To Hone or Not to Hone

[John Tisdale]

Been referencing this forum for longer than a while - guessing several would agree, the name I associate most with honing is Odie.
Some questions to Odie:
- In a past post you mentioned the DMT tapered - there are several - which one?
- Do you hone "into" or "away-from" the edge?
- On a bowl gouge, do you hone the flute or the bevel?
- Assuming a diamond hone, what grit?
- Do you free-hand the hone of have it mounted on maybe a piece of plywood?
- You're a M2 guy and I'm a M42-guy. I'm guessing the honing difference, if any, would be in favor of the M2. Agree?
Looking forward to your response to the above plus any I lack the knowledge to ask. If these are protected secrets, I promise not to tell.
To bad the name "Honus" was taken a few years back by some old baseball player.

 

[Roger Wiegand]

Not Odie, but a couple responses anyway... I really like Alan Lacer's diamond slipstone for honing. Use it freehand. I go both ways (and left and right on skews), don't know if that's a problem. it seems to work. On gouges, I hone the bevel then a quick couple swipes in the flute to just take off the burr. Haven't noticed much difference between honing M42 and M2 gouges. With my bowl gouge and skews I hone at least 10-20 times between trips back to the grinder to re-form the profile, the honing is faster when you're just hitting the edges of a hollow grind.

 

[Odie]

Been referencing this forum for longer than a while - guessing several would agree, the name I associate most with honing is Odie.
Some questions to Odie:
- In a past post you mentioned the DMT tapered - there are several - which one?
- Do you hone "into" or "away-from" the edge?
- On a bowl gouge, do you hone the flute or the bevel?
- Assuming a diamond hone, what grit?
- Do you free-hand the hone of have it mounted on maybe a piece of plywood?
- You're a M2 guy and I'm a M42-guy. I'm guessing the honing difference, if any, would be in favor of the M2. Agree?
Looking forward to your response to the above plus any I lack the knowledge to ask. If these are protected secrets, I promise not to tell.
To bad the name "Honus" was taken a few years back by some old baseball player.

Howdy John......

I just now noticed your post......

For some time, I've felt honing is generally considered an obsolete discipline for woodturners, while I maintain that it's still an important part of managing a fine edge.

I do have some of the DMT products, but am currently using the EZE-lap flat diamond hone, and the Schrade cone hone. I also have some cheap Chinese cone and flat hones that seem to work decently, and are much cheaper.

The hones are used toward the edge......like you would a good hunting knife on an Arkansas stone.
Depending on how it's held and presented, multiple directions can be taken advantage of.
An alternate method would be to use little circles on the bevel side of the edge.

Both the flute and bevel sides should be honed.

I'm using 600gt hones, and depending on what I'm doing, I have some 400gt hones that I'm using up. My preference is the 600gt.

I'm free-handing the hones themselves, but I do have a homemade mount for turning tools, to hold them steady while being honed.

I do have some exotic steels, but I'm phasing them out.....none are M42. See @Roger Wiegand for his response above this post.

The more you hone, the better you get at it.....like just about any discipline involving woodturning.....you know that!

Good luck, John.....your reputation precedes you with your great turnings!

-----odie-----

 

[hughie]

I hand hone with a diamond hone as I am using the gouge. The hand hones are old school no grit designation, so it's coarse, fine and extra fine. Coarse would be around 80 and extra fine is up around 1000

 

[Tom Albrecht]

Not Odie, but a couple responses anyway... I really like Alan Lacer's diamond slipstone for honing. Use it freehand. I go both ways (and left and right on skews), don't know if that's a problem. it seems to work. On gouges, I hone the bevel then a quick couple swipes in the flute to just take off the burr. Haven't noticed much difference between honing M42 and M2 gouges. With my bowl gouge and skews I hone at least 10-20 times between trips back to the grinder to re-form the profile, the honing is faster when you're just hitting the edges of a hollow grind.

X 2

 

[Tom Albrecht]

Alan Lacer on honing

 

[robo hippy]

Odie, I was going to ask, maybe on the hollowing thread, but forgot..... Anyway, if you sharpen on an 80 grit wheel, do you hone with a 600 grit tool? I would think that if you are trying to remove or polish out the 80 grit scratches, that would take a long time with that big of a step up. Some one on You Tube, maybe Rob Cosman, sharpens his plane irons on a 1000 grit hone and then jumps to 16000, which is too big of a jump for me.

robo hippy

 

[Odie]

Odie, I was going to ask, maybe on the hollowing thread, but forgot..... Anyway, if you sharpen on an 80 grit wheel, do you hone with a 600 grit tool? I would think that if you are trying to remove or polish out the 80 grit scratches, that would take a long time with that big of a step up. Some one on You Tube, maybe Rob Cosman, sharpens his plane irons on a 1000 grit hone and then jumps to 16000, which is too big of a jump for me.

robo hippy

robo....

Yes, I normally do use a 600gt diamond hone. With this diamond hone, it takes only seconds to create a fully formed cutting edge after creating the bevel with an 80gt wheel. The key to know that, is to physically see the formation of the secondary bevel, which separates the cutting edge from the bevel. I think you may be correct in assuming there is a time element difference creating the edge after the bevel is created with a finer grit, but it would be a very insignificant consideration.

note: The width of the secondary bevel, created by the diamond hone is the indicator of when to make the decision to go back to the grinder.....instead of continually re-honing the edge.

-----odie-----

 

[Doug Freeman]

Hi @John Tisdale. I did some experimenting a few years ago. It was not scientific - didnt use a string machine to measure sharpness etc, but rather the feel of the tool and the surface that it cut. I experimented with a 5/8” shaft bowl gouge, M2, Ellsworth type grind~60 deg.

I use a grizzly wet sharpener with ~200 gr surface to sharpen, and a bench grinder to shape with 46gr and 80gr stone wheels. I found the finer edge and burr off the wet wheel would hold an edge longer than the 80 gr.

Another comparison was to sharpen on the wet wheel, hone the burr off the flute (ceramic hone), make one last pass on the wet wheel, then cut vs hone the burr and then hone the bevel using the leather strop wheel to super sharp. The super sharp tool cut much better, for ~30-60 seconds, then it was about equal to the one pass burr off the wheel. The edge didnt really seem to last any longer. I concluded that surgical sharp edges weren’t worth the extra time, unlike my flat work chisels and plane irons, where it does pay off.