23
Q: what’s your sharpening set up
(startrek.website)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2023
23 points (100.0% liked)
Woodworking
6047 readers
1 users here now
A handmade home for woodworkers and admirers of woodworkers. Our community icon is a planter box made by @Captain Aggravated, the winner of our summer '24 woodworking contest. Congratulations!
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
So for a few years I thought sharpening classes at woodcraft. Had a lot of new woodworkers come through. Here's my take:
Keep it simple at first. Get a coarse stone and a fine stone. Diamond plates are great for starting out. They are reasonably priced, stay flat, cut fast and give good tactile feedback. Practice with those until you get it right. Then make yourself a strop with a scrap of wood and some metal polishing compound. Practice with that until you get arm hair shaving results.
Once you're getting consistently good results with that setup you can think about expanding your equipment line up.
Follow up question, what do you use for an abrasive fluid? I’m pretty new to sharpening and just bought diamond stones and lapping fluid, but the fluid is semi-expensive. I’ve seen about anything from just water, Windex, Krud Cleaner, and then all sorts of replies saying that each of those wreck the stone in some way. Is there a cheap alternative that you use, or should I just keep buying the lapping fluid?
I use water on my diamond plates, usually a weak solution of Simple Green. People swear by that for all sorts of things but I'm not entirely convinced it's that much better than a little dish soap or just water.
I tried window cleaner per Paul Sellers but didn't care for it. To be fair, he uses automotive window cleaner, which I didn't have and wasn't going to buy some to try it out, nor do I know if what he gets in the UK is the same as what we get in the US.
There will likely be rust on the plates, but know that is from the swarf, not the plate itself, which is a nickel alloy.
You can use a cheap rubber eraser to clean or one of those crepe sticks that are sold for cleaning sanding belts.