My Sharpening Setup

No Sharpening advice

Inspired by Vic Tesolin’s post on The truth about sharpening, I thought I would share my mongrel sharpen setup, which has evolved over the years and continues to do so.

I got serious about sharpening my hand tools 10 years ago when I purchased a whetstone sharpening kit from Carbatec in Perth. That kit contained a 1000-grit and a 4000-grit whetstone, a fine diamond stone for flattening, and a Veritas MK2 honing guide. The only changes I have made to this core setup over the years are the addition of a 300-grit stone to remove the inevitable chips in blades that occur more often than not when using recycled timber. A dedicated flattening stone and a curved guide wheel for my honing guide.

I didn't like the mess I was making on my bench using the supplied router mat to place stone on. So I built a Japanese-inspired sharpening station.

This worked great; however, I soon realised I only needed one stone holder as the other two were in the way when not in use, and I would also keep them soaked in a water bath.

After two years of use, I renovated the sharpening station by adding a drawer to hold all my sharpening supplies and creating a silicon-lined, shallow trough on top to catch the water.

I work with Australian Hardwoods, so I need to sharpen my hand tools frequently. So, retrieving my neat sharpening station from under my bench each time and setting it up was not working well. I just needed to resharpen and continue without much fuss or delay, quickly.

Speed is king. If I can sharpen quickly, then I will sharpen often, and I will always have sharp tools. To quote Vic Tesolin “ I stop moosing it”

So I converted an old mitre-saw station cart that I no longer need. (I no longer use one) to my current sharpening station.

It is on wheels and has two sides. A grinding station side and a sharpening station side, and I rotate the cart if I need to grind a bevel or clean up a tool on the wire wheel. I also store crates holding my small scrap timber down below.

Some minor additions to keep it quick and simple

I have built a box on the side to hold my water bath for my stones, with a stubby holder to keep my old water bottle, which I use to wet my stones when honing.

I also carved measurements into the top of the draw so I can quickly measure my blade width to set the Veritas honing guide.

So how do I sharpen?

I sharpen all regular flat plane blades using the honing guide, as I need them to be reliably sharp with the wood I use. I freehand all my chisels and anything else with a non-standard blade profile. This works for me now but it i likly to change in the future. As I have found, this is a journey, not a destination.

Cheers

David