Category: Tool Maintenance

Sharpening Part 12 – Skewampus Blades, Curved Cutting Edges, and Monkeyshines

Sharpening Part 20 – Flattening and Polishing the Ura

Sharpening Part 22 – The Double-Bevel Blues

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
William Shakespeare, As You Like It

It is well with me only when I have a chisel in my hand – Michelangelo Buonarroti 1475-1564

In the previous post in this series on sharpening Japanese tools, we looked at philosophical points such as making tools a long-term investment, as well as the upsides, downsides and causes of the bulging bevel. In this post, I would like to touch on a subject that will make thoughtful people think and befuddled folks lucid: The Double Bevel.

The Double-Bevel

Some people advocate creating double-bevels (primary and secondary) bevels, or what is sometimes called “micro-bevels” on plane and chisel blades. Multiple bevels have three useful applications in my opinion:

The first useful application is to repair a tool’s blade in the field when there is not enough time to do a proper sharpening job. If a blade dulls or chips in the course of a job, we can quickly add a secondary bevel at a steeper angle to the blade’s primary bevel in a few seconds and get right back to work, but there will be a price to pay later over many sharpening sessions to restore the proper bevel, so it is only a temporary, not a long-term solution;
The second application is to quickly adjust a plane blade’s angle to reduce tearout immediately when proper sharpening is not possible. Once again, a lot of remedial sharpening becomes necessary afterwards. This application is usually restricted to the primary bevel, but we will look at a more esoteric and risky application below.
The third application is to efficiently restore a blade’s bevel to the correct angle in the case where pixies or our inattention has made the blade angle too shallow.

Case 3 above often goes like this: A blade that cuts well suddenly starts dulling quickly, maybe even chipping. Whiskey tango foxtrot!?! When this happens, our Beloved Customers, being of exceptionally high intelligence, use the bevel angle gauge described in Part 11 of this series to check the bevel angle. They may discover the bevel angle has become too shallow for the wood it is being asked to cut.

Image result for lie-nielsen honing jig photo

We could increase the bevel angle by welding metal to the bevel and regrinding it, but such barbaric behavior would ruin the blade, so the most expedient way to correct the bevel is to add a steeper secondary bevel at the desired angle. We can grind this new bevel by hand, or use a honing jig like the Lie-Nielson widget. I find I can apply more downward pressure using this jig to get the job done sooner and more precisely.

Honing jigs are undeniably useful, but they often become an impediment to learning professional sharpening skills, and they are more time-consuming to use than freehand sharpening. Jigs can certainly make the sneaky snake of multiple bevels workable, but please don’t ignore the inescapable fact that if one uses a jig properly, over multiple sharpening sessions the result will be… let me think about it…. wait a second while I make a little sketch here…. oh yea, a flat bevel. Hmmm….

Hey, I’ve got an idea. When performing routine sharpening (not the 3 cases listed above), instead of taking shortcuts and adding micro-bevels which turn into secondary bevels and maybe even bulging bevels, why not start with a flat bevel and keep it flat? And then just maybe we could take advantage of the natural indexing properties of that flat bevel to sharpen freehand and save a lot of time NOT polishing skinny secondary bevels or fat bulging bevels? You know what, it just might work!

A honing jig is very helpful for making big angle corrections. I own several, but the Lie-Nielson model is my favorite: I use it every third blue moon. If you decide to use one, however, reserve it for emergency or drastic measures. Don’t let it become training wheels, kiddies.

The Nano-bevel

In this and previous posts we discussed bulging bevels, which are convex bevels on plane or chisel blades; secondary bevels and double bevels, which are additional bevels; and micro-bevels, which are a tiny secondary bevel. But there is another type of secondary bevel a clever Beloved Customer called a “nano-bevel.” I like this term and so will use it, but I caution you that, like all secondary bevels, you should employ this bevel judiciously.

We will go into freehand sharpening techniques in greater detail in future posts, but to avoid confusion when discussing the nano-bevel, we need to touch on some of those techniques now.

You may have noticed that, when sharpening freehand on every stone but the finish stone, most, but not all people do a better job by applying downward pressure on the blade only on either the push stroke away from their body or the pull stroke back towards their body, but not in both directions. This is because placing downward pressure in both directions tends to make the blade rock resulting in a less-than-flat bevel, or Saints preserve us, the demonic bulging bevel. As you can imagine, if this rocking motion gets out of hand on the rougher stones the bevel angle can get out of control quickly.

However, on the finish stone, it is most efficient to apply light downward pressure in both directions. The advantage is that a teeny tiny bit of unintentional rocking helps to ensure the last few microns of the blade’s cutting edge are thoroughly polished. And because the abrasive power of a finish stone is so small, there is no danger the bevel will become rounded, at least if you don’t get carried away. From the wood-shaving’s eye view, this creates a tiny bevel at the last few microns of the cutting edge. This is one example of a “nano-bevel.” Stropping produces the same result on a larger scale. There is also another type of nano-bevel for emergency use.

When using a finish plane on wood with twisty grain you have no doubt experienced frustrating tearout. The usual litany of solutions is to reduce the blade’s projection for finer depth of cut, skew the plane, oil and adjust the chipbreaker, resharpen the blade, adjust the plane’s mouth, or even slightly dampen the wood with a planing fluid such as water, whiskey, or unicorn wee wee. All these methods can help.

On the subject of planing fluid, water works well but dries slowly and can have problematic secondary effects. And unicorn products are dreadfully expensive nowadays, even on Amazon, so I prefer a smooth, inexpensive, industrial-grade busthead. Please ask Ken Hatch for a demonstration and recommendations for a good planing fluid next time he invites you over to his house for his world-famous tacos.

Please note that I don’t drink any planing fluid other than water. Of course unicorn wee wee is more addictive than OxyContin and drives mortals quite mad. And alcohol is yeast pee pee and deadly, but I prefer whiskey for a number of reasons. First, whiskey has a good water/alcohol ratio that wets the wood about the right amount of time and then evaporates cleanly. Too wet and it penetrates too deeply. Too dry and it evaporates too quickly. Isopropyl alcohol works fine too but it is considered a pharmaceutical in Japan and so is very expensive. As with other alcohol products not intended for internal consumption, it contains poisons added at the demand of greedy governments for the sole purpose of maximizing tax revenues. I don’t need those poisons touching my tools or my skin. Whiskey doesn’t contain poisons (other than alcohol, of course), it’s cheaper and smells better.

Another classic solution to reduce tearout of course is to use a plane with a steeper blade bedding angle, but what to do if you don’t have a high-angle plane handy? A traditional, jobsite-expedient solution used by Japanese woodworkers is to create a nano-bevel on the ura side of the blade. This is accomplished during sharpening while polishing the ura on the finishing stone by lifting the head of the blade just a itsy bitsy teeny weeny nat’s nosehair thickness during the final stroke, pulling the blade towards you, of course, creating a “nano-bevel” on the last few microns of the cutting edge at the ura, effectively changing the approach angle of the blade.

Be forewarned that this is only for emergency use, and that if you are careless, or use it too often, the nano-bevel will become a microbevel, your blade will be damaged, efficient sharpening will become impossible, the chipbreaker will cease to function, and the gods of handsaws may curse you so all your hair will fall out and your dog will barf whenever it sees you! Or is it your dog’s hair will fall out and you will barf? I forget.

Now where did I set down that jar of planing fluid….?

Conclusion

A wise man will seek to avoid shortcuts that save a bit of time short-term only to waste more of his time and money long-term. If you simply make the effort to train yourself in basic sharpening skills, pay attention, and keep the bevel flat, time, steel, and stone-wasting monkeyshines such as double bevels will be unnecessary.

We have talked about the cutting edge’s proper shape. Beginning with the next post in this series, we will examine how to use sharpening stones to make it that way.

YMHOS

Well Dude, I’m done sharpening using my most excellent honing jig for now and am off to the beach on my chick magnet! Don’t wait up, Mom.

Sharpening Part 12 – Skewampus Blades, Curved Cutting Edges, and Monkeyshines

Sharpening Part 20 – Flattening and Polishing the Ura

Protecting Natural Sharpening Stones

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.
Groucho Marx

Natural sharpening stones are wonderful things. At least the good ones are. Finding one that works well with our blades and sharpening style is a thrilling experience and a source of long-term joy. Such an excellent stone can be hard to find and will often be expensive, but whether dirt cheap or worth rubies, it will be delicate and need protection.

In a previous article we looked at how to select a natural Japanese sharpening stone: Sharpening Part 14 – Natural Sharpening Stones

In this post we will examine some methods to ensure your natural sharpening stone provides you long reliable service. I suggest you read this article aloud to your favorite stone to gauge its reaction. If you pay close attention, you may even see it wiggle just a tiny bit with gleeful anticipation, especially when you get to the parts about calligraphy, color selection, and skirts. Stones can be very fashion conscious, you know.

The Weaknesses of Natural Stones

The first thing to keep in mind is that Japanese natural stones are pieces of sedimentary layers that formed on the bottom of the ocean, essentially red-hot dust violently spewed high into the atmosphere by volcanoes, sifted and sorted by wind and waves and distance, and laid down on the seabed like pages in a book. They have defects even if you can’t see them. They naturally have top and bottom surfaces as well as side/end surfaces where the layers are exposed. Water tends to soak in-between these layers exposed at side and end surfaces sometimes causing the layers to separate and even crack in heartbreaking fashion.

This structure combined with the relative softness of the material makes most Japanese natural sharpening stones fragile.

The Stone Base: Objectives and Materials

So what can we do to avoid and/or mitigate these risks to our precious stones to ensure they are happy and will last a long time?

My first Ipe stone base. You can see the grooves on the surface cut for decking purposes.

The most important thing you can do to protect your stone is to make a durable base, and to attach your stone firmly to it. The base provides several benefits:

Seals the stone’s underside from water penetration, reducing the potential for separation and cracking;
Provides structural support reducing the risk of cracking, especially as the stone becomes thinner;
Makes the stone easier to handle, reducing the chances of dropping it, and protects it to some degree from bangs, dings and chipping;
Makes the stone more stable in use.

There are several options for materials from which to make a base. Probably the best material on paper is high-chromium stainless steel. I have never made a metal base but some friends have.

Wood is the classic choice, but it has some downsides, for instance, it can warp, crack, rot and bugs might turn it into both home and dinner. So if you select wood be sure to choose a suitable species and develop a base design that sidesteps these shortcomings.

Most people, including me, choose to make their stone bases from wood. Most woods will work. I enjoy experimenting, so at various times I have made and used stone bases made from White Oak, Hinoki, Alaskan Cedar, Honduras Mahogany, Teak, and Ipe. Alaskan Cedar is an excellent wood for this purpose, but the best wood so far has been Ipe. It’s amazing: dense, but tough; It absorbs very little water and won’t crack or rot; Once stable, it doesn’t warp. At all. Bugs hate it. I love it.

File:Roppongi-Mori-Tower-01.jpg — Roppongi Hills Mori Tower Building, Tokyo

So how did I learn about Ipe? An architect specified Ipe to deck an exterior engawa at a balcony on a commercial project I managed some years back, so I decided I had better investigate this material on the Client’s behalf. What I found in various installations in Tokyo and Yokohama was eye opening. A good example is the Ipe decking installed at Roppongi Hills Mori Tower in Tokyo. This building was completed in 2003. I have worked in a Client’s offices in this building off and on for 5 years.

The exterior wooden deck at RH is exposed to more nasty weather conditions than a postman, not to mention heavy foot traffic, but although it has turned grey, it has not split, warped, or rotted. The screws are still tight, and the surface shows very little wear despite several thousand people walking across it each day. Tough stuff.

So around 2010 when I bought my last replacement stone, I bummed a couple of decking cutoffs a local lumberyard had been using as stickers directly on the ground for years. The wood was wet and muddy, but was in good shape. I laminated them together to make the base pictured above. It has been better than any I made before that time.

A few years ago, I did another building with an exterior Ipe deck. The decking subcontractor had mixed in two very dark, almost black pieces of Ipe. At first glance I thought they were ebony. I had the subcontractor replace them for aesthetic reasons. Instead of throwing the boards away (they were already cut to irregular lengths), I scrounged them and made a second base for my favorite natural stone. Once again, excellent performance. Testing is complete.

The Stone Base: Design and Fabrication

Before you start cutting wood for your base, first flatten the bottom of your stone. It doesn’t need to be perfect, but you want at least 75% contact. A carborundum stone or diamond plate will work fine, but a cheaper and easier option is to rub the underside of the stone on a section of concrete sidewalk wet with running water from a garden hose. Be careful to choose a place with low foot traffic because the concrete can become polished and quite slippery as a result.

Depending on the shape of the stone, you may want to grind off rough spots and projections on the sides and ends too. Be careful when you do this to prevent spalling and other damage.

If the stone has visible cracks, let the stone dry in a warm dry location for a few days, then apply masking tape to both sides of the crack, and carefully soak a few drops of super glue deep inside. Hopefully this will prevent the crack from promulgating further.

Now that you have the stone’s final dimensions, make the base. Whatever wood you choose, select quartersawn pieces if possible for maximum stability against warpage, or laminate the base if not. Regarding dimensions, it needs to be thick enough to resist flexing much when pressure is applied during sharpening, and long enough to remain stable when pushed back and forth. Shape the ends so water runs off.

You can make it as attractive or as utilitarian as you like, but avoid creating too many nooks and crannies for stone mud to collect in. The base pictured above retains the beaded profile cut into the wood’s upper surface to drain water from a deck, and it does drain water away from the stone effectively, but mud tends to collect in between the grooves. Not a fatal flaw, but it takes a few extra seconds with a brush to clean.

Be sure to chamfer or round-over all the edges and corners

Place the stone in the exact position on the base you want it to remain forever and mark the stone’s perimeter on the base.

Sand the wood directly underneath where the stone will rest. Don’t sand with the grain, but diagonally to create a cross-hatched rough surface. Completely remove any dust.

Apply masking tape to the wood base at the outside of the stone’s outline.

Place the stone right side up on a flat surface and wrap, bend and fold a single strip of thin cardboard or manila file folder paper tightly around the stone’s sides and ends and secure it in place with masking tape to form both a skirt that seals tightly against the surface, and a reservoir to contain the epoxy used to glue the stone to the base.

Mix up some 2-part epoxy, enough the fill the reservoir at the stone’s underside plus a little extra. You want the epoxy to be thick, not runny. Any epoxy that will allow plenty of working time will do.

Force a little epoxy deep into the wood grain and sandpaper scratches with a small spatula or wood stick. Next apply the same epoxy to the bottom of the stone with your little spatula, and forcefully drive it into the nooks and crannies.

Pour the remaining epoxy into the reservoir. It should fill the reservoir all the way to the brim

Without letting the epoxy harden or flow out, set the stone on the base, or the base on the stone, whichever works best for you, in precise alignment with the masking tape outline you created earlier. Wiggle the stone a little to work any air bubbles out, and push the stone down hard until you sense it is contacting the wood.

Once the epoxy starts to set and become rubbery, but before it hardens, run a razor knife carefully around the stone’s perimeter cutting just a tiny bit into the wooden base, and then peel up and remove the masking tape and any epoxy squeeze-out. Be warned: this will be an armor-plated, DMV-style nightmare to cleanup later if you wait until the epoxy sets hard.

After the epoxy sets, finish the base with whatever material appeals to you. I soak mine in polyurethane thinned 100% and wet sand several times. I then wipe off any PU that remains on the surface. I guarantee you that any finish material you apply that remains on the wood’s surface will fail and look nasty after a few years of use.

I also like to apply a thin coat of Titebond Type III glue to the underside of the feet and base just for good measure. Does it make a difference? I dunno, but I’m a belt, suspenders, and staplegun kinda guy.

My second Ipe stone base. Naturally black as ebony and almost as heavy. I wanted an unusual but subtle shape, one that could not be produced by power tools, so I made the far ends straight, transitioning into a radius at the base’s top surface. This stone is an irregular shape but it does wonderful things to steel. I’m sharpening a Keisaburo 70mm blade using all the stone’s surfaces.

The Stone: Protecting and Reinforcing the Sides

It’s important to limit water from soaking into the stone’s sides along the sedimentary layers to prevent separation. In Japan it’s SOP to paint the sides with natural urushi lacquer, a toxic tree-sap that loves water and doesn’t easily chip. This material may be difficult to obtain outside of Japan and China, I fear.

Another option is an extremely high-solids (aka “goopy”) natural urethane made from the sap of the cashew nut tree called “Cashew.” The material is made in Thailand and sold in Japan, but it may be difficult to obtain outside Japan. Or you can just use a commercial urethane.

Whatever finish you use, it is best to apply the manufacturer’s recommended primer, or at least a thinned initial coat of the same finish to the stone’s sides and ends so it will penetrate thoroughly into the cracks and crevices further reinforcing the stone. Subsequent coats should adhere well to this primer coat if applied before it cures entirely.

Any color will work. I have a habit of painting any tools I might take to a demonstration or jobsite orange. It seems to stunt darwinian leg growth. Besides, orange was the color of the first GC I worked for back in Las Vegas many moons ago and it brings back pleasant memories. They painted everything orange.

One other thing some people do to reinforce their stones is to apply a strip or two of washi paper (traditional Japanese paper made from mullberry tree fibers) to the sides and ends using urushi lacquer, or whatever material they used for the stone. Despite being paper, washi is made from continuous fibers and is surprisingly strong.

Some people go so far as to use washi with printed images or calligraphy on it, and apply a clear coat of polyurethane over the top so the printing is visible. I have never done this before, but it does look interesting.

A large natural sharpening stone called a Numata Tora with printed washi paper applied to sides to reinforce against water infiltration and cracking. To the right you can see one of the cracks this is intended to control.

Some people use cloth but this beyond my experience.

Here is a link to a blog by an artist named Mr. Kobayashi about his sharpening tools with some photos of pretty stone bases. It is written in Japanese, but the pictures are informative. Not sure how well Google Translate would work.

The Stone: Storing & Transporting

Finally, I recommend you wrap your natural stone and its base in clean cloth or newspaper immediately after each sharpening session, while it is still wet, to protect it from dust and dings. After it has dried, store it in a box with a lid. A wooden box is nice, but a plastic one is more practical.

Here’s a link to a video about making a simple traditional Japanese tool box from softwood. If you haven’t made one of these before, they can be fun and quite useful. They don’t see much use on jobsites nowadays because the plastic ones are more durable and much better suited to loading onto construction vehicles.

The high-impact plastic box pictured below is one I use for my sharpening stones. Manufactured by Reese in Japan, it has “Tool Box” heat stenciled into the side. Tougher than boiled owl and stackable, these containers will keep the contents dry no matter how hard it rains so long as the water level stays below the lower lip of the lid. Spring clips at each end do a great job of keeping the lid closed and attached even if the box tumbles off the back of a moving truck onto the road. The road rash will be bad, but the tools will stay inside. The problem is the truck following too closely behind…. Don’t ask me how I know. (ಥ_ಥ)

A Reese brand toolbox. Made of high-impact plastic, these boxes are tough as boiled owl. Rainwater can’t get in, but water vapor can get out. And because they have a standardized footprint, they are stackable so they ride well in the bed of construction vehicles. Just make sure they are strapped down (ツ). This type of portable toolbox has almost entirely replaced the traditional wooden carpenter’s box for practical reasons.

YMHOS

Sharpening Part 21 – The Bulging Bevel

This is what a flat bevel looks like. So sweet.

For everybody in their busy lives, you need to invest in sharpening your tools, and you need to invest in longevity.
Ryan Holmes

In the previous post in this series about sharpening tools we looked at why and how to true the ura, the hollow-ground area on Japanese chisel and plane blades. This post will focus on the opposite side of the wedge that is a cutting edge: the bevel. This discussion is relevant to all plane and chisel blades, not just Japanese tools.

Preface

Before we dive in, I need to clarify something.

Some of our Gentle Readers have been blessed with the opportunity to learn about tools from accomplished Japanese craftsmen, as was I, or have figured them out on their own. If you find this or other posts boring, please remember this blog’s primary purpose is to provide instruction to our Beloved Customers who have not had similar opportunities.

These Beloved Customers are located in many countries and range in experience from newbies to professional woodworkers, so I try to include both advanced information for the professionals, and detailed explanations so newbies can keep up. Consequently, these articles are sometimes long and wordy. I humbly request your kind indulgence on behalf of those who may benefit.

Investing in Longevity

The quote above by Mr Holmes is applicable to the all the principles of sharpening I have described in this series of posts so far. He is a computer dude, not a contractor, joiner or furniture maker, but it is no coincidence he chose to use handtool terminology: it is encoded in human DNA.

His first point is a self-evident admonition, but what about this “investing in longevity” stuff? By definition, an investment is an expenditure of time, resources and/or effort intended to produce a return greater in value than the expenditure. Then how do we go about investing in the longevity of our chisels and planes, and what return should we expect?

While simply grinding sharp edges on our tools helps with making things from wood, I don’t see it as an investment in tools. Rather, if we train ourselves in professional sharpening techniques, and use those techniques to maintain our tools so they function more efficiently and last longer, we can hope to obtain a real-world return we can quantify financially. The investment I encourage you to make is not in things, therefore, but in your own skills.

The Pros and Cons of the Bulging Bevel

The “bulging bevel,” as I call it, is a deformation too frequently seen in plane, chisel and knife blades. It is simply a cutting edge bevel that is protruding and convex instead of flat. In most cases a bulging bevel can make it difficult to properly sharpen a blade adequately, so it deserves our attention. Most bulging bevels are born unintentionally and are harmful, but some are hatched with a purpose in mind. Let’s examine the pros and cons, and throw in some scientific results just for fun.

The geometry of the bulging bevel is clearly superior in a few applications such as carving chisels and knives used in a gouging, scooping motion where a rounded bevel provides better control. Another is chisels used for cutting large and deep mortises where a rounded bevel helps pop out waste easier. Only timber framers cut these kind of mortises, however, and most of them use machines to at least rough out the mortises.

Hidari no Ichihiro 42mm Oiirenomi. Nothing obese about this sweetheart.

Our Beloved Customers are, without exception, extremely intelligent people, so right now some of you are no doubt saying to yourself: “Self,” (that’s what they call themselves when they silently cogitate profound matters) does a rotund bevel make my blades sharper or duller?” Let us consider some scientific results.

When I was a grad student in Japan, a fellow student wrote his thesis on the efficacy in plane blades of the bulging bevel versus the flat bevel. He developed experiments, fabricated testing apparatus, and used scientific methodology and microscopic photography yielding indisputable results. We repeated some of his experiments, discussed his research, and pored over photographs and fondled shavings late into the evenings at his lab in Building 11 at University of Tokyo Hongo campus as I drank coke and he drank sake. I’m not sure he made it home some evenings.

The conclusion he reached was that, from the viewpoint of the wood, and based on the classic sharpness test of cutting rag typing paper, there is no difference in the cutting performance between flat and bulging bevels, so long as two conditions are met: (1) Both types are sharpened to the same bevel angle and same degree of sharpness; and (2) The bulge is not so large as to interfere with the cut. The “same degree of sharpness” condition in proviso 1 is critical to this discussion.

Let’s examine the cutting edge closely. It’s effective scope is only the last few microns (μ) or so of the blade’s width at the extreme edge. 1μ=one millionth of a meter. A human hair is 90μ in diameter. We need to precisely repair and polish this narrow strip of steel using our sharpening stones, but remember that working anything beyond this strip contributes nothing to making the blade sharp.

Here’s an important point we can learn from a careful examination: Given the same number of strokes to the same blade on the same stones over the same amount of time, it is difficult to make a bulging bevel as sharp as a flat bevel, unless one spends the time to use a sharpening machine and jigs as my grad school friend did in his research room.

But the most important point, and one I want you to grasp with both hands and feet and all your teeth is that the time expended and amount of stone consumed when sharpening by hand to a set level of sharpness at the last critical microns of a bulging bevel’s cutting edge is huge compared to a flat bevel. Sharpening using machines and/or honing jigs takes even longer.

In addition to time and cost, another factor we need to consider is certainty, because if we are going to invest the time and stones to sharpen a tool, we need to be sure it will consistently achieve the same level of sharpness every time. Unfortunately, the sharpness of the bulging bevel is uncertain because, instead of guiding the blade to ensure consistent contact between steel and stone at the critical location on the cutting edge, the shape of the bulging bevel causes a significant number of strokes to be wasted on polishing a mound of metal that does nothing to make the blade sharper, but is simply in the way. Not convinced?

Consider the undeniable fact that, despite your best efforts, this irrelevant lump causes the blade to rock around on the stone’s surface like a boat over ocean swells, with the result that, given a fixed number of strokes, a high percentage of those strokes end up polishing the bulge instead of the cutting edge. This is important because, once again, the last micron of the blade is the only part that actually does any cutting, not the bulge.

Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying that you can’t create a fiendishly sharp edge on a blade with a bulging bevel. I’m also not saying that, within reasonable parameters, a convex bevel cuts less efficiently or dulls quicker than the same blade with a flat bevel. It absolutely doesn’t, as my colleague’s research showed. Allow me to restate and summarize the facts so there is no confusion.

It takes longer to create a given level of sharpness at the extreme cutting edge of a bulging bevel than a flat bevel, all else equal;
It consumes more sharpening stone to achieve a given level of sharpness at the extreme cutting edge of a bulging bevel compared to a flat bevel, all else equal; and
There is greater uncertainty about the actual degree of sharpness achieved at the blade’s extreme cutting edge when sharpening a bulging bevel by hand compared to a flat bevel, all else equal.

If you doubt these statements, you must find the truth yourself. Buy or borrow a quality loupe or microscope with enough magnification to detect the scratches left by your usual finishing stone. Start with a dull blade with a truly flat bevel, sharpen it freehand using a set number of strokes, and observe the scratches at the last few microns of the cutting edge with your microscope. Then test the blade’s sharpness with your skin or fingernail. Next, repeat this test with a dull blade with a rounded bevel using the exact same sharpening tools and procedures and the same number of strokes. Once again, observe the scratches and test the sharpness. My grad school friend and I performed this side-by-side experiment at the University of Tokyo several times, with consistent results. Actually, it was a bet and I won. He had to buy the drinks and snacks for a month.

The Causes of Bevel Obesity

Besides pernicious pixies, the most common cause of bevel bulge is simple carelessness, which you can take steps to avoid once you realize the causes.

It is human tendency to try to stabilize the blade’s bevel on the stone while sharpening by applying more pressure on the rear half of the bevel, resulting in the rear half of the bevel (which is all soft jigane in the case of plane blades, and mostly soft jigane in the case of chisels) being abraded quicker than the front half (which contains the harder steel lamination), causing the bevel angle to gradually decrease or even become rounded. Even the best craftsmen make this mistake sometimes.

To avoid this tendency, train yourself to focus pressure on the front half of the bevel closest to the cutting edge. At first, you may overbalance and dig the cutting edge into the stone a few times, but with practice and attention, it will become second nature. It is almost a meditative process. Every professional woodworker worth his salt must learn this skill.

There is nothing wrong with making mistakes when learning a muscle memory skill like freehand sharpening, but too many people can’t be bothered to learn, and then become frustrated when their skills don’t improve immediately. In the end, they become defensive, and twist themselves into knots defending their inadequate techniques. Patience, grasshopper.

BTW, don’t forget to use your handy dandy brass bevel gauge to both check the bevel angle while sharpening and to keep those piratical pixies away.

Hidari no Ichihiro 30mm Atsunomi. What ignorant savage would grind multiple bevels on this?

Another cause of the tumescent bevel is the use of secondary bevels or micro-bevels. We’ll look at these aberrations in the next post in this series.

To make multiple bevels work one almost must use a sharpening or honing jig of some sort. Many allow sharpening jigs to become a substitute for real sharpening skills they didn’t bother to learn. Such jigs can become, in effect, training wheels those who rely on them never grow out of. So sad.

Conclusion

I encourage you to “invest in longevity” with regards to your tools in three ways:

First setup your planes and chisels properly so they will provide you with long, reliable and efficient service. Setting up chisels improves not only their longevity but in many case their performance too, strange though it may seem. I will post articles about setting up and maintaining Japanese planes in the future.
Second, true the ura of your plane and chisel blades efficiently without reducing their useful lifespan needlessly, as described in previous posts; and
Third, invest in yourself by developing and honing the hand skills necessary to sharpen your blades quickly and efficiently while wasting only the absolute minimum of valuable time, steel and stone.

Image result for image of mandalorian helmet

Please master the ancient and bedrock-basic skill of freehand sharpening. All it takes is an understanding of correct principles, followed by concentration and practice; The rest will follow. I promise. “This is the way.”

We will look at other causes of bevel obesity in the next post in this series.

YMHOS

Links to Other Posts in the “Sharpening” Series

Sharpening Part 12 – Skewampus Blades, Curved Cutting Edges, and Monkeyshines

Sharpening Part 20 – Flattening and Polishing the Ura

Sharpening Part 20 – Flattening and Polishing the Ura

A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.
George R.R. Martin

Now that we are geared-up and our sharpening stones are flat, let’s make our blade sharp. The first step in sharpening a new blade is truing the ura. So let’s get to it.

General

All standard chisel blades and plane blades, whether Japanese or Western, need to have a planar flat or ura that it will be in contact with the sharpening stones its full width, and ideally, full length. Perfection is not necessary, however, so don’t let yourself get obsessive. If the ura is arched (concave), for instance, so it is in contact with a flat sharpening stone near the neck of a chisel, or head of a plane blade, and the cutting edge, that may be workable, but it must be in complete contact right behind the cutting edge. I cannot stress this importance of this point too strongly.

Once the ura of your chisel is flat and true, you should not need to true it again unless the blade needs major repairs. Japanese plane blades, on the other hand, are a little more complicated because repeated sharpenings tend to gradually wear out the land right in front of the cutting edge, called the “ito ura,” and the bevel must be tapped-out to compensate, and the ura re-flattened. I won’t delve into the subject of “tapping out” the ura of plane blades in this post but will save it for future discussions about Japanese planes.

Evaluate the Ura

The first step in flattening or truing an ura is to evaluate its condition. Don’t start grinding away willy nilly without first checking it and making a plan. If you find you cannot stop yourself, don’t walk but run to the nearest pharmacy and buy a bucket of the medicine discussed in part 19 in this series about maintaining sharpening stones.

There are several ways to check the ura’s condition. A narrow straightedge works well in most cases. Place the edge on top of the full length of the shiny land at one side of the ura all the way to the cutting edge. Keep the straightedge touching the land; Don’t let it span the hollow- ground urasuki. Hold the straightedge and blade up to a strong light source and look for light passing between them. This technique is quick and dirty and will suffice in most cases, but does not tell you a lot about twist.

Use a straightedge to check the right and left lands for flatness. It doesn’t do any good to span the hollow-ground urasuki, so don’t bother. These photos are taken from above for clarity, but you want to hold the blade and straightedge together up to a strong light to observe any light showing between them that will indicate a gap. I am using a small square, but a simple small straightedge is more convenient. This takes a bit of coordination so be careful not to drop a chisel on your toe. I’ve done this once or twice before. Monkey-football.

This is a 30mm Sukemaru atsunomi, a famous brand and an excellent and powerful chisel hand-forged by Mr. Usui from Shirogami No.1 Steel. It’s in pretty good shape, but can benefit from a little truing as can most new chisels and plane blades.

Another method to check the ura for planar is to paint the shiny lands with dark marking pen ink or Dykem liquid, apply a bit of fine sharpening stone mud to a piece of flat glass, like the piece mentioned in Part 17, and rub the blade’s flat or ura over the glass. The high spots will become obvious. If the ura is banana shaped (convex), mark the high spot with your marking pen. More often than not, the ura of chisels will be generally flat, but the last 6mm or so of the cutting edge will be curved upwards towards the chisel’s face.

I learned two things from my examination of this Sukemaru brand atsunomi. First, there is a high spot (convex) at the skinny land on one side located approximately 1/2 to 5/8 the blades’s distance from the cutting edge. The land on the other side seems a little low. Hmm, curious. This is a bit unusual, but it happens when a blade warps during heat treat, which Shirogami steels tends to do frequently.

The second problem I observed was that the last 3~4mm of the land right behind the cutting edge curves downward away from the ura just a tiny bit, enough to cause problems.

I next need a plan to resolve these problems with a minimum of time and effort and without making things worse.

Make a Plan

The temptation to start grinding away immediately will be powerful. If it becomes too much, take a coffee cup or three of the medicine mentioned above and slather it on your head forcefully. Don’t hold back, for Pete’s sake, rub it in really good now. Some say my excessive use of this medicine is why I am as bald as an egg, but I prefer to believe it is caused by the light radiating from my gigantic brain (ツ). Thank goodness for my aluminum foil skull cap with its protruding copper wires!

Any plan needs goals and objectives. In this case the goal is a perfectly planar ura, but if this goal is difficult to achieve quickly there is an objective you should plan to achieve immediately in any case, one that may make it possible to achieve the larger goal over multiple routine sharpening sessions without any special effort.

As I keep harping, to make a chisel or plane work well, you need a flat area right at the cutting edge. This is where the cutting occurs and the area I need to keep sharp, so I will make creating this flat area the first objective in my plan, and then determine the steps to achieve it. Make certain every step in your plan and every stroke on the stones gets you closer to this objective, not further away. This means working smart.

If the blade is arched (concave), touching at two points, one near the neck of the chisel blade, or head of the plane blade, and at the other at the cutting edge, and not in between, all is well. I recommend you leave a blade like this as-is because after a few sharpening sessions the ura will become flat and twist-free without any special effort, and the blade will become very sharp and be entirely functional.

If the blade is wavy (rare) or banana-shaped (convex), your plan needs to take those details into account.

I located the highest point of the bulging area at the ura and marked a line across it with my marking pen. I then measured halfway between this line and the cutting edge and made another line. This area we will call the “focus line.” It is here where I need to focus the most pressure when grinding down the ura, not the entire length of the blade.

The purpose of doing all this prissy planning and layout work is to protect the right and left side lands from being wasted unnecessarily. Newbies try to work the entire length of the blade, but this is illogical and ignores three points. The first point is that the majority of the metal I need to waste is usually located to the right and left of the land nearest the cutting edge, not the full length of the blade, so there is little benefit to grinding the entire ura. The second point is that the side lands are thin as a blade of grass and will abrade very quickly with almost no effort. Besides, without using large plates and stones, it is very difficult to work the blade’s full length accurately without wearing notches in the side lands anyway. The third point is it makes no sense to try to grind down the land nearest the neck since the plane of the ura hinges on this land. Best to leave it alone and focus my efforts where they will make a difference.

Plane blades don’t even have a land near the head, so the futility of working the entire ura on plane blades is even more obvious than for a chisel.

The left photo shows a line drawn at the highest point in the convex ura, and another line halfway between it and the cutting edge. The second photo shows tape on the blade’s back with the high point line, and the halfway line, or “focus line” at the upper edge of the tape. Use these marks to ensure you have a plan and follow the plan without wasting too much valuable steel at the ura. Notice how narrow the right and left lands are before we begin working the ura.

Work the Plan

The traditional Japanese tool used to flatten and/or correct ura is a smooth steel lapping plate called a kanaban, meaning “metal plate.” To use it, carborundum powder and water are placed on the plate, and the blade is lapped. This is not a difficult process at all, but there is a tendency for the blade’s perimeter to be ground more than the interior areas as the grit is forced in between the kanaban and the blade’s perimeter. To avoid this tendency, and to speed the process up, I prefer to use diamond plates instead of kanaban.

Whatever plan you developed, and whichever tool you selected for this job, the time has come to work the plan. Do you need more medicine? A bigger coffee cup?

First, color the ura’s perimeter lands with a marking pen or Dykem to help you see where the ura is being ground down. Don’t ever guess.

Place the most pressure on the focus line selected above. Move the blade back and forth (not side to side) onto and off of the diamond plate or kanaban with the cutting edge and the focus line always touching the diamond plate or kanaban. Don’t go past the high point for now. Be careful to not grind a notch into the narrow side lands where they meet the edge of the diamond plate or kanaban. Most people make this mistake at first.

Grind the ura down so the line at the highest point and the cutting edge is fairly flat.

Work the blade on and off the edge of the diamond plate using short strokes and without going much past the highest point marked earlier. This works because the right and left side lands are thin and can be abraded in just a few strokes. I have moved my fingers to reveal the lines, but in actuality my fingers will press down hard on the focus line while working the blade.

Using a stick to apply more pressure to the blade. I am holding the end of the stick and the chisel’s handle together in my right hand. This is simply illustrating a technique. This chisel did not actually require this sort of aggressive attention.

The same stick technique works even better for plane blades and makes it easier to apply pressure right behind the cutting edge. When doing this, however, be sure to work the blade both forward and backward while moving it right and left on and off the plate’s edge to avoid digging a trench in the narrow side lands.

Remember, the narrow lands at the sides of the hollow-ground urasuki will abrade down quickly. And the rest of the ura can be gradually flattened during subsequent sharpening sessions using regular sharpening stones. It doesn’t need to be made perfect immediately. What matters most is the steel on the land right at the cutting edge.

The high spot on the land near the top of the photo has been relieved after a few passes on the #400 diamond plate. The side lands are in fair condition, and the land behind the cutting edge (itoura) needs just a little more work.

After a few more passes on the diamond plate, the ura is in good shape. Note the land at the photo’s bottom is not in full contact, but the opposite side is. This is will not impact the blade’s performance, and will work itself out during future sharpening sessions without special attention.

Flattening my stones before using them. Notice I am using two 1,000 grit stones to save time and stones. Don’t neglect flattening your stones, whether you use waterstones, novaculite stones, coticule, or even sandpaper.

Working the ura on the flat 1000 grit waterstone. Did I mention it is flat? Notice that I am working on and off the stone, not side to side, to save the right and left lands. Some but not all strokes are full length. The goal is simply to remove the deep scratches left by the diamond plate.

The ura after polishing on the flat 1000 grit waterstone. At this point the ura is in good shape. Notice how the land at the photo’s left is wider that elsewhere. This increase in width developed because this location was the high spot on this convex ura. Notice how the land on the left side is not even touching the plane in one area. What you should take away from this photo is the realization that if I had focused my efforts on this high location first and ignored the downward curvature of the land nearest the cutting edge, I would have wasted a lot more time and valuable metal only to shorten the useful life of this excellent chisel. Do you see the benefit of carefully checking the ura’s condition, making a plan with clear goals and objectives, and then working the plan? Did the medicine work? Next, we’ll work on the bevel, make a tiny burr, polish it off by making a few strokes alternating from bevel to ura, and be ready for the finishing stone.

Working the bevel on the flat 1,000 grit waterstone. Notice the mud piling up in front of the blade indicating the extreme cutting edge is in contact with the stone. I am applying pressure only on the push stroke to prevent the stone from rocking and developing a “bulging bevel,” A honing jig is not necessary.

The bevel after working on the 1,000 grit waterstone. No jigs were used. No “tricks” involving rulers were used. A silly, inefficient “micro-bevel” was neither wanted nor needed. The bevel is perfectly flat. Flattening the ura and polishing both ura and bevel to this level took less than ten minutes. When the purchaser of this blade eventually dulls the edge, he should not need to spend more than 2~3 minutes to sharpen this blade once his gear is ready, assuming he is able to sharpen freehand.

Polish a blade’s ura up to the level of your finest finishing stone once, and don’t touch it with rougher stones again unless it is absolutely necessary, or further gradual flattening is required. This means that in normal sharpening sessions you must remove all the damage at the cutting edge by abrading the bevel with the rougher stones, and only when the bevel is ready for the finish stone, do you work on the flat or ura, alternating from bevel to flat/ura until all defects, burrs, and even visible scratches are polished away.

If you condition the flat (ura) side of the blade correctly, and keep it polished, you should not need to work it on anything but your finish stone until it is time to tap out and grind the ura or back in the case of plane blades. Therefore, the bevel side of the blade is where we spend most of our time and effort.

Now that the ura is in good shape, we will look at sharpening the other side of the wedge, the blade’s bevel, in the next post in the series.

YMHOS

Links to Other Posts in the “Sharpening” Series

Sharpening Part 12 – Skewampus Blades, Curved Cutting Edges, and Monkeyshines

Sharpening Part 20 – Flattening and Polishing the Ura