polish and refine your Edge just those three steps will give you a very good Edge on most of your tools now as time goes on and you get better at sharpening you might want to make an even finer and more polished Edge and then you can get into a larger system like the one I've got here I just took my combination Stone and put it in the board of course side up like this and I don't flip it over anymore I bought a medium fine Stone by itself it was under 20 bucks and then these two stones here are natural stones and what's great about these is you can often find them used and often for not a lot of money I find these at flea markets and yard sales and sometimes they cost as little as a dollar because nobody knows what they are anymore because they're so cheap High collection of natural stones has gotten completely out of hand but when they cost a dollar I can't help buying them they sharpen so well and they're so dependable if you can't find these used near you the company Dan's wet stones still sells natural Arkansas stones in fine grits these work wonderfully but the price fluctuates a lot sometimes they're very expensive sometimes they're very cheap so you have to watch and buy them at the right time in the meantime keep your eye open for used Stones around you you might be surprised for getting started all you need is that India stone and a strop I've got videos specifically on oil Stone sharpening on making a strop on all of this stuff I will link to all of these things and these products down in the description a lot of people choose to sharpen with Diamond Stones because they cut fast and they require basically no maintenance there's never any flattening diamonds will also sharpen fancy high-tech deals like A2 and pmv 11. these super hard Steels can't always be sharpened with oil stones and so diamonds are the Clear Choice if you want to use these high-tech Alloys now the downside of Diamond Stones used to be that they were very expensive but that's changing all the time the biggest thing to happen recently is manufacturers started coming out with these super thin Ultra cheap Stones all four of these Stones cost 20 bucks and they work they actually work really well I've sharpened dozens of blades on this set of stones and they're still going strong now clearly these aren't going to last forever they're super cheap but they will get you going you can get these in a lot of different configurations on Amazon there's a three stone set and a five Stone set and a four stone set I've done my best to sort through the garbage and just link to the ones that are actually good down in the description now because they're cheap these are not going to last forever probably a few months and when they're done you're going to want to step up to something better when I wanted higher quality Diamond Stones I went with DMT they've been the industry leader in Diamond Stones for a long time they make a really thick really sturdy Stone coated with mono crystalline diamonds which I honestly don't really know what that means but apparently it's good you can get a set of three and add a stop and it's a fair bit of money but you probably won't need to upgrade these for a super long time maybe not ever water stones are pretty much my least favorite sharpening stone but I think they're the most popular overall they're not super expensive and they leave an excellent Edge now the place that I think you have to use water stones is if you're using Japanese tools Japanese tools are specifically designed to be sharpened with water stones they can cut Ultra hard Steels and leave that very fine polished Edge that's a requirement for Japanese style woodworking now you don't see me use Japanese tools on this channel hardly at all but I own a bunch of them and I practice with them because I'm just interested in different styles of woodwork anytime I'm using my Japanese tools I use this King water stone it's very popular pretty inexpensive Choice it's sort of medium grit on one side and ultra fine on the other side and I use it along with this trend double-sided diamond plate it's 400 grit on one side and a thousand grit on the other side I use the 400 grit to flatten my stone in between sharpenings and I usually start off my sharpening on the thousand grit side just to make some quick progress and then I move over to my water stone to get that final highly polished Edge these two things together will handle a lot of sharpening tasks for Japanese style Woodwork and you can get both of these at a reasonable price what's going on with me and my sharpening well I used this oil Stone set up for over a decade with no problems and then for basically no reason I decided to switch to Diamond plates I spent a ton of money and I had to relearn sharpening which cost me a lot of time and I've decided to go back to my oil stones I think this is what happens a lot of the time when you go on some big educational Journey you go on the whole trip only to realize that you never should have left home in the first place of course that's kind of the point of this channel I try this stuff out and tell you what I find so that you don't have to waste all this time and money now if you're interested about sharpening and Steels I highly recommend Ron Hawk's book The Perfect Edge Ron owns Hawk tools and he is an internationally recognized expert in sharpening Metallurgy and Edge tools the book is excellent I learned a lot from it I also got to interview Ron last year as a patron special feature so if you'd like to hear me and Ron Hawk geek out about tool steels for a full hour go on over to patreon.com Rex Krueger and check out that video and all the other rewards I have for the people who make these videos possible this video this one right here has hundreds of dollars of products in it I paid full retail for every single one and I never take sponsorship money so I can always give you my unbiased opinion this is only possible because of my patrons I would go bankrupt without them and I appreciate them so much I also really appreciate my viewers so thanks for watching

Channel: Rex Krueger

Views: 101,299

Keywords: rex krueger, sharpening, sharpening stone, chisel sharpening, woodwork, diamond stone sharpening, plane iron sharpening, sharpening chisels, best woodworking sharpening stones, knife sharpening, sharpening jig, best sharpening stones, sharpening a chisel, cheap sharpening stones, sharpening stone holder, sharpening station, plane sharpening, axe sharpening, woodworker, diy axe sharpening, sharpening plane blades, water stone, diy hatchet sharpening

Id: S74RL0Zmmm0

Length: 12min 57sec (777 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 12 2022