[Sharpening-jig] Quick, rough, highly effective! Thanks for your jig

[rtistdug]

Your many years of striving towards the perfect edge have quite
clearly made you insane - in a good way! By the application of your
lucid explanations, marvelous photography and a selection of
adaptations of your sharpening jigs, I've improved the performance of
my smoothing plane beyond all recognition with virtually no effort.
For for the primary bevel I used an 8" Allen and Ashby bench grinder,
which has a reasonable tool rest. I sprayed the rest with a silicone
spray-can lubricant to assist with getting a smooth motion against the
stone. And took advantage of the spare brand new stone left from when
I fitted a Klingspoor linisher (which didn't lend itself to an easy
jig fabrication). I set the bevel angle using the radius line idea.
From there I applied my drop saw to cut a 30 degree mitre onto an
offcut of 90x20mm FJ pine and screwed the iron onto it with a couple
of wide-head self tappers, tweaking the flatness of the edge against
the stone by hand/eye, but taking care with a mitre guage to get the
25 degree grinding angle just so. I found a spare scrap of 6mm glass
and a couple of lumps of ply in the racks, and the stone is an awful
old hollowed out two-grit compounded thing, but by paying attention to
which bits of the edge I was working against what high spots, the edge
came up just beautifully. I've even got a nice set of micro bevels
perfectly visible. I honed the first one using a riser of 3mm MDF and
the finer grit of the compound stone, the second one by guestimation
from an ancient dished length of Arkansas stone I inherited from
Grandpa!
Brilliant! My awful old smoothing plane is now almost a pleasure to
use! But not quite. It stays with me only as a reproach and as a
reminder of the consequence of going cheap on tools. Since that
episode, I've always tried to spend a little more than I can really
afford on my tools. Strangely, not once have I ever thought to myself
"Gee, I wish I'd bought the cheaper version of this so I could have
afforded a carton of beer as well", which is what I did all those
years back with the smoothing plane!
And now that I know the fundamentals of how to get and maintain a
proper edge, I can finally go and spend some serious money on a real
plane, and start cultivating that obsession with attaining the perfect
edge . . .
thanks
rtistdug

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[Brent Beach]

Hi ...

Now build the jig, get some really good abrasives and find out what a
really well honed edge can do for you.

I am having some trouble imagining exactly what you have done here.
Pictures would help. Send them directly to me - the list dumps attachments.

Brent

Victoria, B.C., Canada