My sharpening
center is on a cabinet next to the workbench. There is a
1" x 42" belt grinder, an 1800 RPM grinder with 8"
white wheels for sharpening lathe tools, chisels and plane irons,
and a reverse direction buffing unit with 6" hard felt wheels.
I have fitted the grinder with Veritas tool rests which accept
a standard tool holder for chisels
and plane irons, and another for sharpening straight or curved
lathe skew chisels. For the majority
of chisels and plane irons I hollow grind at 25 degrees and then
hone to 30 degrees, which can be seen on this 1/4"
chisel.
I made some simple supports for sharpening lathe gouges. There are 3 sizes to accommodate different length tools and they attach to the Veritas tool rests. After setting the angle I clamp a support rod to the jig to make sure it does not move.
I have also made some jigs to assist in grinding the side grind or fingernail profile which has become popular for lathe bowl gouges in recent years. Different center holes allow different size gouges to be held securely by the thumb screws. An adapter was made to attach to the Veritas tool rests, and by bending the 1/4" steel pin, or by moving the jig in or out or up and down, you can achieve a profile to your liking. These fingernail profile jigs were patterned after those in drawings shown in an article by King Heiple which has been widely distributed on the internet in PDF format.
I began woodworking before water stones were popular, so my old whetstones and carving slips are a collection of Arkansas (washita, soft, and hard), and India stones of various grades. I have a diamond lap plate, and two double sided DMT diamond whetstones with 220, 325, 600, and 1200 grit surfaces. EZE-Lap diamond honing sticks are used to touch up carbide router bits.
Chisels and plane irons generally get the Scary Sharp(tm) treatment -- "wet or dry" emery paper attached to a 1/4" float glass plate with 3M Super 77 adhesive spray. If you are not familiar with this sharpening system, you should visit the Scary Sharp page.
I have several honing guides. The one on the left is a General and it is designed to be used with the roller to the rear of a sharpening stone. I recently found this guide at a garage sale and paid $2 for it, but have only used it a couple of times. The one in the center of this photo is an Eclipse and it is the most used of my commercial guides because it is self aligning and does a better job of holding chisels, especially those which are tapered, The guide at the bottom is a Stanley and I use it for very short blades such as spokeshaves. I picked up an antique Millers Falls honing guide. The Millers Falls guide (at the top of the photo) is kind of interesting in that there are two screws. The one at the top moves the entire platform up or down, and the bottom screw clamps the blade onto the platform, similar to the original Veritas honing guide which is also shown in the photo. Lee Valley has redesigned the Veritas guide and currently offers the Mk II which I understand solves some of the issues I had with the original model.
I recently made some sharpening guides designed for the wide Scary Sharp plate glass surface. They have roller skate axles and ball bearings attached to the bottom of the guides and these provide a very wide and stable stance. The guide for chisels and plane irons will allow for bevel angles from 33 degrees to approximately 20 degrees, depending on how much of the tool is extended. The guide for scraper plane irons, such as Stanley 12, 112, 80 and 81 scraper planes which are normally sharpened to 45 degrees, will allow bevels up to almost 50 degrees. The guides are self aligning because of the registration strip on the left side of the guide, and the retaining bar has 1/8" cork glued to the bottom to grip tools. The holes in the retaining bar have been drilled oversize to allow tapered chisels to be held securely.
I made some angle guides from aluminum for setting and checking bevel angles, and I have scribed offsets on the Veritas bevel setting gauge to assist in setting the bevel for each of my honing guides. A simple, but very accurate, bevel gauge can be made from two plastic protractors and a small nut and bolt.
Many years ago I built a 2 x 48" belt sharpener using the headstock pulley from a cheap lathe that I had quit using. The bottom wheel was composite, the tracking wheel was steel. This was used for many years to sharpen chisels, plane irons, and even jointer knives, but I needed the space it took for other tools so I made an adapter for a Veritas tool holder which I install on my stationary belt sander for plane irons or chisels which need to have a lot of steel removed in a hurry.
A motorized wire brush is used when I am cleaning up certain old tools, but I never use it on planes or anything I care about.
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