Freehand Honing?

[kennyk]

As I've got a LOT of chisels to sharpen (and plane irons),  I'm finding it a drag to constantly remove the universal support to use the leather honing wheel.  Ideally I'd get another support and set it for the correct angle for honing.  However I've been practising doing the final honing freehand and seem to be getting  better at it.  Is this something many of you do?

As I've got somewhere in the region of 200 chisels of various sizes to sharpen, I'm coming up with ways to speed up my setup.  For example  I've marked the leg of the support without the micro-adjust with a fine sharpie to give me the correct height when using the shortest stop on the TTS-100 for mounting my chisels in the SE-76.  With this I don't need to use the anglemaster to check my angle.  I still use the sharpie on the bevel when I'm doing a chisel I've not done before on the tormek to give me an idea of what the previous angle was.  However I'm looking for a consistent 25 (ish) degree angle across all the chisels anyway and this seems to be the easiest way to achieve this without having to micro adjust every single time.

[Herman Trivilino]

I almost always free hand when I'm honing.

[jeffs55]

I do not recall using the support for honing.

[Rob]

+1 to freehand honing.  Never use the usb

[SharpenADullWitt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n4GzXVQvUE&list=UUDXjZxWuwVvvtibuMVuUnWw

Jeff says he does it free hand, and the above video, I think is to get you used to using it first, so you know what angles/how to hold it. (muscle memory) When I first read this, I thought you were talking about just the back.  Reading more I am not sure.  I would think with a lot of chisels it would come naturally after a while. 

On the other hand, one tool I can see staying with the bar and jig for:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC1w8kLvo14&list=UUd7yqvqF2BuoHNCuw8GMGRg
Since I am not a turner, yet, I can see the need there.

[tdacon]

KennyK, I sped up my Tormek-jig-style bevel honing by buying a second WM-200 AngleMaster which I set to the diameter of the honing wheel, with the other set to the diameter of the stone. As long as you remember to set the same angle on both of them when you change angles (!), it's quick and easy to shift the bar and set up for honing the bevel. And if you're grinding the same angle on successive tools, you only need to set the honing bar once until you change angles if you use this next tip. With two bars, you can do your grinding at the top of the wheel, grinding into the rotation (it's faster than grinding from the front, too!), while a second bar is set up at the left for the honing wheel. While I happen to have two of the bars (I got a second one with the dry grinder kit), I don't bother with that refinement since I generally sharpen only a few tools at a time. But if I took a notion to do a sharpening day on everything I've got, I'll bet I'd do it that way.

With that said, I sometimes bypass all that and hone free-hand, at least on my woodworking chisels. For my woodturning tools I'm still going through the process of setting up the jig for bevel honing because there's a lot more opportunity to ruin the edge by rolling it.

At first, I had a hard time getting away from slightly rolling the edge while doing free-hand honing. I got past that by moving the bar to the left side, laying the chisel on the bar with my index finger knuckle registering its position, and (for the backs) eyeballing a right angle from the tip of the chisel down to the center of the wheel shaft. The eye's surprisingly good at making that estimate. I start out with the chisel too far out by a short distance, and let it polish the back as I slowly back it up until there's just a tiny change in the sound and the corners of the chisel just begin to make an impression on the surface of the wheel. Hard to describe any better, but after a while you'll see what I mean.

Since you only get one chance to hone the bevel before you take the jig off to do the back, you might be left with a little bit of the burr on the edge after one honing on each side, but a quick stropping on the leg of your jeans will clean it right up :-)

Tom

[Ken S]

I made a very simple and reliable workaround for switching back an forth with the usb:  Set an angle with the usb and grinding wheel.  Mark the height on the non threaded usb rod.  Measure the same angle on the lether honing wheel to usb distance.  Mark it.  Cut a piece of 1/2" plastic to match the distance between the two marks.  When you move from the shorter distance to the longer just insert the plastic pipe spacer.  yOu could also use two pieces of plastic pipe.

Ken